Celina has $50 million, 100-acre park plan; bond package anticipated

Diamonds for baseball and softball; fields for soccer, football and cricket; and courts for pickleball, tennis and basketball will all be a part of a new $50 million, 100-acre park in Celina.

The Celina City Council on July 11 adopted a master plan for Wilson Creek Park, a recreational area that would be on the city’s southeast side, east of Brookshire’s grocery at Sunset Boulevard and the future Roseland Parkway.

“We started off with Christmas on the Square last year. Through meetings and surveys and staff and through you, we’ve come down to this one,” Cody Webb, director of parks and recreation, told the City Council, referring to a rendering.

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The Dallas Morning News asked about funding for the project, and Celina Mayor Ryan Tubbs said park construction will be part of a bond package.

“The timing of the issuance has not been determined at this time. We are hopeful that a portion of it will be included in the 2024 series,” Tubbs said.

City officials said a timeline is not yet known regarding when construction will begin or end.

Elizabeth Mcllrath Jarrell, principal with civil engineering firm Dunaway Associates, told the council in June that one of the first steps in designing the master plan involved exploring the site to understand the ecosystems in place, what neighborhoods are coming, what new roadways will affect the park and what utilities will be needed.

“We realize with a 100-acre park in the middle of a community that’s growing like Celina, this is a special moment for us to make sure that we’re developing a park that’s meeting your community needs; we realize the importance of this,” Jarrell said.

Next was public input.

“We got to talk to the community, and there was no-holds-barred on this,” she said.

After city staffers and design consultants received more than 1,000 responses from resident surveys, a plan was formed using the most favored amenities out of two concepts shared in the survey.

Those included ponds, nature trails, a dog park, playground, splash pad, disc golf, and an amphitheater with an event lawn. The area also includes a 2-acre space that will serve as a future fire station site.

Jarrell said the beauty of having a park this size is there is a lot of room for not just athletic needs, but also for community activities such as festivals or 5K events.

She said one of the biggest features is the diamond sports fourplex with batting cages, artificial turf and 300-foot foul lines. The space will have sufficient parking, covered bleachers, a concession area and restrooms.

“So you’d be able to have very big tournaments that can be a destination and also a revenue generator, if [the] council chooses to go that direction,” Jarrell said.

Ponds are an amenity that will help with irrigation costs, and the park has an existing tree line with plenty of shaded areas.

“One of the unique parts of our site analysis was your Master Naturalist did a tree survey and provided that to the parks department so we were able to incorporate that into our analysis,” she said. “And I think we all agree that it was nice to save those trees and provide some trails and picnic tables underneath. So hopefully that will continue to grow over time and will be that shade break that makes the park nice.”

The next steps include working on a scope-of-services agreement with the architect, Webb said.