If you've walked the sidewalk behind the Colleyville Senior Center any time in the last decade, you know exactly what used to be back there: a plain half-mile path, a World War II memorial, an old practice backstop, and not much else. It was the kind of stretch you used because it was flat and close, not because it gave you a reason to linger.
That's changing, but not in the way a typical city park upgrade changes. Colleyville isn't building this one and cutting a ribbon. It's planting it in installments, on a schedule tied to what the city budgets each spring, which means the nine acres behind the Senior Center will look meaningfully different every few months for the next several years. If you're the kind of resident who walks the same loop out of habit, that's worth knowing now rather than discovering by accident next spring.
Why This Started as a "Tree Museum," Not a Park
The idea came out of a City Council work session on October 21, 2025, where Parks and Recreation Director Lisa Escobedo and Beautification Supervisor Joe Flynn pitched something more specific than a landscaping refresh. Flynn described the goal directly to council:
"We looked at it as more of a tree museum or a tree theme park."
The design calls for more than 200 trees across more than 40 varieties, planted along the existing half-mile trail with interpretive elements meant to teach residents what they're looking at, not just give them shade. The site sits behind the Senior Center and Recreation Center, next to O.C. Taylor Elementary and Fire Station 2, which puts it in a part of town people already pass on foot, not a destination you'd have to plan a trip around.
The city's own Tree Board, a volunteer group established in December 1998, is the body that flagged this particular open space as the right place to do it. That's a detail worth sitting with: this wasn't a developer's idea or a one-time grant windfall. It came from a standing city committee that has spent nearly three decades evaluating where Colleyville should be adding trees, and this is the biggest project it has put forward.
What's Actually in the Ground So Far
The planting has happened in phases, each one separately funded and separately approved by council. Here's what's done and what's next, based on the city's own project updates:
- Phase I, February 2026: Council approved $89,600 to Smith Lawn and Tree for 42 larger, more established trees, including several oak and magnolia varieties, Texas ash, Montezuma cypress, American elm, pine, and big tooth maple. Irrigation and planting combined brought Phase I's total cost to about $95,000.
- Phase II, early May 2026: Council approved $65,146 for 64 flowering trees, including crape myrtles, Texas redbuds, desert willows, Texas mountain laurels, mesquites, mimosas, golden rain trees, Mexican buckeyes, vitex, and Eve's necklace.
- Phase III, scheduled for late May 2026: The city's own project page lists this phase, covering the remaining trees along the walking trail, as the next step after Phase II. It had not been confirmed complete as of this writing.
Future phases, according to a city social media update, could add landscaping, signage, and lighting. None of that is funded yet. That's the part that matters if you're trying to figure out when this project will feel "finished." City staff told council an aggressive schedule could wrap the whole thing in roughly three years, but the more realistic estimate is three to five years, because each phase depends on that year's Capital Improvement Plan allocation. One council member floated a total buildout cost near $500,000, which staff said they'd try to reduce by using in-house crews and staging purchases across budget cycles rather than committing to it all at once.
Deputy Mayor Pro Tem Scotty Richardson put the stakes in plain terms when the first phase was approved: planting this many trees on nine acres of open space, he said, is "a big deal" for a city that has spent years trying to save what mature tree cover it already has.
The Practical Read: Watch the Spring Council Calendar, Not a Finish Line
Here's the thing about a project funded this way. There isn't a single date to circle. The trail's completion is really a series of small votes, one most likely every spring when the city sets its Capital Improvement Plan. If you want to know what's coming next, the more useful habit is checking in around each spring budget cycle rather than waiting for an announcement that the whole thing is done.
That also changes how you should think about visiting. A finished park invites one big first look. A trail planted in stages rewards the opposite: short, repeat visits spaced months apart, so you actually notice the difference between what was 42 shade trees in February and 64 flowering ones by early summer. Residents who treat it as a once-a-year loop will miss most of what's actually changing.
How It Stacks Up Against the Trail You Already Know
Colleyville already has a well-established trail loop most residents default to: the Colleyville Nature Center, off Mill Wood Drive near Glade Road. It's worth putting the two side by side, because they serve different moods and different stretches of an afternoon.
| Texas Tree Trail (Senior Center) | Colleyville Nature Center | |
|---|---|---|
| Size | 9 acres | 46 acres |
| Trail length | 0.5 mile | 3.5 miles |
| Status | Actively being planted through 2026 and beyond | Fully established |
| Character | Interpretive, tree-focused, still filling in | Nine ponds, wooded, mature wildlife habitat |
| Nearby landmarks | O.C. Taylor Elementary, Fire Station 2, WWII memorial | Fishing pier, amphitheater, covered pavilion with grill |
The Nature Center is where you go for a longer walk, a fishing pole, or the kind of quiet that comes from mature tree cover and nine ponds worth of birds. Regulars there also know it for a seasonal Halloween walk that shows up on the calendar most years. The Tree Trail behind the Senior Center is shorter and, for now, sparser. But it's also the one place in Colleyville where you can watch a landscape get built in real time, tree by tree, budget line by budget line, over the course of several years. That's not something the Nature Center, finished long before most current residents moved in, can offer anymore.
What to Actually Do With This
If you live near the Senior Center, the practical move is simple: keep the half-mile loop in your regular walking rotation through the fall and winter, and notice what's different each time you pass. The Phase II flowering trees planted in May should be establishing root systems through this fall's milder weather, which is typically when younger plantings put on visible growth in North Texas. By next spring, if Phase III's remaining trees and any future signage or lighting have cleared a budget vote, the loop will look different again.
For a longer outing or an evening with more shade and water, the Nature Center across town is still the better bet. But the Tree Trail is the one worth checking on periodically over the next few years, precisely because it isn't finished. A city that structured a park this way is, in effect, telling its residents to come back.
If you're weighing what a neighborhood like this looks like up close, whether it's a walk behind the Senior Center or the broader question of what Colleyville living actually involves day to day, Sarah Gunnip has spent more than 25 years watching this market change one season at a time. Reach out for a complimentary home valuation and tailored marketing plan, or just to talk through what's happening in the neighborhoods she knows best.
