Celina’s First Costco Is Now Under Construction at Preston and Ownsby
For years, Celina residents have made the drive south to Frisco or west to Little Elm to stock up at a Costco. That trip has an expiration date. Construction is now underway on a 158,000-square-foot Costco warehouse at the corner of Preston Road and Ownsby Parkway — the first location the membership warehouse chain will plant inside city limits.
Permits were filed with a June 2026 construction start, and the current estimated completion date is late November 2026. If that schedule holds, Celina shoppers could be walking those wide concrete aisles before the end of the year.
A Anchor for a Larger Mixed-Use Footprint
The Costco is not arriving alone. The warehouse is part of a broader mixed-use development that will also include a Lowe’s home improvement store. That pairing — a bulk retailer and a home improvement center on the same tract at one of Celina’s most trafficked intersections — signals the kind of commercial density that city planners and residents have watched materialize steadily along the Preston Road corridor.
For a city that has spent the better part of the last decade building out its residential base at a pace that consistently lands it among the fastest-growing communities in Texas, the arrival of large-format retail is something of a coming-of-age marker. These are the stores that follow rooftops, and Celina now has the rooftops to justify them.
What 158,000 Square Feet Means in Practice
To put the scale in context, 158,000 square feet is roughly the footprint of three standard grocery stores side by side. A typical Costco carries everything from bulk groceries and pharmacy services to optical departments, tire centers, and seasonal merchandise that shifts with the calendar. For families in Celina and the surrounding communities of Prosper, Gunter, and Van Alstyne, eliminating a 20-to-30-minute one-way trip to the nearest existing location is a meaningful quality-of-life change.
The timing also matters for the city’s commercial tax base. Large-format retail generates substantial sales tax revenue, and Celina’s municipal budget has been balancing rapid infrastructure investment against the reality that residential development, while fast, does not immediately produce the same tax yield as commercial and retail activity. A Costco at full operation changes that calculus in a meaningful way.
Preston Road as Celina’s Commercial Spine
The Preston and Ownsby site is not an isolated announcement. Preston Road has emerged as the de facto commercial spine of Celina’s growth zone. Academy Sports + Outdoors is under construction at 3525 S. Preston Road, a 63,834-square-foot store that was expected to begin construction in September 2025 and reach completion in 2026. Panda Express opened its first Celina location in late May or early June of this year. The cumulative picture along that corridor is one of a retail ecosystem filling in around a residential population that arrived faster than the supporting commercial infrastructure could follow.
For longtime residents who remember when a trip for almost anything beyond basics meant leaving town, the density of announcements in a single season can feel abrupt. But it also reflects the straightforward math of a city whose population growth has attracted the attention of national retail site-selection teams.
What Comes Next
With a late November 2026 target, the project will move through summer and fall construction seasons on what is already a busy stretch of roadway. Drivers on Preston Road near Ownsby Parkway should expect the visual cues of active large-format retail construction — earthwork, structural steel, and eventually the distinctive low-slung roofline that Costco warehouses share across every market they enter.
No opening date has been officially announced by the company, and construction timelines for projects of this scale can shift. The November estimate reflects the permit filing projections on record, not a confirmed ribbon-cutting commitment.
What is confirmed is that the ground is moving and the permits are real. For a community that has spent years watching its neighbor cities to the south fill in with exactly this kind of retail, Celina’s turn has arrived at the corner of Preston and Ownsby.
