D Magazine
Written by: Nancy Nichols
Get ready. It’s going to be a doozy.
Frisco isn’t the only area that is booming. Victory Park, the 75-acre mixed-use development surrounding the American Airlines Center, is about to come back to life. Over the next year, Victory Park will debut new restaurants (including one weighing in at 24,000 square feet), bars, office space, a movie theater, and new retail.
To create a walkable neighborhood, Victory Park owner Estein USA and retail partner Trademark Property Co., are “undergoing a full re-merchandising” and “adding 85,000 square feet of new retail space.”
Tristan Simon’s company Rebees has been a major player in the reincarnation of Victory Park. “We want Victory to be a lot of fun,” Simon says. “Every concept has smart, creative fun at the center. The reason it makes sense now is because of how many people live there. Ten years ago it wasn’t the case, but not too many people realize how many luxury high-rises have gone up. In two years there will be 10,000 people living there. Victory will be the densest concentration of residences in DFW.”
The lineup of talent going into Victory is impressive. Tracy Rathbun and her husband are partnering with John Kinzer (Republic Texas Tavern) and John Harkey, (CEO/owner of Consolidated Restaurant Operations) to open Imoto in the former Kenichi space. The menu will be pan-Asian. Imoto will be bar-centric with an upstairs dining room. “The interior design by Brant McFarlan will be warm and sexy,” Tracy Rathbun says. “We’ll have a small sushi bar.” They expect to be open mid 2018.
This & That Concepts (High Fives, So & So’s and The Standard Pour) will open a 4,232-square-foot restaurant and bar, plus a 2,600-square-foot, second-floor covered patio overlooking Victory Plaza and Victory Park Lane.
Elias Pope’s 8020 Hospitality (HG Sply Co. and Standard Service) and Brooke Humphries (Barcadia, Beauty Bar, Mudsmith, It’ll Do Club, and Pints & Quarts) will team up to open a 24,000-square-foot restaurant and entertainment concept occupying the entire ground floor of the west Victory Plaza building, in the space formerly occupied by Nove and N9NE.
Brooke Humphries will not stop there. She will open a 2,466-square-foot bar and tavern with a 1,179-square-foot covered patio in an out-of-the-box location inside the parking garage on Victory Avenue, across from the Arpeggio apartments. Humphries is the mind behind several local successes, including Barcadia, Beauty Bar, Mudsmith, It’ll Do Club, and Pints & Quarts.
The new mixed-use building at Victory Park Lane and High Market Street will be home to the 750-seat Cinépolis Luxury Cinemas–Victory Park and The 23, a 285-unit mixed-use apartment community by LMC. The development will include ground floor retail space and a new location of Mesero.
Simon’s Rebees is creating two projects. “The first will be a 4,800-square-foot restaurant that essentially a riff on what we imagine 20th century Dallas saloon,” Simon says. “It will be spirited and have a somewhat theatrical atmospheric Dallas saloon setting with great energy. This will be the most fun and layered space I’ve been a part of. It’s right for Victory.”
Simon isn’t ready to release the name of the saloon, but he describes the food as “modern Texas cooking” that will be “straightforward and approachable with big bold flavors.”
Rebees hired chef Matt Ford, who previously worked for Simon at Americano, CBD, and AF+B, to oversee the company’s restaurant concepts. Construction began five weeks ago, and they are shooting for a March 2018 opening.
Simon has been working on his second business for over three years. It will be a 21,000-square- foot co-working space with a day café. Look for it to debut in the summer of 2018.