For years, Davenport Village has been the strip mall version of a running joke in Westlake Highlands. The parking lot at 3801 N. Capital of Texas Highway sits inside one of the wealthiest zip codes in Central Texas, a five-minute drive from Austin Country Club and blocks from St. Stephen's Episcopal School, yet the retail mix inside never matched the incomes walking through its doors. A Maudie's Tex-Mex, a nail salon, a scattering of service tenants. Fine for an errand, not much reason to linger.
That mismatch had a name, and the company that owns the property said it out loud.
The Landlord Admitted the Problem First
Whitestone REIT, the Houston-based owner of Davenport Village, spent early 2025 laying out a plan to close the gap between what the neighborhood could spend and what the center actually offered. The company's own language was unusually candid for a retail landlord. Whitestone REIT CEO Dave Holeman said the shopping center had lacked a mix of businesses that meet the needs of local residents, and that coffee and fitness-focused tenants were the fix.
Whitestone's chief operating officer, Christine Mastandrea, framed the incoming tenants as a direct response to who actually lives around Davenport:
"The additions of Starbucks Reserve, Pvolve, RVE Fitness and CUBExec are bespoke solutions for this high-end section of West Austin. All of them are very selective in where they open locations, prioritizing growing neighborhoods that are in proximity to a robust and well-educated workforce."
Read that quote plainly and it says something most neighborhood guides skip past: Davenport Village wasn't underperforming because Westlake Highlands lacked spending power. It was underperforming because the tenant mix hadn't caught up to it. Whitestone's own materials describe the shopping center as serving Davenport Ranch, Westlake Highlands, Rob Roy and Barton Creek, four communities where the retail gap had become obvious enough that the property's owner built a public press release around admitting it.
What's New on the Directory
Three names on the tenant list are genuinely new. All three are being built around an anchor that was already there:
- Starbucks Reserve, a 3,274-square-foot format focused on barista craft and interactive coffee experiences, with hand-painted murals from Austin-based artists rather than standard chain branding.
- Pvolve, a 3,126-square-foot studio built around low-impact, resistance-based movement.
- CUBExec, a flexible workspace concept giving West Austin professionals private offices and conference space without a downtown commute.
All three are being built around RVE Fitness, a 7,815-square-foot wellness center offering yoga, pilates, strength training, massage therapy and saunas that has quietly anchored the center since it opened in February 2023, run by Austin-based attorneys Esteban Sandoval and Adam Mata. CUBExec's offices connect directly into that existing space rather than standing alone.
The announced timelines put Starbucks Reserve on track for summer 2025 and Pvolve for spring 2025, with CUBExec slated for the first quarter of 2026. Every one of those dates has already passed. What used to be a strip mall with one destination restaurant and a fitness studio nobody outside the neighborhood knew about is now, on paper at least, a place a Westlake Highlands resident can plausibly spend a whole morning: coffee, a workout, a few hours at a private desk, all without leaving the parking lot.
The Taco Gap Closed a Few Minutes Away
The second shift is smaller in square footage but louder in local conversation. Taqueria de Diez, one of the Austin American-Statesman's Top 20 taquerias, opened its third location this spring at 3736 Bee Caves Road, Suite 2, in West Lake Hills, a few minutes' drive from Westlake Highlands and next to Texas Honey Ham Co.
The detail worth sitting with is the one the Statesman put in its headline: Westlake had a reputation for lacking solid taco options. That is not a knock on the area's food scene generally, Davenport Village's Maudie's has been a fixture for years, but it is a specific, named gap that a specific, named business chose to fill.
Taqueria de Diez built its following on Tijuana-style tacos served from an open kitchen, al pastor carved off a trompo, carne asada finished on a flat-top, tortillas made fresh throughout the day. The concept started in a downtown alley off Trinity Street in 2024, expanded to South Lamar, and then made the jump west. Co-founders Raul and Luis Esquer, along with chef Roy Servan, opened the West Lake Hills location with hours that stretch to 1 a.m. Thursday through Saturday, a schedule that assumes there's demand for a late taco run in a part of town where most kitchens close by 9.
That bet on late-night demand fits a brand that has expanded fast since its 2024 debut, and the momentum shows in what comes next: locations already in progress on Guadalupe Street and at The Domain.
Two Separate Fixes, One Shared Cause
It would be easy to write these up as two unrelated openings. They aren't. Both are corrections to the same underlying condition: retail and dining in this corner of West Austin had been lagging behind the demographics for years, and 2026 is the year enough of that gap closed at once to notice.
Nextdoor threads from Westlake Highlands residents give a small window into how people were coping before either opening. One frequently mentioned ritual was a Saturday morning run to Cafe Lago, a taco stop outside the immediate neighborhood, described by one resident simply as "always delicious and no heavy traffic." That kind of workaround, driving a bit further for something the neighborhood itself didn't offer, is exactly the pattern Davenport Village's tenant mix and Taqueria de Diez's arrival are built to interrupt.
The property data backs up why retailers are paying attention now rather than five years ago. Westlake's retail market around Davenport carries a resident profile skewing toward established professionals, with commercial filings citing an average resident age of 42 in the immediate trade area. That's a demographic with disposable income and, increasingly, patience for driving into downtown Austin or deeper into West Lake Hills for things that used to require it.
What Hasn't Changed, and Why That's the Point
None of this alters the character of Westlake Highlands itself. The neighborhood is still defined by its elevation, its views toward the Hill Country and downtown skyline, and its quiet, tree-lined streets running along Toro Canyon Road and out toward David Thomas Road and Stone Canyon Drive. Eanes ISD schools remain the draw they've always been. Mount Bonnell and Bull Mountain are still the landmarks people orient by. Nothing about the housing stock or the topography shifted this year.
What shifted is smaller and more practical: the number of reasons to leave the neighborhood for a normal Tuesday errand just dropped. A coffee run, a workout, a late taco dinner, a few hours of focused work, all of it is now available inside a half-mile radius that used to require picking two out of five and driving somewhere else for the rest.
That's a modest claim, and it's the right size for what actually happened. Davenport Village didn't become a destination. It became adequate for the neighborhood that surrounds it, which is a lower bar than it sounds, and one it had failed to clear for a long time.
If you're already living in Westlake Highlands, this is the kind of shift you feel before you can name it: an errand list that used to take two stops in two different directions now fits into one loop. If you're watching this corner of West Austin from further away and wondering what's actually changing on the ground here, that's the kind of on-the-ground read Laura Greissing keeps close watch on, alongside the market fundamentals that matter when the time comes to make a move. Reach out any time you want a second opinion grounded in what's actually happening here, not just what the listing photos show.
