The Arboretum is an open-air shopping center with The Cheesecake Factory and Amy's Ice Creams among its tenants.
On February 4, 2026, Charlotte-based Asana Partners bought The Arboretum, the roughly 197,000-square-foot open-air center at the corner of Research Boulevard and Great Hills Trail, from a joint venture between Washington Prime Group and O'Connor Capital Partners. Washington Prime had held the property since 1998. It filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2021 and had spent the years since unloading pieces of its portfolio, including Lakeline Plaza, Lakeline Village and Wolf Ranch Town Center.
A new owner and an established tenant mix
None of this shows up if you just drive past. The Arboretum still has The Cheesecake Factory, Amy's Ice Creams, Cava, Juliet Italian Kitchen, Pottery Barn, Soma, Ballard Designs, Chico's, Lovesac, Teapioca Lounge and Hanara Sushi & Grill, plus Barnes & Noble and the Renaissance Austin hotel that has anchored the property since it opened on September 10, 1986. The tenant roster shows the businesses currently at the center; ownership changed in February 2026.
Asana Partners is not in bankruptcy. According to Community Impact, the firm's managing director of investments, Brad Kantrowitz, said the acquisition supports the company's strategy of owning "some of the best neighborhood retail in the country," calling North Austin an attractive target market. That is a bet on the demographics and the daily foot traffic Great Hills already generates, not a bet that the neighborhood needs to change. The acquisition and renovation plan mark a new phase for the center.
What actually changes, on what timeline
The renovation plan, covered by Community Impact in March 2026, is specific:
- Reconfigured common areas built to support live music, pop-up retail and community programming
- New patios for outdoor dining
- Improved connectivity across the property
- Replaced storefront signage throughout
Asana has described the goal as turning the center into an "18-hour retail destination," meaning a place with a reason to be there from morning coffee through a late dinner rather than just a dinner-and-leave stop. Site work is scheduled to begin this summer, so residents driving through this fall should expect to see some of it in progress, with completion targeted for early 2027. The current tenant mix is expected to stay largely intact through the work. This is a facelift on an occupied building, not a teardown.
If the name sounds redundant with the shopping strip directly across the street, that is because there are technically two separate Arboretum properties here, developed under separate ownership. The Arboretum proper, the one Asana just bought, opened in 1986, developed by Trammell Crow and managed today by Simon. Its park spaces still have the five cow statues sculpted by Harold F. Clayton that regulars mention when they are trying to describe the place to someone who has never been. Arboretum Market, the smaller center across Great Hills Trail with Trader Joe's, is a separate 105,190-square-foot property that opened in 1987. Arboretum Market has a separate history: it lost its original anchor, Saks Fifth Avenue, when that store closed at the end of 2012, and Trader Joe's moved into the space in 2014. The two centers have separate ownership and tenant histories.
A reason to go while work is underway
If you want to visit the center while work is underway, there is a specific, dated reason to go this month. Truluck's Austin Arboretum is running its Austin Restaurant Weeks menu from August 28 through September 13, 2026, a three-course dinner for $75 a person. Ten dollars of every Restaurant Weeks meal goes to the Central Texas Food Bank, with an additional two dollars from each Voilà cocktail made with Tito's Handmade Vodka. It is a small, local, time-boxed detail, the kind that will not mean anything to you next spring, but it is the sort of thing worth building an evening around if you are already planning to be in the neighborhood during construction.
Great Hills Park, another local destination
Retail is only half of what makes Great Hills feel like Great Hills day to day. The other half is Great Hills Park, an 80-to-90-acre City of Austin neighborhood park tucked along Sierra Oaks and Floral Park Drive, where upkeep follows a volunteer-supported model. There is no institutional buyer here, no capital partner betting on North Austin. The trail network, which connects the Sierra Oaks trailhead to the Floral Park trailhead and out to a smaller Foxway trailhead just off Penny Creek Drive, has been maintained for years by volunteers, with trail work led by a longtime park volunteer named Eric Potter. Bat houses have been placed along the main trail for hikers to spot as they cross the creeks that run through the park. After a heavy rain, a six-foot waterfall appears along the Foxway side trail near one of the park's more accessible springs, and a quiet spot known among regulars as the Fish Pool still holds bass, sunfish and the occasional snapping turtle if you approach it slowly.
The Arboretum is a retail center with a new owner and renovation plan. Great Hills Park is a City of Austin park where volunteers maintain trails.
What this means if you live here
None of this changes what your street looks like or what your house is worth tomorrow morning. Over the next twelve months, you can expect construction activity around the retail core this fall and a slightly different Arboretum by early 2027, while Great Hills Park remains a nearby City of Austin park.
If you have been in Great Hills long enough to remember when The Arboretum still felt sharp, or you are new enough that you only know the version that has felt a little tired, either way you are watching the center’s renovation plan move forward. CBSrealty has been tracking Great Hills and the rest of Northwest Austin since long before this ownership change, and if you ever want a read on what a renovation like this tends to do to a neighborhood's retail draw, or just want to talk through what you are seeing on your own drive to the grocery store, call Chet for a free home consultation.
