As Celina’s park system expands to serve a growing population, officials have to balance recreation and water conservation.
Crews broke ground on Wilson Creek Park, a roughly 100-acre park at the corner of future Sunset Boulevard and Roseland Parkway, in September 2025.
Designs for Ousley Park, a 9-acre park that traces the path of Doe Branch Creek near downtown Celina, are also underway.
Officials are rethinking certain aspects of the parks–natural grass sports fields at Wilson Creek Park and a potential splash pad at Ousley Park–in light of the city’s water conservation efforts, Director of Parks Steve Walsh said.
Celina City Council provided feedback on conceptual designs for Ousley Park and a design amendment for Wilson Creek Park at a Sept. 8 meeting.
What’s happening
Council decided to build the sports fields at Wilson Creek Park with synthetic turf instead of grass to save water.
Original plans for the park featured two multi-use athletic fields made of natural grass and four diamond game fields made of synthetic turf.
Construction on Phase 1, which includes the two multi-use athletic fields, started in 2025. The diamond fields will be built as part of a future phase, Walsh said.
Based on the original plans, city staff applied for a permit from the North Texas Groundwater Conservation District, or NTGCD, to use 48 million gallons of well water per year for irrigation.
The NTGCD Board approved a permit for just 9.1 million gallons per year, according to Walsh’s presentation.
That would be enough to water a single natural grass field for 35 weeks each year, though it would be difficult to maintain in a dry year like 2026, Walsh said.
The approach
Council opted to make both of the multi-use fields synthetic turf.
In addition to saving water, making all of the park’s planned sports fields out of turf will simplify maintenance and let players get back on the field faster after it rains, Walsh said.
“It’s Texas,” Mayor Pro Tem Brandon Grumbles said. “I really feel like all fields should be turf fields just because of the drought aspect … Mother Nature’s terrible on us.”
It will cost roughly $8 million to put down turf on both multi-use fields, and installation will take 5-6 months, per Walsh’s presentation.
The parks department will need to replace the turf in 10-12 years, and the replacement will cost around $4-5 million, Walsh said.
What else?
Council also gave feedback on several aspects of Ousley Park, which is in the conceptual design phase.
During the master planning phase in 2023, the design team removed a splash pad from the plan to lower costs, then added it back based on a community survey, according to prior reporting.
In the survey, 32% of residents said they wanted a splash pad in Ousley Park, nearly ten times the response rate for any other amenity, a project representative said at the time.
Although the updated version of the master plan passed in early 2024 included a splash pad, the design team omitted it from conceptual designs in light of the city’s push for water conservation, Walsh said.
In response to council’s feedback, the design team will add the splash pad back into consideration.
“I know we have a lot of young families that would use it once we’re not under the water constraints that we are today,” Mayor Ryan Tubbs said.
Future designs will include options with a splash pad so council can evaluate the value of having the amenity compared to the amount of water it would use, City Manager Robert Ranc said.
Next steps
City officials originally planned to wrap up construction on Phase 1 of Wilson Creek Park in fall 2026, according to the project website.
Because of the additional time needed to install turf on the multi-use athletic fields, that work will likely finish in 2027.
As for Ousley Park, the design team will incorporate council’s feedback and begin the next phase of the design process in November.
Once developmental designs for Ousley Park are complete, council will review the plans in early 2027, Walsh said.
