A New Dining and Retail Corridor Is Taking Shape Along S. Preston Road
For a stretch of road that looked largely undeveloped not long ago, the section of S. Preston Road running through Celina’s southern edge has become one of the more active commercial strips in Collin County. Within a few addresses of one another, several recognizable names have either already opened their doors or are on track to do so before the summer is out. The cumulative effect is a corridor that is starting to feel less like a construction zone and more like a genuine destination.
Torchy’s Tacos Lands First
The most concrete arrival so far is Torchy’s Tacos, which opened its Celina outpost at 3505 S. Preston Road, Suite 120, on April 15 of this year. The Austin-born chain built a loyal following across Texas on the strength of its irreverent taco combinations and consistent quality, and its decision to push north into Celina signals that the city’s population growth has crossed whatever internal threshold the brand uses to justify new markets.
For Celina residents who previously had to drive south to Frisco or McKinney to satisfy the craving, the Preston Road location removes that calculation entirely. The restaurant sits within a broader retail cluster that has been filling out steadily, and its early weeks have given the surrounding development a visible anchor.
Bojangles Confirms a Summer Opening
A few doors down the same corridor, Bojangles has confirmed through a restaurant representative that it will open in Celina this summer. The Southern-style chicken chain, known for its seasoned chicken and made-from-scratch biscuits, has been expanding aggressively across North Texas, and Celina fits the profile of the fast-growing suburban markets where the brand has found traction.
No precise opening date has been announced beyond the summer 2026 window, but the confirmation itself is significant. Fast-casual chains of this size typically don’t signal an opening without the operational pieces already falling into place. Residents who have been watching the construction activity along Preston Road will likely see a ribbon-cutting announcement before August.
Blaze Pizza Joins The Crossing at Moore Farms
At 3515 S. Preston Road, Suite 130 — essentially the same block — Blaze Pizza is also scheduled to open in 2026 at The Crossing at Moore Farms. The chain built its identity around an assembly-line model for custom pizzas fired in under three minutes, which has made it a reliable draw in mixed-use retail centers similar to what Moore Farms is becoming.
The addition of Blaze rounds out what is shaping up to be a genuine dining cluster rather than a scattered collection of individual openings. When a block can offer tacos, Southern chicken, and fast-fired pizza within walking distance of one another, it starts to function differently in the minds of residents planning an evening out or a quick lunch.
Academy Sports Brings 64,000 Square Feet of Retail
The dining openings are only part of the story on Preston Road. A new Academy Sports + Outdoors location is coming to 3525 S. Preston Road, bringing nearly 64,000 square feet of camping gear, athletic equipment, and sports shoes to a city where youth athletics are deeply embedded in the culture.
For a community with the youth sports participation rates Celina has, the practical implications are straightforward. Families who were driving to Frisco or Allen for cleats, team gear, and camping supplies before a weekend at one of the area’s parks will have a local option. The store’s scale — close to a full city block of retail floor space — suggests Academy sees Celina not just as a convenient satellite location but as a primary market.
What the Pattern Suggests
Taken individually, each of these openings is a routine business story: a chain expands, a retailer finds a new site, a fast-casual concept enters a growing suburb. Taken together along a single corridor in a city that had a fraction of its current population just a decade ago, they tell something more specific about where Celina sits in its growth arc.
The businesses locating on S. Preston Road are not pioneers taking a speculative risk. They are following rooftops and demographics that have already been established. The fact that multiple mid-to-large-scale operators chose addresses within a few hundred feet of one another suggests a shared read on where retail gravity in Celina is currently concentrated.
That concentration also creates a feedback loop. Each additional opening makes the corridor more attractive to the next operator, which in turn draws more foot traffic, which reinforces the case for the one after that. The Crossing at Moore Farms and the surrounding properties along Preston appear to have reached the point in that cycle where momentum is self-sustaining.
A Separate Experiment on the Tollway
Not every new commercial project in Celina is anchoring itself to the Preston corridor. The Creeks at Celina, a 28,000-square-foot lifestyle and dining district developed by Weitzman at the northwest corner of the Dallas North Tollway and Frontier Parkway, is taking a different approach. Designed around a six-acre scenic pond and positioned as a high-end social gathering space for West Celina, it is currently home to Haraz Coffee House and Capo’s Pizza and Pasta as its primary social anchors.
The Creeks project is smaller in footprint than the Preston corridor developments and deliberately boutique in its tenant mix, but it reflects the same underlying premise: that Celina’s residential growth has matured to the point where the city can sustain distinct commercial nodes with distinct identities rather than funneling all retail traffic to a single strip.
What to Watch This Summer
The practical near-term question for residents is sequencing. Torchy’s is already operating. Bojangles, Blaze Pizza, and Academy Sports are all moving toward openings within a summer 2026 window, though confirmed dates for each remain outstanding. For anyone who has been tracking the construction activity along S. Preston, the next few months should provide a fairly steady series of answers.
