Walk the upper level at The Mall at Green Hills on any Saturday this month and the building looks the same as it has for years. Same skylights, same terrazzo, same walk from Nordstrom to Dillard's that regulars could do with their eyes closed. But stop at the storefront next to Nordstrom and you'll find Christian Louboutin's red soles where a different label used to be. Head downstairs and a Skims storefront is being built out steps from Nordstrom, with a Swatch counter going in right alongside it. None of that required a permit for a two-story flagship entrance or a single shovel in the ground.
That gap matters more than it looks. In February, Simon Property Group told the world it was pouring $250 million into a complete transformation of the mall. Six months later, the exterior renovation still doesn't have a start date. The tenant list, meanwhile, has turned over store by store, month by month, in public view the whole time. If you live in Green Hills and you're only tracking the headline renovation, you're watching the wrong clock.
What Simon Actually Announced
The Mall at Green Hills has been owned outright by Simon Property Group since the company completed its buyout of former co-owner Taubman Centers in November 2025. On February 4, 2026, Simon announced it was putting more than $250 million into Green Hills alongside two of its other properties, Cherry Creek Shopping Center in Denver and International Plaza in Tampa. The plan calls for new two-story entrances, what the company describes as jewel-box storefronts for luxury boutiques, upgraded landscaping and interior finishes throughout.
Construction was described as expected to begin sometime in 2026. That's the entire timeline Simon has offered publicly. No month, no phase order, no completion date.
Six Months In, Still No Start Date
By early June, that lack of specificity had become its own local news story. WSMV reported that mall officials still hadn't given shoppers a construction timeline, and that when asked directly whether the renovation would touch parking capacity, general manager Norah Buikstra would only say there was "more to come."
Shoppers filled in the gap with their own frustration. One shopper, Molly Milam, told the station finding a spot was "a nightmare." Another, Carissa Schmidt, said the same thing in plainer terms: it's "very difficult to find parking here."
Here's where the story gets interesting instead of just repetitive. Buikstra also told WSMV that roughly 70 percent of the mall's parking is already inside its decks, not out on the surface lots where frustration tends to concentrate. Check that against the mall's own published numbers and the real share is even higher. Simon's own site lists three decks: Emerald, a three-level structure under Dillard's with more than 870 spaces; Gold, a four-level deck with a walkway into Dillard's and more than 700 spaces; and Ruby, a seven-level deck between Macy's and Nordstrom with more than 1,810 spaces. Add those together against the mall's stated total of 4,300-plus spaces and you get close to four in five spaces already sitting in a structure, not a surface lot. The complaint on camera in June wasn't wrong about the experience of circling for a spot near the entrance. It just wasn't describing where most of the actual capacity lives.
The Timeline That Does Exist
If the exterior renovation has no calendar, the tenant rollout has a very specific one, and it's been public for months.
| Store | Status as of early August 2026 |
|---|---|
| Christian Louboutin | Open, upper level next to Nordstrom |
| World | Open, lower level near Dillard's |
| Coach | Opened mid-May |
| Oota Egyptian Eatery | Opened late May |
| Vuori | Opened June |
| Mountain High Outfitters | Opened July |
| Burberry | Relocating within the mall this month |
| Skims | Coming soon, lower level near Nordstrom |
| Swatch | Coming soon, lower level near Nordstrom |
| Kendra Scott | Moving from a temporary spot into a permanent location |
That's not a rendering or a press release. That's a sequence of real leases that have already opened their doors, month after month, while the big-ticket renovation sat with no groundbreaking. Add Skims and Swatch, both under construction now, and the storefront turnover only keeps stacking up before Simon's exterior work has broken ground once.
Past the Mall's Own Fence Line
The retail turnover in Green Hills isn't contained to the mall's parking decks. A few minutes away on Hillsboro Pike, On Inc. is preparing to open its first Nashville store at 4021 Hillsboro Pike, in the space that used to hold Whole Foods' short-lived Whole Body concept. A Metro permit reviewed by the Nashville Business Journal shows the Swiss running brand's build-out is being led by the architecture firm Gensler, and the Green Hills location marks On's first retail expansion into the Southeastern United States. No opening date has been announced yet, but the permit itself confirms the move is real, not speculative.
Down Green Hills Village Drive, the existing Container Store has been picked as one of only 22 locations nationwide to test a combined format with Bed Bath & Beyond, folding the relaunched home-goods brand into the Container Store's existing footprint rather than opening it as a separate storefront. It's a quieter kind of experiment than a luxury flagship, but it says the same thing the mall's tenant list says: national retailers are treating Green Hills as a place worth the risk of a first-of-its-kind format, not just another suburban location to fill.
The Renovation You Can Already See
None of this means the $250 million project is fiction. Simon has the capital and the incentive, and a mall anchored by Nordstrom, Dillard's and Macy's on this much land doesn't sit unrenovated forever. But for anyone who actually shops here, the useful distinction isn't renovated versus not renovated. It's announced versus already happened. The two-story entrances and jewel-box storefronts are still a plan with no start date. The Christian Louboutin store, the Skims build-out, the On Inc. build-out on Hillsboro Pike, the Container Store's new hybrid format, those are already decisions that have been made, leases that have been signed, and in several cases, doors that are already open.
If you're planning a Saturday around what the mall used to be, you're already a few months behind. The bigger transformation Simon promised is still coming. The smaller one has been happening in plain sight since spring.
If watching a neighborhood change store by store has you wondering what it means for property values nearby, that's a conversation worth having. Your Nashville Agent tracks Green Hills closely enough to have opinions about it, and a free home valuation is always on the table whenever you're curious.
