The big building at LBJ Freeway and Midway Road went up in 1971, when the freeway was still pushing west into Farmers Branch through mostly rural land. The Freed family bought it in 1974 and sold furniture there for more than four decades. Freed's closed in 2018, and the 160,000-square-foot building later held the Rainbow Trade Mart.
Today the upstairs is filled with trampolines and foam pits. Downstairs, an 86-year-old Farmers Branch resident is fitting a roller rink between more than 20 structural pillars. That is the kind of floor plate a rink needs, and it has become hard to find anywhere else.
A Showroom Format the Corridor Had Moved Past
After LBJ opened, the stretch between the Dallas North Tollway and I-35E filled up with office campuses, trade centers and showroom buildings. By the time Freed's left, the Texas Jewish Post reported, the big-box showroom format along the corridor was declining, and parts of it sat underused and dated.
Buildings like this usually get torn down or reinvented. Larry Robbins of Capstone Commercial, the property's listing broker, told the Post that "many of the older buildings are being repurposed into different uses." The paper pointed to nearby examples. The former Valley View Mall site is becoming the $85 million mixed-use Premier at Midtown, and an office building at 5550 LBJ is being converted into a mix of market-rate and affordable apartments.
At 4355 LBJ, the reinvention is entertainment. The building's current owners are the same people who bought it after Freed's closed, and Robbins told the Post he is talking with more entertainment tenants about the remaining space.
When | What happened at 4355 LBJ |
|---|---|
1971 | Building constructed |
1974 | Freed family buys it |
2018 | Freed's Furniture closes |
After 2018 | Building sells to the Rainbow Trade Mart owners |
February 2026 | 11 MAX Indoor Fun Park opens |
April 2026 | Interskate Dallas's original target opening |
Mid-November 2026 | Interskate's hoped-for grand opening, as of early November |
Why a Roller Rink Needed a Building Like This
The rink tenant is the reason this building matters. At the sport's early-1980s peak, about 5,000 roller rinks were operating in the U.S. Luther Bernstein, who is building the new rink, puts today's count at just over 1,000, with Texas leading the states. He told the Branch Herald that some rinks closed because the land under them became more valuable for other uses, and that rising property values make large commercial spaces harder to keep running.
A rink needs a large, mostly open floor, a lot of parking and a location people can reach easily. Those needs run straight into land prices. An old freeway showroom that the market has already written down solves part of that problem. Bernstein said it took about a year and a half to find a suitable property and a landlord willing to work with him.
He has spent decades on this problem. Between 1970 and 1984, he built nine rinks in Dallas-Fort Worth and two in Austin. One was Josey Skateland, which opened in June 1973 and ran under his ownership for nearly three decades. Another was Interskate in Lewisville, which opened in November 1981 and has been through four renovations. It is still the base of his business. He also runs his own skate line, Epic Skates. In 2022 the Roller Skating Association International gave him a lifetime achievement award.
He lives in Farmers Branch, and he told the Herald the new rink grew out of a simple wish to keep skating going in his own city.
Downstairs: A Rink Laid Out Around the Pillars
The building has one obvious drawback for skating. A furniture showroom can put sofas between its columns, but a rink floor needs a clear oval. Bernstein redesigned the layout three times before it worked. He described the result to the Branch Herald this way:
"What I'm doing hasn't been done in the skating business industry the way I'm doing it. I took a building that has over 20 pillars in it and devised a plan to skate around it and make it operational."
His answer was to split the roughly 35,000 square feet on the first floor into three skating surfaces. The plan calls for a full-size rink, a smaller rink for beginners and a private rink for parties.
Construction hit a layer of rock under the site that no one had known about, and together with the redesigns, it moved the opening well past the original April 2026 target. As of the Herald's November 3 story, Bernstein was hoping for a mid-November grand opening. Sessions, tickets and party details will be posted on Interskate's site.
Bernstein named three things every good rink needs:
- A good hardwood skating floor
- Comfortable rental skates
- Music backed by quality sound and lighting
He said the music matters most to the experience because it sets the rhythm and atmosphere. Dawson Dominguez has helped manage the Lewisville rink for the past four years and is expected to play a big part in running the Farmers Branch location.
Upstairs: The Floor That Opened First
The second floor came back to life first. 11 MAX Indoor Fun Park opened in February 2026. Two months later, the Texas Jewish Post reported that attendance had been strong. A January Branch Herald preview described a 33,000-square-foot park on the second floor with ninja courses, trampoline areas, themed party rooms and a sand pit filled with foam pellets.
The park's own site lists these attractions:
- Ultimate dodgeball and trampoline basketball
- Colorball Lagoon and Diggers Cove
- A mechanical bull ride
- Battle Beam, Skyslam and Balance Rush
- A Rockwall climb
Admission is sold as 120-minute passes. A general pass costs $27.99 Monday through Thursday and $29.99 Friday through Sunday, so a weekend visit adds $2 per person. Passes for children under 40 inches tall are $12.99 on weekdays and $14.99 on weekends, and a parent pass is $9.99.
The park opens at 10 a.m. every day. It closes at 8 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 9:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and 9 p.m. on Sunday.
One Address, Two Floors, More Space to Fill
When the rink opens, 4355 LBJ will have party space on both floors, with themed party rooms upstairs at 11 MAX and a private party rink downstairs at Interskate. Robbins described the idea to the Texas Jewish Post as "a new concept that makes sense for today's families, as traveling is becoming more expensive," and added that "traffic counts on LBJ are huge."
Leasing is still underway, so the building has room for more tenants than these two. The site has already been a furniture store and a trade mart, and in 2026 it opened a trampoline park while building a skating rink downstairs. Bernstein opened Josey Skateland in 1973, and more than 50 years later, part of the old Freed's floor is being built for skating.
Projects like this change what's around the corner for people who live near LBJ, and that's part of how I think about homes along the corridor. If you'd like to talk about how reuse along LBJ fits into buying or selling in Farmers Branch, Chris Holmes-Hill is happy to walk through it with you. Let's Connect.
