Celina is focusing on the future of its multifamily and commercial development

Courtesy of city of Celina/Facebook

Celina Record
By Audrey Henvey | Star Local Media
December 8, 2023

As Celina faces a future of more multifamily and commercial development, the city is taking steps to outline its standards.

In November, the Celina City Council approved a multifamily and commercial vision book, a document that aims to both enhance and better define current rules for amenities, open space and place-making in the city. Celina is one of the few cities that already regulates open space and amenities for new development, a city presentation on Nov. 14 stated.

“We know that we’re fast growing, so we want to make sure that as we grow, we have the most advanced regulations available to us,” Development Services Executive Director Dusty McAfee told the Celina Record.

McAfee said the process of developing the vision book included working with Kimley Horn to research the latest methods for incorporating open space and gathering spaces in commercial and multifamily development.

According to city documentation, the vision book also requires that future commercial and multifamily development invests more in “experiential design.” McAfee said experiential design equates to common areas that allow people to gather and that might include components such as an art sculpture or water feature.

While Celina’s residential market has been strong in previous years, McAfee said the city has seen more multifamily development and commercial development emerge.

The vision book approved in November provides standards for development elements like general project layout, open space and quality guidelines.

“The funny thing is that Celina already has some of the toughest development standards in the state,” McAfee said. “We’re platinum for a scenic city, so that means we already have advanced regulations, so we’re trying to go from an A to an A-plus.”

McAfee added that multiple multifamily developments coming to Celina are already incorporating amenity packages that are in the vision book because the area market is strong.

“So if this were maybe a lesser market or maybe a one-off market, some of those amenity packages may not be voluntarily provided by the developer, but here they’re being provided because geographically we’re in just such a strong market,” he said.

A copy of the vision book is available at tinyurl.com/2fxz8hbe.