The city of Grapevine is known for its wine and for its love of all things Christmas.

But it's about to land itself another distinction as a destination in the art world, thanks to the opening of Meow Wolf Grapevine this Friday at Grapevine Mills Mall.

It's just another sign that North Texas is a hotbed for companies and major attractions looking for success.

"Meow Wolf Grapevine has chosen to come to the DFW Metroplex because we do have such a rich and vibrant arts community. And I think it's so important that we recognize that there are artists interwoven throughout the fabric of DFW,” said the exhibit’s general manager, Kelly Schwartz.

Artist Rachel Townsend Cerny is proud of her hometown.

"I’ve been in love with the area ever since I was a kid,” she said.

That’s why she opened the R Town Art Gallery on Grapevine's Main Street.

So when Meow Wolf, a New Mexico-based and world-renowned art collective, announced it selected Grapevine as the site of its next major location, Townsend Cerny knew this could be a game changer for the local art scene.

"Meow Wolf is such a big powerhouse for artists. We do have so much talent here in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, which is something I personally have been trying to shed light on,” she said. “I think Meow Wolf is just adding to that awareness of how much talent that we have here in North Texas.“

Meow Wolf is an interactive and immersive art experience, unlike anything the DFW Metroplex has probably ever seen before. The artist collective was founded in 2008 in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where it eventually created its first permanent installation in 2016. The exhibit was built in a vacant bowling alley and featured elaborately decorated rooms, a full-scale house with multiple “portals” leading to other strange rooms, and interactive pathways all revolving around a sci-fi story. The concept has since become so popular, it expanded to other cities like Denver and Las Vegas.

Meow Wolf eventually evolved into an entertainment company but the brand has maintained a large reputation in the art world for its ongoing efforts to work with local artists in every installation it opens.

“I’m a big fan of Meow Wolf, been following them for years. So knowing that they were coming to our neck of the woods in our neighborhood was super exciting for Texas,” said Will Heron, a Dallas-based artist who now serves as Meow Wolf Grapevine’s artist liaison.

From sculptors to muralists, sound artists and video game designers, the Grapevine location features more than 40-Texas based artists – mostly from the DFW area.

"It's just really exciting for them to get this opportunity to work with a company that has the backing of Meow Wolf. Getting the budget, getting the freedom to explore,” said Heron. “We provide the space for them to dream big for one, and really create their hearts desire for what immersive art looks like for them.”

The artists have continued the storyline from the other locations in Grapevine, which is being called The Real Unreal. Some of the wild interactive features include a full-scale house with a seemingly normal kitchen refrigerator that one can walk through to more portal doors. Visitors can open the washing machine and dryer doors to slide through a light tunnel into another room of strange scenes, lights, music and walkthroughs. Just about piece inside the space is meant to be touched, opened, or investigated to understand more about the story.

“They’re not ready. They’re not ready for what’s in store when they enter inside here. This is all about discovery and finding your inner artist," said Heron. "I always challenge friends and visitors to explore every nook and cranny. Look in every detail you can, open every drawer and peek your head through every portal. Do everything you can to explore and try to dig up the story that’s trying to be told here."

Schwartz said the company is proud to be a new part of the North Texas art community.

“One of the things that we’re really committed to in the future is to be able to continue to work with the artists that are right here in our backyard," she said. "Whether that's through the outreach, programming, having them come on site, or expanding our exhibit in the future and giving them a place to bring their amazing creativity to -- all of that is just so important to us.”

For Townsend Cerny, Meow Wolf showcases the success artists can find in their career.

“I think it’s so huge to showcase that not only are artists able to make it professionally, but art can be anything," she said. "It doesn’t have to be your traditional bowl of fruit -- not that there’s anything wrong with that -- but there’s so many lanes for a creative person to take in life. And I think this is just building awareness for it.”

Overall, the Dallas market has been a hotbed for companies and organizations searching for economic success. Peppa Pig World of Play selected Grapevine for its first theme park location in the U.S. Another park is opening up in North Richland Hills in 2024. This year, Universal Parks & Resorts picked Frisco as the location for its newest theme park and resort.

On the sports front, FIFA selected Dallas to host the World Cup in 2026. Dallas hosted the NCAA Women’s Final Four in March. The headlines seem to add up, especially over the last five years due to population growth and a robust economy.

"It's been incredible to see the growth with local families coming in, businesses coming in, and now Meow Wolf. It's just another amazing economic engine to contribute,” Schwartz.

BY THE NUMBERS

According to Grapevine’s economic development data, more businesses are taking a closer look at Grapevine partly due to the gravity that entertainment like Meow Wolf creates.

Grapevine Mills is in the top 1% of all regional malls in the country for foot traffic when shops, food and attractions like SEA LIFE Grapevine and LEGOland are factored in.

Early estimates for visitor count project 600,000 to 1,000,000 visitors could come to explore Meow Wolf Grapevine in the first year. That would be a 5% to 9% bump in traffic at Grapevine Mills from a single tenant. Last year, Placer.ai estimates that the mall recorded roughly 11.5 million visits.

Grapevine economic officials predict that based on their $45 ticket price, Meow Wolf Grapevine could generate roughly $27 million to $45 million if every one of those 600,000 to 1 million visitors purchased a base ticket and nothing else. That’s a low-end estimate because they’ll also be selling food, beverages, and souvenirs. The in-house café includes menu items from Main Street vendors including JudyPie, Buzzed Bull Creamery and HTeaO.

With annual visitor traffic of over 12 million and economic impacts of $2.5 billion in just Grapevine alone, tourism officials say they're not surprised to see yet another big brand choose North Texas.

"We're a gateway to DFW, a gateway to Texas with DFW Airport right there, so people are already coming in,” said Elizabeth Schrack, communications director for the Grapevine Convention & Visitors Bureau. “Meow Wolf is going to bring in a whole new group of people. They have fans that been obsessed with Las Vegas, Denver and Santa Fe. They want to come to see this. And they'll be able to experience grapevine and all we have to offer."

According to a July report by the city of Grapevine officials, the DFW metroplex plays an important role in maintaining Texas' economic dominance.

“Home to 6.5 million people – and counting – the sprawling cities and suburbs of North Texas can support just about any concept through latent demand and a talented labor force. Geographically, it’s hard to find a more advantageous spot for a physical location, too: the entire continental United States lies within 3 hours by plane, and DFW International Airport makes it easy to step much further away,” states the report.

Meow Wolf Grapevine opened Friday, July 14. The first few days are already sold out but you can still book tickets online for later dates.

For tickets and more information about Meow Wolf and The Real Unreal in Grapevine, visit meowwolf.com.

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Before we begin, a strobe light disclaimer. Those prone to seizures or acid flashbacks should not proceed. Those uncertain about uncertainty should venture on with caution. The world we are about to enter, Meow Wolf’s newest location in the Grapevine Mills Mall, is not for the bland of heart. Instead, it is a realm of nonstop maximalism, a dimension where no nook or cranny is overlooked and no silence is tolerated.

Meow Wolf, maker of hypnotic, enveloping exhibits, opened its doors in Santa Fe in 2008 with the first of its large-scale immersive art installations. In each of its three subsequent locations—Denver, Las Vegas, and now Grapevine—the company built a permanent maze of otherworldly art installations and world-building sets, each organized around a loose storyline. (A fifth location will launch in Houston next year.) For the latest iteration of the art empire’s otherworldly brand, Meow Wolf has chosen an exotic locale: a suburban Texas mall.

A shopping center may seem a staid place to host a stimulus bonanza in the present day, but Meow Wolf chose the location to appeal to the nostalgia of our hangout spot of yesteryear. And Grapevine Mills, hip to the declining fortunes of brick-and-mortar retailers, has created an experiential smorgasbord for visitors to enjoy. Meow Wolf Grapevine joins Peppa Pig World of Play, Fieldhouse USA, and a Rainforest Cafe in entertaining the masses.

The Grapevine exhibit, titled “The Real Unreal” and housed in a former Bed Bath & Beyond, features a mesmerizing labyrinth of seventy-plus interlocking rooms of bright art, imaginative sculptural creatures, and fantastical storylines and concepts crafted by a team of more than 150 full-time artists and an additional 40 or so North Texas–area muralists, painters, and sculptors. A café and gift shop round out the gallery experience, though the museum is pricier than most, with tickets starting at $45.

Guests enter unreality through a “sensory deprivation” hallway, a short stretch of blackened wall space and the only area in the exhibit painted one solid color. After that sober trip, the world-building sets quickly devolve into a surreal, Willy Wonka–esque explosion: color, light, sound, and texture mix and merge and blur to distort a visitor’s sense of perception and time and tap into their inherent imagination. (It’s no coincidence that Meow Wolf’s second location was in Las Vegas, the town that perfected the art of overstimulation.) Guests are told that a story lies within the exhibit and are encouraged to find their own clues within each artwork. The plot begins in a house, where photos, mail, and books hint at the inhabitants’ disappearance; the story and the exhibit proceed from there. And because the installation unfolds along a choose-your-own-adventure path—much like an escape room—no two visitors will have quite the same experience.

While the exhibit can feel like a hodgepodge, “The Real Unreal” represents the brand’s first attempt to weave together the storylines of its four disparate locations. Like the original Santa Fe exhibit, the Grapevine experience begins in a home, with a storyline centering on a boy who goes missing after he discovers an otherworldly creature. As in Santa Fe, the home’s washing machine and refrigerator become portals to other worlds with names such as Neon Kingdom and Glowquarium, remixes of spaces that originally appeared in “House of Eternal Return.” Easter eggs abound for Meow Wolf fans who have visited both locations. Such a Marvel-esque commodification of artwork, while at times thrilling, has the sheen of a money ploy, especially in the hands of a multimillion-dollar company that’s now fifteen years out from its DIY roots. And indeed, other immersive art installations, like the nationwide Van Gogh exhibit, or the Instagram-friendly Museum of Ice Cream, have been criticized for their commercial varnish.

But in the hands of Meow Wolf’s multitude of creators, who seem to delight in the artful inclusion of clues and references, the creation of a multiverse feels like an earnest extension of the brand’s storytelling-as-art ethos, as well as a play on its recurring themes of perception and reality. The company says it will soon venture out into virtual reality games, apps, and graphic novels.

Despite the specter of brand strategy hanging over the place, there’s an overwhelming amount of novelty to scavenge. Somehow, despite the scale of the space—in which my tour guide repeatedly got lost—the most minute details are gleefully executed. In the Midwestern-style home, where the main storyline begins, a TV is loaded with countless shows and music relevant to the fictional characters; a random jazz album included therein is one recorded, in part, by local artists. In a constructed alleyway, a graffitied image of four numbers in sign language belies the code to a nearby ATM, which is itself connected to a light-up piano elsewhere in the exhibit. An arcade features original and inventive games designed by indie developers from Texas, as well as an anthropomorphized vending machine that has beef with the aforementioned ATM.

Throughout the exhibit, you’ll also find a lush two-story jungle with music-making mushrooms; an outsized refrigerator interior; a Cold War–era bunker; a people-sized, pillow-filled petri dish; an underwater transborder desert; an electric gingerbread fiefdom; and more. It’s an onslaught of all-out eyeball candy. Of course, it’s all eminently Instagrammable.

Some of the most compelling moments in the exhibits are the nooks carved out for local artists. Dallas artist Dan Lam’s Macrodose, a giant gob of rainbow goop, slops over an entire wall as her original soundtrack, set at the allegedly healing frequency of 528 hertz, goads the mind into gentle reflection. Dallas’s Ricardo Paniagua’s Alter Space, a cathedral of geometric shapes and simple light patterns, mesmerizes and awes. And Lance McGoldrick’s Crystal Cloud Cave—a room filled with an expansive sunset scene and piles of rock-like cubed mirrors—feels like the calm, thoughtless epicenter of smooth brain. North Texas artists, including Lam and Paniagua, began conceiving of their pieces two years ago, after Meow Wolf liaisons found their work on Instagram or through the Dallas art scene.

A critical mind might compare Grapevine Mills Mall’s newest resident to its other amusements. And while yes, Meow Wolf Grapevine does feature at least one simulated thunderstorm like its neighbor the Rainforest Cafe, its maximalist neon beating heart feels pure. Here, at least, art is a portal to another dimension.

GRAPEVINE, Texas - "Family-friendly, psychedelic art playground" is probably the best way to describe Meow Wolf at Grapevine Mills, but honestly, there are no words that could truly define what this place is.

You need to come see it for yourself.

"Meow Wolf is an immersive storytelling art exhibit. We really want this to be a space of creativity and discovery, blending art and storytelling into some magical creative worlds," said Will Heron, artist liaison for the Meow Wolf Grapevine Project.

You may see some similar features between this exhibit and at other Meow Wolf locations, but they are not the same.

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"This is called ‘The Real Unreal.’ And this is our second permanent exhibit that starts in a familiar place of a house. So, we have ‘The House of Eternal Return’ back in Santa Fe. This is not the same house. Although there are many deja vu moments that tie these two house stories together," said Heron.

The 18,000 square foot exhibit is full of twists and turns, hidden gems and secret portals to other dimensions.

When you are exploring, just keep in mind that at Meow Wold things aren't always as they seem.

"We don’t like to follow all the rules of museums or art galleries," said Heron. "We really want this to be a space that is exploratory. Crawl through everything. Look through everything. Open every door. Explore every little nook and cranny you can, because that’s going to give you the fullest experience."

If you are wondering how to properly tour the exhibit know that there is no singular walkable path.

"I think that is part of the magic that is Meow Wolf," noted Heron.

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Meow Wolf is adamant on using local artists for each of their locations.

"This is very representative of Texas. So, I’m an artist based in Dallas, and here in this exhibit, we have representation from a ton of DFW’s. So, Dallas, Fort Worth, Arlington, Denton. We really wanted it to feel like the Texas version of what Meow Wolf is," said Heron.

This isn't the only location they plan to open in Texas either.

"Houston, Texas will be in 2024. So, we’re lucky enough to get two Texas exhibits in the next couple of years," said Heron.

The only way to attend the exhibit is through reservations. The location has gone out of their way to make sure everyone can experience the magic.

MORE FROM THE TEXAS TO-DO LIST

"I would say the typical age group would be like a one-year-old, up to like a 101-year-old. But it’s really great, we are very ADA compliant. We have elevators for people who maybe need to get around in different ways. We really want this to be accessible to all types of people," said Heron.

When we say they include everyone, they mean everyone.

"We provide some sensory days, especially for our autism community. We want to provide space for them to be able to explore the exhibit and not be as overwhelmed. I believe all of our sites just got approved as autism centers. So, we are able to provide different days and different experiences for all of our customers," said Heron.

Meow Wolf opens in Grapevine Mills on Friday, July 14.

To learn more about the location and reserve your tickets click here.

It’s a planner, it’s a motivator, it’s a challenge! Get out and experience the wonder and fun around you with FOX 4's curated list of fun and unusual activities all across north Texas. Keep checking back as the list keeps growing. Got a suggestion for us? Email us here.

Scientists from the Perot Museum of Nature and Science recently named a newly discovered species of a plant-eating dinosaur, suggesting the animal once used to roam eastern North America more than 96 million years ago.

In 2020, a small fossil of a jawbone was discovered at a rock formation near Lake Grapevine, where paleontologists with the museum have been collecting fossils for years. Initially, scientists thought the two-inch long jaw fossil belonged to a small crocodile, but they soon discovered they were wrong.

“It wasn’t until we got it back to the lab and got under a microscope and cleaned it up using little pins and needles,” said Ron Tykoski, vice president of science at the Perot, “that we realized it was not like a little crocodile, but instead it was a new little kind of dinosaur.”

After three years of investigation and research, scientists recently published their findings in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. They named the dinosaur after the volunteer who found it, Murray Cohen, as well as the city it was found near. The dinosaur’s name, Ampelognathus coheni, roughly translates to “Cohen’s Grapevine jaw.”

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Many ornithopod dinosaurs are similar, so it wasn’t clear at first if scientists had stumbled upon a new species; however, upon further inspection of the fossil, they quickly realized the jaw didn’t match the anatomy of other big dinosaurs in the area. After eliminating the potential of a crocodile and a big dinosaur, scientists began seriously examining if they were dealing with a new species.

The small dinosaur would have been about six-feet long, or the size of a standard office desk, and weigh somewhere around 20 to 60 pounds, or the size of a mid-sized dog.

“It’s a little bitty animal,” Tykoski said. “You could almost hold its head in your hand.”

Important fossil discovery

Small plant-eating dinosaurs hadn’t been discovered in North Texas before, making this finding somewhat novel for the science world, according to Tykoski.

The discovery also has significant implications for the science community and the future of fossil exploration in North Texas, he said. The last time scientists uncovered a new species in the same rock formation was in 2010.

Moreover, dinosaur fossils from 96 million years ago are not particularly well-represented in North America, which paints a murky picture of what life was like at that time.

“[This fossil] is actually starting to give us the best picture, the best snapshot of life, in eastern North America, east of the Seaway of this age,” Tykoski said. “We predicted there should be plant-eating dinosaurs and animals living here. We just can’t find them.”

This little dinosaur’s discovery in North Texas verifies that this species did in fact call the area home at one point and suggests more can be found in the years ahead.

“There will be more discoveries, and more things coming out in the coming years,” Tykoski said. “We’re just starting to scratch the surface, and just starting to paint that picture of life here in our backyard 96 million years ago.”

Related:Ancient beaver fossil named after Buc-ee’s mascot

. Noor Adatia is a trending news reporter on the breaking team. Born and raised in Dallas, she graduated from Boston University's College of Communication in 2020. Before joining The Dallas Morning News, she worked for The Houston Chronicle, The Sacramento Bee and POLITICO.

noor.adatia@dallasnews.com nooradatia