If you've tried to get a table on the Celina Square on a Friday night lately, you already know the problem. It isn't that downtown lacks restaurants. It's that the same six or eight storefronts have been swapping tenants for years while the footprint itself never got bigger. A restaurant closes, something else opens in its place a few months later, and the total amount of space downtown has to offer stays exactly the same.
That changed on July 14, when the City of Celina and the Celina Economic Development Corporation announced Trackside Junction, a $15 million public-private project with Nack Development that will do something the Square hasn't done in a long time: add square footage instead of just recycling it.
The Square That Rotates, Not Grows
Downtown Celina has functioned the same way for years. New concepts move into old buildings. Toasted Walnut Table and Market, Heyday, Lucy's on the Square, The Wick Restaurant and Papa Gallo's have all built loyal followings inside a historic footprint that hasn't expanded to match the crowds showing up for it. That's part of why weekend parking around the Square has gotten tighter every season, and why a Friday reservation increasingly means a wait.
Trackside Junction is a direct answer to that ceiling. The project will transform an empty parking lot at 111 W. Pecan St. into two mixed-use buildings totaling 55,000 square feet, of which 15,000 square feet is dedicated retail and restaurant space. According to Celina EDC executive director Anthony Satarino, that addition increases the total amount of commercial space in downtown Celina by 20 percent. Run that percentage backward and it puts downtown's entire existing commercial footprint at somewhere around 75,000 square feet today, growing to roughly 90,000 once Trackside Junction opens. That's the first time in recent memory the Square's capacity has actually changed, rather than just its tenant list.
Mayor Ryan Tubbs framed the announcement in terms locals will recognize:
"Downtown is where our story began, and it's where we continue to invest in our future."
What $15 Million Actually Buys Downtown
The city isn't writing Nack Development a blank check. Celina City Council approved the deal 5-2, and the incentive package that made it possible is worth breaking down, because it shows how much public money is actually behind this versus how much is private risk.
| Funding source | Contribution |
|---|---|
| City of Celina | Sold a $1 million downtown parcel to the developer for $1 |
| TIRZ No. 11 | $1.7 million grant |
| Celina Economic Development Corporation | $350,000 grant |
| Total public incentive | $3.05 million |
| Nack Development's private investment | At least $15 million |
For roughly every public dollar committed, the developer is putting in about five of its own. In exchange for that incentive package, Nack has to break ground by the start of 2027 and complete both buildings by mid-2028, according to the terms reported by Community Impact. If those milestones slip, ownership of the land reverts back to the city. The two council members who voted against the deal, Shea Scott and Shane Lambert, weren't objecting to the project itself. Both said their concern was narrower: a clause requiring the city to lease an 18-spot parking lot on Louisiana Drive as part of the agreement. The city also plans to add a flashing crosswalk across Louisiana Drive at Pecan Street, pending approval from the Texas Department of Transportation, to connect the new buildings back to the existing Square on foot.
The Fund That Sat Unused for Nine Years
Here's the part that explains why this feels like a bigger deal than the usual downtown announcement. Celina created Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone No. 11 back in 2017 specifically to funnel future property tax revenue from downtown growth back into downtown improvements. For nine years, that tool existed on paper without a project attached to it. Trackside Junction is the first development to actually draw on TIRZ 11 funding. The zone wasn't dormant because nobody wanted to invest downtown. It was dormant because nothing downtown had been big enough, or ready enough, to qualify.
CEDC board president Clint Bissett put it plainly when the deal was announced: great downtowns don't happen overnight, they grow through intentionality and long-term financing tools finally getting used. Nack Development is a known quantity in this part of Texas, with prior projects in Frisco's Rail District and Old Town Lewisville. If you've walked either of those on a weekend, you have a rough sense of what a more programmed version of the Celina Square might eventually feel like, once the buildings are actually standing.
The Storefront That's Already Turning Over
While Trackside Junction is still on paper, the Square isn't waiting around. The old Jimbo's Pizza space at 501 W. Walnut is becoming Nowhere Bar, a new concept from Taylor Witt and Katie Dunn, who also own the Little Wooden Penguin. They're describing it as a fun version of a dive bar, with burgers, beers, sports on the TVs, and shuffleboard. The patio out front is getting redone at the same time.
It's a small thing next to a $15 million development, but it's also a preview of what Trackside Junction is trying to formalize at scale: storefronts on the Square staying active well past a typical dinner hour, giving residents somewhere to end a Friday night that isn't a 20-minute drive toward Frisco or McKinney.
Everything Else Is Happening Somewhere Else
While downtown works out how to add space to its historic core, the rest of Celina's growth has been landing a few miles away on Preston Road. Costco's Celina warehouse is targeting a grand opening on August 26 at the Village at Ownsby Farms, a 40-acre retail district at Preston and Ownsby. It comes with a full pharmacy, an optical center, a hearing aid clinic, and a 15,000-square-foot fuel station with ten pump stacks. Torchy's Tacos has already been open since April 15, occupying a 3,800-square-foot space at 3505 S. Preston Road after residents spent more than a year watching the storefront get built out.
On the west side of town, a different kind of answer is opening at The Creeks at Celina, a 28,000-square-foot development from Weitzman built around a six-acre pond at the corner of Frontier Parkway and the Dallas North Tollway. Its two anchor tenants couldn't be more different from a Costco run: Haraz Coffee House, a Yemeni concept known for its cardamom-spiced Harazi Mufawar and saffron Sana'a Latte, and Capo's Pizza & Pasta, a halal-friendly menu from owner Hamza Milhem that blends New York-style pizza with Mediterranean dishes like zaatar pies and gyros. The restaurant end caps come with roughly 900-square-foot patios facing the water, built for lingering rather than a quick pickup order.
Three different parts of Celina are solving three different problems this year. Preston Road is closing the daily-needs gap that's sent residents to Frisco for a decade. The Creeks is giving the west side its first walkable evening option. Downtown is the only one of the three actually expanding its historic footprint rather than building something new on raw land, which is why Trackside Junction matters more to the character of the town than its square footage alone suggests.
The Calendar Testing the Old Square Before the New One Arrives
None of this year's new buildings will be finished before Celina's biggest annual weekends on the Square. The Friday Night Market runs weekly through the fall, turning the Square into a rotating lineup of local vendors. Celina Oktoberfest lands on Saturday, October 3, followed by Beware of the Square on Saturday, October 24, and Christmas on the Square on Wednesday, December 2. Every one of those events will run on the current, unexpanded downtown footprint, the same one that's been filling up and running out of parking for years.
That's the real test happening right now, well before Trackside Junction breaks ground. The Square has to hold this fall's crowds on the same square footage it's had for years, while everyone waits to see what an extra 15,000 square feet actually does to a Friday night once it's real instead of a rendering.
If you're weighing how downtown's next few years might change what it's like to live near the Square, or wondering how a project like Trackside Junction could shift home values in the surrounding blocks, that's a conversation worth having with someone who tracks Celina block by block. Work With Brian to talk through what these changes mean for your corner of town.
