The Shops at La Cantera turned twenty this year. Nothing about the anniversary looked backward. Since the Forever 21 closure, the retail corridor sitting just outside The Dominion's western gate has swapped out a meaningful share of its tenant roster, closing a run of fashion-mall storefronts and replacing them with furniture showrooms, a wine bar with sixty taps, and a jewelry counter built around traceable diamonds. If you've taken Dominion Drive out to I-10 more than once since spring, you've probably already driven past the construction fencing. What's easier to miss from the driver's seat is the pattern underneath it. This isn't a mall bolting on a few new restaurants. It's a mall deciding, storefront by storefront, who it wants walking through its doors on a Tuesday afternoon, and that decision has quietly rewritten the errand list for anyone who lives behind The Dominion's gates.
The Fashion Floor Went Quiet, the Design Floor Got Loud
Two closures set the whole shift in motion. Forever 21 shut its La Cantera doors in May 2025. Urban Outfitters followed in January 2026, ending a sixteen-year run at the mall. Both spaces sat on the east side of the property, the stretch built around teenage fashion traffic and quick weekend browsing.
What's moving into that footprint is a different kind of retail entirely:
- Crate & Barrel opened August 20, 2026, in Suite 12250 at 15900 La Cantera Parkway, roughly 20,000 square feet, the brand's first San Antonio store. Until this year, the nearest location was in Austin. The store includes a Design Desk offering free design and trade consultations and a dedicated area for arrangements staffed with an in-house floral expert.
- Herman Miller is opening its first Alamo City location, splitting a former Soft Surroundings footprint with Arhaus. The brand's catalog includes design mainstays like the Noguchi table, the Marshmallow sofa, and the Eames lounge chair.
- Arhaus is taking over the old Urban Outfitters space in a $9 million buildout targeted for completion by the end of 2026.
In CultureMap, Brian Schroeder, senior general manager of The Shops at La Cantera, said the brands "help us as we continue to curate extraordinary experiences for our guests." Read plainly, that's a retail center trading foot traffic that browses for foot traffic that consults, books an appointment, and leaves with a floor plan instead of a shopping bag. For a Dominion household furnishing a new build or refreshing a resale property, that used to mean a trip to Austin. Now it's a five-minute drive down Dominion Drive.
Wine on Tap Replaced the Food Court Line
The dining side of the property is following the same script. Sixty Vines, a Dallas-based concept from FB Society, the group behind local favorites Whiskey Cake, Ida Claire, and the recently opened Haywire, has completed construction on its first San Antonio location at the same address as Crate & Barrel, in an 8,701-square-foot space. The $2.5 million buildout wrapped in January 2026.
The concept's hook is its wine program. All sixty selections pour on tap, from a 2.5-ounce taster to a 750-milliliter carafe, and the company says the draft system keeps more than 450,000 bottles out of landfills nationwide each year. The food menu leans into the same theme, built around classic dishes from the world's wine-growing regions rather than mall food court staples.
It's worth sitting with what that replaces. A food court line and a wine-tap wall serve two different visits. One is a stop between stores. The other is the reason you drove there. Sixty Vines sitting in the same building as Crate & Barrel and Herman Miller isn't a coincidence of timing. It's the same tenant strategy applied to dinner.
Brunch Finally Made the Trip from Boerne
The Rim, the shopping center across the interstate from Six Flags Fiesta Texas and a short drive from The Dominion's other gates, picked up its own signature addition this year. Sunny's All-Day Brunch & Bar opened its second location there on June 15, 2026, exactly a year after its Boerne flagship first opened. The restaurant runs 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily, with a menu that includes barbacoa chilaquiles, Dubai chocolate pancakes, crème brûlée French toast, and chicken and waffles.
The restaurant's team announced the opening with a simple line: they were "thrilled to welcome you to our second home at The RIM." What makes the location notable isn't the menu on its own. It's the direction of travel. Boerne to San Antonio has long been the drive Dominion residents make for a weekend brunch reservation. Sunny's landing at The Rim means that same experience now exists five minutes from the gate instead of twenty-five minutes north.
The Same Interchange, a Completely Different Crowd
Not every project at this intersection is chasing the same customer. La Cantera Crossing, a ten-acre, $7.1 million mixed-use development from Barshop & Oles and Phoenix Property Company, broke ground June 17, 2026, at the corner of Loop 1604 and La Cantera Parkway, sitting directly adjacent to the mall itself. The first announced tenants are Frenchies Modern Nail Care, Hawaiian Bros Island Grill, and Pür & Simple, a Canadian brunch concept.
The development also includes a 182-unit, 563-bed student housing component aimed at UTSA, whose campus sits roughly three minutes away. That piece isn't expected to open until fall 2028. Local coverage of the project has already pointed out the contrast directly, noting that the land sits adjacent to a mall many locals consider a go-to spot for luxury products, and that the new development is betting there's still a gap it can fill.
Stand at that interchange today and you're standing between two openings running in opposite directions. One side of Loop 1604 is remaking itself for design consultations and wine-tap dinners. The other side is building bedrooms for college students. Both projects are true at the same time, on the same corner, because they're solving for two different customers who happen to share an off-ramp.
What's Actually Changed Behind the Gate
None of this required a new highway exit or a new anchor tenant announcement with a ribbon-cutting photo. It happened the way most retail turnover happens, one TDLR filing and one soft opening at a time, unfolding since the Forever 21 closure in May 2025. But the cumulative effect for anyone living inside The Dominion is real. The wing you remember as Forever 21 and Urban Outfitters is being remade with furniture showrooms and a wine bar. The brunch spot you used to drive toward Boerne for now has a second location closer to home. And the corner you've watched sit empty for years is finally under construction, just not for the same crowd as the mall next to it.
If it's been since spring since you've actually walked that stretch of La Cantera Parkway, it's worth the drive. The mall you remember and the mall that's there now are not quite the same place.
Strait Luxury keeps close tabs on what changes just outside The Dominion's gates, because those changes shape daily life for the people living behind them. If you're curious how a shifting retail corridor like this one factors into a property's long-term appeal, Tamara and her team are glad to walk through it with you. Schedule a Private Consultation whenever you're ready to talk specifics.
