This recent aerial shot of the Lakewood Shopping Center. (Photo by Danny Fulgencio)
The Lakewood Shopping Center, one of our neighborhood’s most iconic retail hubs, has a new owner in Stockdale Investment Group, according to the Dallas Morning News. It’s still unclear what changes the new management might bring, but on its website the company says is focuses on “in investing, developing, and managing real estate assets that are well located, but are either underperforming or functionally obsolete.”
The Lakewood Shopping Center has seen a lot of turn over in recent years, but it’d be a stretch to call it underperforming. However, parking problems plus the expanding Lakewood Theater offerings could make the case for being “functionally obsolete” in some designers eyes.
The 67,000-square-foot center has been held by Lincoln Property Co. since 2011, which upgraded and remodeled many of the buildings. But before that it was largely family owned. As we wrote about in our 2015 cover story “Dreams and Realities at the Lakewood Shopping Center”:
“The legendary Doc Harrell opened his drugstore at the southwest corner of Abrams and Gaston in 1924, when Abrams was still a dirt road. The following year, investor Leo Corrigan partnered with developers Dines and Kraft to buy part of Lakewood Country Club’s property and build a shopping village on the former 18th hole, to the chagrin of nearby residents who preferred their pastoral setting.
Thus the Lakewood Shopping Center, as we call it today, was born. The old Lakewood library, now the Diener-Mills building on La Vista and old Abrams, operated as an ice cream parlor before the city bought it in 1937. The Lakewood Theater opened in 1938 followed by the erstwhile Lakewood Hotel across the street. Corrigan leased space to grocery stores at both ends of the property, and over time all the spaces in between filled with retail and service shops. The neighborhood grew up around it.”
