Drive down Preston Road on any Saturday morning right now and you'll pass two active construction sites less than four miles apart. One is a multi-story concrete shell downtown, cranes still parked on site, walls still going up. The other is a finished big-box building with the signage already mounted and the parking lot landscaping already in the ground. Both projects have been "coming soon" for over a year. Only one of them has a date you can actually circle on a calendar.
That gap between announced and almost-finished is the thing worth understanding if you live near Mustang Lakes right now, because it tells you which stories to trust and which ones to keep watching.
The Project With Better Press Moves Slower
Celina's Downtown Center, the building meant to house the city's library and administrative offices, has been the city's flagship announcement since it was first approved in November 2023. Early city projections pointed to a winter 2026 opening. The most recent word from City Manager Robert Ranc, reported by Community Impact in July, pushes that to February 2027.
The price tag has moved too, and not in a way that suggests the project got smaller. Earlier releases, reported by WFAA when the parking garage was still under construction, bundled the garage and the main building into a single $93.5 million figure. This year's city breakdown, detailed by Community Impact in July, separates the two: $59 million for the Downtown Center itself, with the garage priced out at $19.3 million on its own. That garage, at least, is done. Construction wrapped in December, and it's already open with close to 400 free spaces.
The 26,209-square-foot library that's supposed to anchor the rest of the site is further along than it was a few months ago but still not close. Structural concrete work is complete, and crews have moved on to exterior framing, stair installation, and utility tie-ins. A building that size, with a rooftop community space and a digital mural designed by blind artist John Bramblitt, doesn't skip steps just because the announcement was exciting.
Downtown has a second big-ticket item working through the same slow-moving pipeline. In July, the city and the Celina Economic Development Corporation announced Trackside Junction, a $15 million mixed-use development from Nack Development, the group behind projects in Frisco's Rail District and Old Town Lewisville. The plan adds roughly 15,000 square feet of retail, restaurant, and office space along Louisiana Drive, financed in part through the city's Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone No. 11. Mayor Ryan Tubbs framed it as a continuation of the city's long game:
"Downtown is where our story began, and it's where we continue to invest in our future."
That's a fine sentiment for a ribbon-cutting speech. It's also, as of this writing, a project with funding and no groundbreaking date. Announcements are not construction. Here's how the current lineup actually breaks down:
| Project | Where it stands right now | Best current estimate |
|---|---|---|
| Downtown Center (library and city offices) | Structural concrete complete, exterior framing underway | February 2027 |
| Downtown Center parking garage | Finished, open, nearly 400 free spaces | Complete since December 2025 |
| Trackside Junction (Louisiana Drive) | Announced, TIRZ-funded, no groundbreaking yet | Not yet scheduled |
| Costco (Celina) | Exterior, signage, and landscaping complete; interior buildout finishing | August 26, 2026 |
| Sprouts Farmers Market (Preston Crossroads) | Under construction | Estimated 2027 |
Notice the pattern isn't public versus private. It's finished versus still-early. Sprouts has been in the pipeline since mid-2025 and is still more than a year from opening, same as the library. Costco jumped the line because it's already at the stocking-and-signage stage. If you want to know when something near you will actually be usable, check how close it looks to done, not how recently it was announced.
What's Actually Finished While You Wait For The Ribbon-Cutting
Costco is the clearest case. The exterior is complete, the permanent signage is up, and the parking lot landscaping is planted. Crews are finishing the interior buildout now, and the store is set to open August 26, less than three weeks from today.
It's not the only thing landing on the Preston Road corridor without much fanfare. A handful of smaller openings have quietly filled in around it over the past several months:
- Academy Sports + Outdoors, a nearly 64,000-square-foot store at 3525 S. Preston Road
- Blaze Pizza, opening at The Crossing at Moore Farms, 3515 S. Preston Road
- A new PNC Bank branch offering personal and business banking
- First State Bank, relocating from its Ash Street location to a new building at 433 S. Preston Road
None of these made the kind of announcement that gets a mayor's quote attached to it. They just got built and opened. That's worth remembering the next time a splashy downtown rendering makes the rounds. The projects without a press release are frequently the ones that show up on schedule.
The Weekend Anchor That's Already Running
If you're looking for something that's actually operating this weekend rather than sometime next year, downtown Celina already has one. The Silos, housed in a restored set of century-old grain silos at 300 N. Oklahoma Drive, has been open since March 2025 and has settled into a routine that's worth building a Friday around. The outdoor space, called The Yard, runs live music Friday and Saturday nights from 7 to 10 p.m., with eight firepits scattered around picnic tables and a 32-foot observation deck that's the tallest publicly accessible viewpoint in the city. Chef Tony Sanchez runs the kitchen for the main dining room, which is open Wednesday through Saturday.
A few blocks away, the Celina Friday Night Market has been running since 2014 and still draws over 60 vendors to the Downtown Square once a month, 6 to 9 p.m., with rotating local musicians and a mix of produce, baked goods, and handmade goods from area farmers and artisans. Neither of these needed a construction crew or a bond measure. They're just there, and they've been there long enough to become part of the actual rhythm of a Celina weekend rather than a headline about one.
What This Actually Means For Your Next Few Months
The next time you see a rendering of Celina's future downtown, or a headline about another mixed-use announcement, hold onto some skepticism until you can see steel going up. The projects that matter to your calendar right now are the ones already past the exciting-announcement stage. That's Costco, opening in seventeen days. That's the parking garage, already handling downtown traffic. That's Academy Sports and Blaze Pizza and a bank that just moved three blocks over. The library will get there. So will Trackside Junction. Just don't plan your Saturday around either one yet.
If watching a neighborhood change this fast has you thinking about what it means for your own home's value, or whether now is the moment to make a move within Celina, Rebecca Lee Group tracks these shifts closely and offers a free home valuation to help you see where things actually stand.
