If you've driven Royal Lane past Preston Road anytime this year, you've probably noticed the yard signs before you noticed the construction. "No Skyscrapers, No Rezoning at Preston & Royal" has been the unofficial slogan of that corner since a developer first floated a 28-story tower there in the fall of 2025. The fight is real, it's been loud, and as of this month it's still not resolved. The Dallas City Council hearing that was supposed to settle the matter has been pushed into October.
What's easy to miss while everyone watches the renderings is that the corner has already changed. Three restaurant projects have opened or are under construction there in 2026 while the zoning case sat in one procedural holding pattern after another. Those projects are already reshaping the corner even as the zoning case remains unresolved.
Royal Lane also happens to be the northern boundary of Old Preston Hollow, which makes this corner more than a curiosity for anyone living north of it. Central Market and the restaurant row around it are the closest grocery run and dinner-out option for a lot of Old Preston Hollow addresses, whether or not a single tower ever gets built across the street.
The Fight Everyone Already Knows About
The short version, for anyone who's tuned it out: Burk Interests and Greenway Investment Company want to redevelop about seven acres at the southwest corner of Preston Road and Royal Lane, across from Central Market. The original pitch called for a 28-story hotel and condo tower and a 24-story apartment building on a site currently capped at 54 feet. After months of pushback from Preserve Preston Hollow and a newer coalition called D13 Together, representing Bluffview, Wimberley Court, Preston Hollow, and Melshire Estates, the developer trimmed the plan. The version the City Plan Commission approved on August 6 tops out at 19 stories and 240 feet for the hotel and condo tower, with an 18-story apartment building and a 12-story office building alongside it.
The commission vote was 10-4 in favor. Of the 283 property owners the city notified ahead of that meeting, 261 said they opposed the project. A petition against it has collected more than 4,500 signatures. Margaret Chabris, who's been active with Preserve Preston Hollow, summed up the neighborhood's actual position at the commission meeting, as reported by People Newspapers: "The neighborhood is supportive of the developer's uses, just not at the height he wants."
That's where it sits. District 13 council member Gay Donnell Willis told WFAA's Inside Texas Politics she's still meeting with residents and still in listening mode, and the case has been continued into October rather than getting a final council vote this fall. If you've been waiting to see towers rise at that corner, you'll be waiting at least a little longer.
While That Was Happening, Two Restaurants Opened; One Is Under Construction
Here's the part of the story the yard signs don't cover. The commercial side of the corner didn't wait around for a zoning outcome.
- Palladino's Steak & Seafood, the second location from restaurateur Joe Palladino following his original in New York's Grand Central Terminal, opened in June at 5959 Royal Lane. Early coverage flagged that street parking out front is tight enough that most diners end up in the shopping center's lot.
- El Molino relocated its growing footprint to 6025 Royal Lane in August, taking over the former Anchor Sushi Bar space with a 6,000-square-foot buildout, about ten months after its original 83-seat debut in Snider Plaza. The expanded Tex-Mex concept picked up a Best New Restaurant nomination at the 2026 CultureMap Tastemaker Awards on the strength of that first location.
- Campisi's is under construction at 5944 Royal Lane, registered with the state in late May with an estimated completion this October, the same month the zoning case is due back in front of council.
Three restaurant projects, seven months, one intersection that technically doesn't know what it's going to look like in five years. That's not a coincidence so much as a sign of how the two processes actually work. Restaurant leases move on the landlord's timeline. Rezoning a seven-acre site with 283 notified property owners moves on the city's.
The Anchor That Never Blinked
None of this works, or draws the traffic to support it, without Central Market, and Central Market's own history at that spot is worth remembering when you're trying to figure out how durable this corner actually is.
The store was leveled by the October 2019 tornado that tore through this part of North Dallas, along with most of the surrounding shopping center. It stayed closed for 20 months, reopening on June 30, 2021, after a rebuild that restored the original mid-century ceiling and expanded the seafood case. H-E-B, Central Market's parent company, donated 50 trees to the neighborhood through RETREET to help replace the tree canopy the storm took out, on top of a $1 million gift to Dallas ISD for school repairs. The company's own tagline for the moment was "Preston Royal Loyal," and five years later that's proven to be more than a slogan. Today, the shopping center is also home to three restaurant projects that have opened or are under construction.
That history matters for reading the tower fight correctly, too. The site under debate sits across the street from a grocery store that already survived a natural disaster and came back stronger. The corner's foot traffic isn't contingent on what gets approved in October. It's contingent on whether people keep shopping at Central Market and eating at the restaurants around it, which they've been doing at an accelerating pace all year regardless of what's happening at City Hall.
What This Actually Means for a Weeknight Dinner
If you live near this corner, the practical takeaway isn't about towers at all. It's about traffic and parking on two fronts that have nothing to do with each other. The restaurant boom means more cars competing for the same lot space that's existed since before any of this construction started. Palladino's own early coverage noted the shopping center lot was "relatively full on a Wednesday afternoon" even before the dinner rush. Add El Molino's larger footprint and Campisi's opening on top of that, and Friday and Saturday nights at Preston and Royal are going to feel busier than they did a year ago, independent of anything the City Council decides.
Separately, if a zoning hearing does land on the October calendar, expect the meeting itself to draw a crowd. Roughly 30 residents spoke against the project at the August commission meeting alone, and the group organizing against it has shown it can turn out numbers well past that when a vote is actually on the table.
Two different kinds of busy, both real, both worth knowing about before you plan an evening around that intersection this fall.
The corner is proving something worth sitting with: the built environment at Preston and Royal is moving faster than the political one. Whatever the City Council eventually decides about the towers, the restaurant row around Central Market has already answered its own question about whether people want to be there.
If you're weighing what a corner like this means for property values nearby, or you're trying to read past the headlines on a zoning case before you make a decision about a home near it, that's exactly the kind of on-the-ground context the Catherine Cole Collective tracks block by block across Old Preston Hollow and the rest of North Dallas. Schedule a Strategy Conversation when you're ready to talk through what it actually means for your street.
This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Consult a qualified professional about your situation.
