If you live in Sutton Fields, Light Farms, or one of the newer streets branching off the Dallas North Tollway, where do you actually take the dog on a Tuesday evening? For most of the city's recent history, the honest answer has been a single address: Old Celina Park, out on FM 428, a real trip across town for a lot of the newest rooftops on the west side.
That answer is changing this fall, and not in the way most people assume.
What Old Celina Park Has Always Done Well
Old Celina Park sits on 187 acres at 12670 FM 428 and functions as the anchor of the city's youth sports culture. Its ballfields earned a Field of Excellence Award from Pioneer Athletes in 2023, and on any given weeknight they're filled with football, baseball, softball, and soccer practices. Beyond the diamonds, the park offers a walking trail, a library-hosted Storybook Trail for younger kids, catch-and-release ponds with resident turtles, and a splash pad that runs through the summer. A few blocks from the historic square, Founders Station Park adds a smaller, more neighborhood-scale option with a tennis court, a playground, and a gazebo.
What none of that covers is drop-in, no-reservation recreation for adults. Old Celina Park's calendar is built around leagues. Field time gets claimed by rosters months in advance. If you and a neighbor want to knock a ball around after work, or you're the kind of person who owns a disc golf bag, there hasn't been a real answer in Celina, and there certainly hasn't been one on the west side.
What's Actually Arriving This Fall
Wilson Creek Park, at the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Roseland Parkway, broke ground in September 2025 as part of a construction budget of roughly $50 million. The project is being built in phases, with the completed park eventually reaching close to 100 acres. The first phase, covering about 30 acres, is scheduled to finish this fall.
That first phase is where the real change shows up. Planned amenities include ball fields, a pavilion, playgrounds, a mix of soft-surface and concrete trails along the creek corridor, and two additions Celina hasn't had anywhere else: a nine-hole disc golf course and dedicated pickleball courts. For residents in Sutton Fields, Light Farms, and the subdivisions filling in along the Tollway, this becomes the closest major park once it opens, replacing a drive across town with something closer to a walk or a short bike ride.
Here's how the two parks compare on paper:
| Old Celina Park | Wilson Creek Park (Phase 1) | |
|---|---|---|
| Location | 12670 FM 428 | Sunset Blvd & Roseland Pkwy |
| Size | 187 acres | 30 acres (phase 1 of ~100) |
| New to Celina | League ballfields already established | Disc golf and pickleball |
| Water feature | Catch-and-release ponds | Creek corridor trails |
| Best for | Team sports, family days | Solo or small-group drop-in play |
| Status | Established, award-winning | Fall 2026 opening |
Why Disc Golf and Pickleball Are the Real Story
It would be easy to read this as Celina simply getting a second big park. That undersells what's happening. Wilson Creek Park will have its own ball fields, so it isn't abandoning the team-sport model Old Celina Park runs on. But the two amenities getting the most attention in the plans, a nine-hole disc golf course and dedicated pickleball courts, don't require a league, a reserved block, or a roster. You show up with a bag or a paddle and you play, which is a format Celina's parks system has never offered before.
That distinction matters more in a city growing as fast as Celina. A family with kids in travel soccer already has a relationship with Old Celina Park's fields. A couple who wants an hour of pickleball after work, or a retiree who took up disc golf as a low-impact hobby, has had nowhere to go. Wilson Creek Park closes that gap for the west side specifically, and it does it with amenities the city's flagship park was never designed to offer.
What to Watch Before You Plan Around It
The fall 2026 target applies to the first 30-acre phase, not the full park. Construction timelines on public projects shift with weather, permitting, and budget, so treat the opening date as a strong signal rather than a locked calendar entry. If the disc golf course and pickleball courts are the amenities you're waiting on, it's worth checking the city's parks and trails page as the season progresses rather than assuming a specific weekend.
When You Want to Go Farther
Once Wilson Creek Park opens, Celina residents will have two very different park experiences within city limits: team-sport infrastructure at Old Celina Park and drop-in individual recreation at Wilson Creek. For days when you want more distance underfoot, two regional systems are worth knowing about. Ray Roberts Lake State Park, about 25 miles northwest, anchors a 10-mile multiuse trail along the Elm Fork of the Trinity River, with trailheads at FM 455, FM 428, and Highway 380. Trinity Trail at Lake Lavon, roughly 20 miles southeast, runs a 25.5-mile loop around the lake with 11 access points, popular with hikers, joggers, and birdwatchers alike.
None of that replaces what's landing at Sunset and Roseland this fall. It just means that for the first time, a resident on Celina's west side has a genuine choice of where to spend a Tuesday evening, and that choice didn't exist a year ago.
Whenever the question shifts from where to walk the dog to where to put down roots, that's a conversation I'm glad to have. If Celina's changing map of parks and neighborhoods has you thinking about your next move in the DFW area, reach out to Krista Cheatham and let's talk through what fits.
