CityCentre Never Stops Changing. Here's Who's Behind It Now.

Ask anyone who treats CityCentre as their default answer to "where should we eat tonight" and they'll tell you the same thing: something there is always different. A restaurant that wasn't there last time. A theater marquee with a name you don't recognize. A storefront that used to be one brand and is now another.

Most people chalk that up to normal retail churn. It isn't. CityCentre has spent the past two and a half years under one of the more actively managed leasing strategies in west Houston, and in the fall of 2025 the property changed hands in a way that most of its regulars never heard about. What looks like constant, unrelated turnover is actually two different landlords, one after another, each making the same bet on the same corner of I-10 and Beltway 8.

A Property Already Built On Turning Over Its Tenants

Long before any sale was announced, CityCentre was rewriting its own lineup under Midway, the firm that built it on the old Town & Country Mall site. In February 2024, North Italia opened its third Houston-area location there, an almost 12,000-square-foot restaurant at 818 Town & Country Boulevard with seating for 138 in the dining room, 50 more at the bar, and another 142 seats spread across two patios. A few weeks later, Star Cinema Grill took over the theater that Studio Movie Grill had run for fifteen years, gutting the interior for heated recliners, privacy pods with blankets, and seat massagers the company says exist nowhere else in its lineup.

Studio Movie Grill's CEO, Ted Croft, didn't dress up the ending: "Leaving this location was bittersweet, but a future within CityCentre wasn't in the cards." Star Cinema Grill is run by Culinary Khancepts, the local hospitality group also behind State Fare, Liberty Kitchen, and the ongoing restoration of the historic River Oaks Theatre. Its president, Omar Khan, framed the swap as a fit with the direction the property was already headed: "Our luxury cinema brand perfectly complements the exceptional atmosphere of CityCentre."

By that summer, three more retail names had joined the mix: American Threads, opening its first Houston store; Rowan, an ear-piercing studio staffed by licensed nurses; and Southern Tide, opening its second Texas location. All of it happened under Midway. The property was already mid-overhaul before anyone new bought it.

Then, In Fall 2025, The Landlord Changed

That overhaul is what MetroNational bought into. In the fall of 2025, MetroNational purchased CityCentre's retail and restaurant core from Midway, a deal covering more than 300,000 square feet and home to over 20 restaurants, from Hopdoddy and Grimaldi's to the Capital Grille, North Italia, and Eddie V's Prime Seafood, plus retailers like Kendra Scott and Warby Parker. Midway kept the hotel, the office towers, and the apartments. MetroNational took the part of CityCentre where people actually spend their evenings.

The purchase matters because MetroNational already owns the 300-acre Memorial City complex next door, including Memorial City Mall, Gateway Memorial City, Hotel ZaZa Memorial City, and the Memorial Hermann Tower. Its holdings now form one continuous stretch running along the south side of I-10 from Bunker Hill Road to the Sam Houston Tollway. To run the CityCentre piece specifically, MetroNational brought in Radom Capital, the firm behind MKT Heights, the Montrose Collective, and the restoration of the historic Tower Theater complex on lower Westheimer. Radom's stated mandate, according to the deal's own press materials, is to "reimagine and elevate the retail experience" at CityCentre.

The Timeline, Side By Side

Read as a list, it looks like five disconnected headlines. Read together, it's a property that never really paused between owners. It just changed hands mid-momentum.

The One Commitment That Tells You What's Different Now

Here's the detail that separates the new owner's approach from the old one. North Italia's arrival in 2024 was real money, but it was also the chain's third stop in a market it was already expanding through comfortably. It has since gone on to open a fourth Houston-area location at LaCenterra at Cinco Ranch in Katy, in June 2026. CityCentre was one good address among several for a brand that was going to keep growing regardless of who owned the property.

JOEY is a different kind of signal. The Vancouver-based restaurant group opened its first Texas location, JOEY Uptown, in the Galleria in 2021, in the former Yauatcha space on Westheimer. For five years, that was its only presence in the Houston area. Now, according to a permit filed with the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation, JOEY is building its second Houston-area location inside the CityCentre Six office tower at 920 Town & Country Boulevard. The project is a $9 million buildout of roughly 7,700 square feet, designed by TRM Architects, the firm behind past projects for the Cheesecake Factory and the Grand Lux Cafe. Construction is expected to wrap by the end of April 2027.

A company that waited five years to open its second Texas location just chose CityCentre, under its new ownership, for a seven-figure investment it won't see open for the better part of a year. That is a different order of commitment than a chain adding its third or fourth outlet in a market it already knows well. It's the clearest evidence yet that MetroNational and Radom Capital are being taken seriously by the kind of tenant that only signs once.

What This Means If You Live Here

Nothing about this changes how you use CityCentre this week. North Italia and Star Cinema Grill have both been open long enough to be part of the regular rotation. American Threads, Rowan, and Southern Tide have had two summers to settle in. If you haven't tried the heated recliners at Star Cinema Grill, that's worth the detour on your next movie night, but it isn't new information.

What is worth knowing is that the property's next chapter is already being written, and JOEY's 2027 opening is the first big proof of it. Expect more swaps between now and then, not because CityCentre is struggling to hold onto tenants, but because Radom Capital's whole job is to keep re-leasing toward whatever the new owner thinks the corridor should become.

One block over, under an entirely different landlord, the same instinct is showing up. Town & Country Village, owned by Moody Rambin rather than MetroNational, brought its Barnes & Noble back in 2025 after a closure. That's a separate business decision by a separate company, but it says something about the broader Beltway 8 and Memorial Drive corridor right now: nobody who owns property here is treating their tenant list as finished.

For anyone who already calls Memorial Villages home, that's the useful part. The changes you've been noticing one at a time for two years weren't random, and they aren't over.

Loulou Estates Group keeps a close eye on what's actually happening in the neighborhoods we work in, not just the listings. If you're curious how developments like this one shape the character of Memorial Villages over time, or you'd simply like to talk through what's changing in the area you call home, Loulou is always glad to have that conversation.