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The Arboretum is celebrating 40 years in the Austin community in 2025.
The backstory
General property manager Kelly Bohart has worked in her role for seven years, but has lived in the community for 30 years.
She recalls her own fair share of personal memories tied to the center from her youth, from first dates at the movie theater where The Cheesecake Factory now sits to family gatherings.
“One of the biggest things for us was always the family celebrations,” Bohart said. “We spent every Mother's Day up here. We spent every graduation here. Once [The Cheesecake Factory] came, that just continued with the younger generation graduations. We found this to be a place where we celebrated more than I did with other shopping centers or other local eateries. That's what this was all about.”
She said the shopping center was one of the first lifestyle centers in Texas where community members could live, shop, dine and work all in one place.
One of the first characteristics implemented at the center were the three statues. One statue designed by Harold F. Clayton is a set of five marble cows and is a beloved piece of art in the center, Bohart said.
“They've been here for 40 years,” Bohart said. “In fact, I have parents that bring children back to climb on them and have picnics back there and they remember when they were kids.”
The campus also has five murals which play to the center’s desire to create public spaces which embrace a museum without walls concept.
Bohart mentioned a few historical ties the campus has to the city. Back when The Arboretum first opened, a cinema in the shopping center was one of the venues where film festival SXSW launched, she said.
Bohart said the green space in The Arboretum is the birthplace of the iconic Blues on the Green concert series hosted every summer at Zilker Park.
Another piece of history, Bohart said, is Lance Armstrong’s Tour de France training, which included a section where bikers rode around the property before heading back down to their starting point at Loop 360.
The present
The Arboretum is currently home to a mix of retail stores, locally-owned businesses and dining locations.
Community members can enjoy the center’s green spaces, have lunch at Juliet Italian Kitchen or The Cheesecake Factory and wrap their experience up with dessert at Amy’s Ice Cream.
Bohart said the shopping center prides itself on sticking to its name by protecting the trees in the center as well as the health of the environment. She said the campus now represents an experience of what old Austin used to be.
“It was the new Austin back in the day, it was The Domain back in the day, but now if you want a place to go where you can just relax, be authentic and feel like you're in Austin and have the real traditional Austin hang out, that's what The Arboretum has has become,” Bohart said.
