Trademarking a Territory
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The Trademark Companies are putting their brand on the market north of Dallas, Texas, with two new upscale developments ­ The Polo Grounds at Willow Bend in Plano, and Las Colinas Village in Irving.

The Polo Grounds at Willow Bend is a 220,000-square-foot shopping, dining and entertainment center located at the northeast corner of the Dallas North Tollway and Park Boulevard, to be built on 22 acres of the site where the Willow Bend Polo & Hunt Club once stood.

Las Colinas Village will be a 140,000-square-foot lifestyle retail center and 170-room hotel at State Highway 114 and MacArthur Boulevard in Irving, designed to become the retail centerpiece of Las Colinas, a 12,000-acre master planned community that is packed with prestigious corporate names, country clubs, championship golf courses, four-star restaurants and 3,200 hotel rooms.

United Commercial Realty (214-526-6262) has been retained to handle leasing on both projects. Groundbreaking on both projects is scheduled for 1999, The Polo Grounds in the spring and Las Colinas Village at mid-year.

However, Trademark President Terry Montesi (817-870-1122) declined the opportunity to talk about Las Colinas Village, saying it was "a little early to talk about that one" on December 14, 1998, despite the company’s announcement on the front cover of its brochure for the project that the center would be occupied during the first quarter of 1999, a statement at odds with the notion of a June, 1999 groundbreaking. The brochure contains extensive information about the market area of the center, but little about the nature and contents of the development itself. Calls by E.S.P. to both Trademark and United Commercial Realty were not returned.

At The Polo Grounds several tenants, as yet unnamed, have committed, while negotiations are in progress with a book and music store, a gourmet grocer, a specialty garden accessories store, an interactive children’s entertainment store, outdoor recreation accessories and clothing stores, home furnishing stores, specialty apparel stores and lifestyle restaurants.

The land is owned by Ross Perot Jr.’s Hillwood Development Corporation and was once the site of Dallas businessman and restaurateur Norman Brinker’s Willow Bend Polo & Hunt Club, built in 1972 when the territory north of Dallas was wide-open plains dedicated to farms and fields. "I have really grown very fond of Plano," Brinker once said. "I wanted to leave something in perpetuity to Plano."

Polo didn’t survive as a sport in Plano, but The Polo Grounds is designed to keep Brinker’s intent alive by becoming an urban village of pleasant outdoor spaces, places to eat, be entertained and to spend time with friends and family, Trademark says. It also will provide a public art program featuring interactive children’s sculpture, a landmark commissioned bronze statue of Norman Brinker on his polo pony, Indian Shower, and a central wishing well from which donations will go to the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation.