Furniture and home accessories stores are chasing the new rooftops, the high-rise apartments and the growing population in Dallas-Fort Worth.
Atlanta-based Ballard Designs is bringing its home décor stores to Texas. The first will open May 18 in Fort Worth at the Shops at Clearfork, a mixed-use development that opened last year and is anchored by Neiman Marcus.
The second store is scheduled to open in late August at the northeast corner of Preston Road and Royal Lane in the Preston Royal Village shopping center. The shopping center has been adding new tenants since last year, including Eatzi's, Sur la Table and Shake Shack.
A couple of other new upscale furniture brands have come to the North Texas market. Room & Board opens its first Texas store on May 25 just south of Knox Street at 4524 McKinney Avenue. In April, around the corner from the Restoration Hardware on Knox Street, its companion brand, RH Modern, opened what the company is calling an "interim store" in an 8,000-square-foot space at 4531 McKinney.
Plano-based At Home is opening three new local stores in Frisco, Garland and Mansfield by early fall. TJX's HomeGoods chain opened a 21,556-square-foot store in Mesquite in February in the Market East Shopping Center on North Town East Blvd and two more stores in Burleson and Denton in April. In Plano's new Legacy West development, West Elm opened its second store in the market last year, and Frontgate opened its first Texas store.
The 30-year-old Ballard home furnishings brand specializes in European-influenced styles and customized furniture with a mix of shapes and fabrics. Both new stores will be stocked with accessories and smaller décor items, such as lighting, side tables and rugs that customers can buy. Seasonal vignettes featuring new trends will surround a central design studio for customized furniture purchases.
Ballard originated as a catalog company and has been opening stores the last few years. It now has 13 stores in Florida, Georgia, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia.
"We are overjoyed to be opening two stores in Texas. This has been a long time coming for our loyal Ballard enthusiasts," said Ryan McKelvey, president of Ballard Designs. "Cities for our new retail store locations are carefully and purposefully selected, and these openings were an easy decision."
Ballard's Fort Worth store is 12,484 square feet and the Preston Royal store will be 11,370 square feet.
