Casa Linda Shopping Center or Casa Linda Plaza, as it is more commonly known, was the brainchild of Carl Martin Brown and his son Howard D. Brown. The East Dallas family farm was to become the premier place to live and shop at the Garland Road and Buckner Blvd Crossroads in East Dallas. Casa Linda Plaza is one of the oldest shopping centers in the Dallas area. It is located in northeast Dallas. It opened in 1945 after Howard D. Brown returned from World War II. It was unique in that the design architects Milam & Roper used was in the Spanish Revival, featuring tile roofs and masonry walls. Mr.Howard D.Brown loved Spanish names and all the streets in the area have Spanish names like El Patio, Redondo, Tranquilla, Verano etc. The last building was built in 1971 on the Plaza Property and Carl Martin Brown died in August of that year and his son was to follow him in November 1981. Two powerful men with great vision created a place for families to live and prosper long after they themselves had passed on.
The anchor of the shopping center was the movie theatre, which opened as a single screen theatre. The theatre was converted several times and was eventually a quad-plex. It closed in 1999 and on May 7, 2011 reopened as a Natural Grocers grocery store. [1]
Among the first tenants were Mott's Variety Store, C & S Hardware, Skillern's drug store, Reynolds-Penland, El Fenix, Zenith Televisions, Ashburn's Ice Cream, Wyatt's Cafeteria, and Parisian-Peyton'sColberts, Mr and Mrs Gift Shop, Vavra's Bakery store, Time Jewelers and even a Fix IT Shop.
Hopkins-Shafer purchased the property in the 1980s and painted the buildings bright pink. Since then, the center went through several changes in ownership. In 2008, the shopping center changed hands again, selling to a company called AmREIT, which began renovating the center in March 2008. According to the company website, the firm "desires to restore this great center back to its original grandeur. (AmREIT owns all of the shopping center, with the exception of the theatre.) This premier property has tremendous traffics counts, a highly populated area surrounding it, significant barriers-to-entry and an emerging demographic. It is truly a property worth revitalizing with updated features, new tenants and a sense of place for its east Dallas neighbors."[2]
The Casa Linda Cafeteria unexpectedly closed in 2007 shortly after the property was sold.[3] It reopened as the Highland Park Cafeteria in May 2007. [4]
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