DFW International Airport opened the largest duty-free store in the Americas on Wednesday, unveiling a years-in-the-making luxury shopping experience just in time for the holiday travel season.

The two-story store is in Terminal D between Gates D22 and D23 just past the security checkpoint, providing a dramatic welcome to travelers, including international arrivals connecting through the airport.

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With perfumes, cosmetics, clothing and liquor from leading high-end brands like Estee Lauder, Armani and Johnnie Walker, the 17,400 square-foot space contains all the amenities a traveler would expect to find in a duty-free store.

It comes at a time when duty-free shopping is on an upswing, said Steve Flory, CEO of CBI Retail Ventures, one of four partners in the store's operating company, TRG Duty Free.

At a time when malls are struggling to attract customers, the airport environment provides a captive audience for retailers to showcase their wares, especially with more people flying every year.

That’s coincided with a shift at DFW and elsewhere that has seen duty-free stores moving away from the days when only outbound international passengers could shop there and instead cater to shoppers of all types. At DFW, domestic passengers in the terminal can buy anything at the duty-free store except liquor and cigarettes.

“Anything else you could buy here like you could on Rodeo Drive," Flory said. “People still want to come in, touch and feel the high-end products.”

The store's operators wanted to go beyond a simple shopping experience by creating a space with a unique sense of place, featuring publicly accessible lounge areas on the mezzanine overlooking the retail displays and large-scale sculptures from renowned Texas-born artist James Surls.

Several Texas brands are also prominently featured in the store, including spirits from Fort Worth’s TX Whiskey and belt buckles from Dallas’s Bohlin Company.

The goal, Flory said, was to build a shopping experience that competes and even surpasses what’s found at foreign airports more known for their opulence.

“If we’re going to compete globally, we have to have the same design elements that are found in other parts of the globe. In fact, we want to excel beyond those,” he said.

Building out the store, which replaced space previously dedicated exclusively to seating, took more than two years, including six months of work to reinforce the floors to support the two-story structure and display cases.

Flory said more than $20 million has been spent developing the new store and improving two other existing duty-free spaces operated by TRG in Terminal D.

Its opening will provide a financial boost for DFW Airport, which counts concessions as its second-largest source of non-airline revenue — about $82 million in the most recent fiscal year — after parking.

“It's an area we felt we needed to expand and grow, therefore we embarked on this type of project ... this was all empty, unused space,” said Ken Buchanan, DFW’s executive vice president of revenue management.

Buchanan said the new space will also help the airport stand out with passengers who visit from all over the world.

“The mind-set was to be world class,” he said. “When you go to some of the best airports in the world, you see something special with their retail and duty-free.”