For most of the last decade, "going out in Celina" meant one thing: walking to the Downtown Square. That is no longer accurate. By the end of August, the town will have a second center of gravity three miles south, and it will pull a different kind of traffic than the Square ever has.
The Square still runs on a calendar. Preston Road now runs on a clock. Learning which one to point yourself at, and when, is the practical skill of living here in 2026.
Preston Road is the everyday spine now
The stretch of South Preston between the DNT ramps and John Campbell Trail has quietly turned into the address you drive to on a Tuesday, not a Saturday. It reads as a list of storefronts rather than a destination, and that is the point.
- Costco, Celina — Verified to open August 26, 2026, with the exterior fully complete, permanent signage installed, and crews finishing the interior buildout as Costco prepares to transition to stocking and opening preparations. The 158,000-square-foot store will offer groceries, electronics, and pharmacy services.
- Chipotle Chipotlane, 3520 S. Preston Road — The Celina Chipotlane features the brand's signature drive-thru pick-up lane, which allows customers to pick up digital orders without leaving their vehicles. Open as of July 2026.
- Torchy's Tacos, 3505 S. Preston Road, Suite 120 — The Austin-based chain's newest outpost debuted on Wednesday, April 15, at 3505 S. Preston Road, Ste. 120.
- Blaze Pizza, 3515 S. Preston Road, Ste. 130 — Blaze Pizza, known for its fast-fired custom pizzas, is heating up The Crossing at Moore Farms in 2026.
- Academy Sports + Outdoors, 3525 S. Preston Road — A brand-new Academy Sports + Outdoors is coming to Celina in 2026 at nearly 64,000 square feet.
- Mo' Bettahs — Mo' Bettahs opened its new Celina location this March, offering a traditional plate lunch featuring a choice of meats paired with macaroni salad and white rice.
Look at the addresses. 3505, 3515, 3520, 3525. Four national brands sharing a hundred yards of curb. That density did not exist here twelve months ago, and it is the reason the Preston corridor will function, by fall, as a genuine errands loop. A grocery run, a haircut, a taco, a return to Academy, a Costco stop, all inside one signal cycle.
The Square cannot compete with that, and it is not trying to.
The Square keeps a monthly clock
Downtown is not competing on convenience. It is competing on calendar. If you already live here, the practical move is to memorize four Saturdays and one Friday per month, then plan the rest of your social life around them.
The dates worth blocking off before the weather turns:
- Friday, July 10 — Celina's Friday Night Market in the heart of Downtown Celina, free to attend, with shopping, food, and live music.
- Friday, August 7 — The August Friday Night Market runs 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. on the Downtown Square.
- Friday, August 21 — Movie Night at the Park presented by Sinacola, screening The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, from 7:00 p.m. at Old Celina Park.
- Saturday, October 3 — Celina Oktoberfest presented by Sinacola, from 3:00 p.m. onwards at Downtown Celina and The Square. The event turns the Square into a slice of Germany, with the official keg tapping, a Dachshund Derby, and brat-eating contests.
- Friday, October 9 — October Friday Night Market on the Square, 6:00 p.m.
- Saturday, October 24 — Beware! of the Square presented by Sinacola, from 4:00 p.m. onwards at Downtown Celina and The Square.
Celina bills itself as the Halloween Capital of North Texas, and Beware! of the Square is the anchor of that identity. The October 24 date is the one out-of-town family and school-year friend groups will ask you about. Locals treat it the way people in other suburbs treat Fourth of July.
One more thing worth naming: Nowhere Bar, downtown. A new bar and restaurant took over the old Jimbo's Pizza location in downtown Celina, owned by Taylor Witt and Katie Dunn, who also own the Little Wooden Penguin. If you have not been yet, the walk from the Square to Nowhere is the shortest possible way to understand why the Square still matters after Costco opens. It does something Preston Road structurally cannot: it puts you on a sidewalk.
The Creeks at Celina is the wildcard between the two poles
There is a third address forming, and it does not fit the Square/Preston binary. The Creeks at Celina, on the DNT side, is being built as a sit-down counterweight to Preston's drive-thru density.
Waterfront patio dining features signature restaurant end-caps with roughly 900-square-foot patios overlooking a central 6-acre pond, and the district is anchored by Haraz Coffee House and Capo's Pizza & Pasta, positioned as the primary dining and social magnet for the DNT corridor. Phase I is ready for delivery, while Phase II is currently planned with a targeted mid-2027 delivery. The center is positioned to capture regional traffic from the newly opened H-E-B.
Notice what is happening here. The Square is calendar-driven and pedestrian. Preston Road is address-driven and drive-through. The Creeks is trying to be something a Texas suburb rarely gets right: a third-place that runs on neither a monthly event nor a two-minute transaction. Whether it works will be visible by winter.
A late-summer Saturday, if you want proof
Here is the geometry, laid out as an actual afternoon.
- 10:00 a.m. Coffee at Haraz at The Creeks, then a slow walk around the pond. You will pass Capo's, which is not open for lunch yet on weekends but is worth peeking at.
- 11:30 a.m. Drive north on Preston. Academy return, Costco run for the week. This is the errands leg. It should take under an hour once the August 26 opening settles into a rhythm.
- 1:30 p.m. Lunch at Torchy's at 3505 S. Preston, or Mo' Bettahs if the line at Torchy's is out the door, which it often is on weekends.
- 4:00 p.m. Home, drop the groceries, reset.
- 6:00 p.m. Downtown Square for the Friday Night Market on the second Friday of the month, or straight to Nowhere Bar on the off-weekends. On October 3, this slot belongs to Oktoberfest.
- 9:30 p.m. Walk back through the Square. The lights on the courthouse building are the best free thing in town.
That template did not exist last summer. In summer 2025, step 2 required a drive to Frisco or McKinney, step 3 was one or two options rather than four, and step 5 was the only real anchor of the day. The Square was carrying the whole social weight of the town.
It no longer is. That is the thesis. Preston Road absorbed the errands. The Creeks is absorbing the sit-down hours. The Square is free to be what it always did best: a place with a calendar.
Why the two poles matter to how the town feels
There is a temptation, when a suburb grows this fast, to read the new retail as a threat to the old center. Celina's 2026 calendar promises over 25 community events that appeal to all ages and interests, from seasonal markets and Friday Night Markets in the spring and fall to autumn celebrations later in the year. That is not the calendar of a downtown in retreat.
What is actually happening is a division of labor. The Square handles the parts of small-town life that require a crowd and a date. Preston Road handles the parts that require a parking spot and fifteen minutes. Neither is trying to be the other, and both got better once they stopped pretending they could be.
For anyone who has lived in Celina for more than a couple of years, the shift is quiet but real. You now have two mental maps of your own town. The Square map, which is a list of Saturdays. The Preston map, which is a list of doors. Learning to hold both at once is the new baseline for being a local here.
And if the Costco parking lot on August 26 is any indication, a lot of people are about to learn it at the same time.
If your Celina address has appreciated as fast as the retail around it and you are curious what the current market would recognize your home for, The Deann Abbott Group provides complimentary, private home valuations for homeowners across Collin County. Get Your Complimentary Home Valuation.
