Serenade Texas: Huffines Communities Breaks Ground on 468-Acre Celina Texas Master Planned Community

Huffines Communities officially broke ground on Serenade Texas on March 26, 2026, adding another major Celina Texas master planned community to one of the fastest-growing corridors in North Texas. Located near Preston and Marilee roads at the border of Collin and Grayson counties, the 468-acre development will deliver approximately 1,000 homes, a 16-acre stocked lake, and a $6 million amenity center, with first homes projected for early 2027.

The groundbreaking drew state and local officials including Celina Mayor Ryan Tubbs, State Representatives Shelly Luther and Keresa Richardson, City Manager Robert Ranc, and Director of Planning Dusty McAfee, a turnout that signals just how much institutional weight Celina’s residential pipeline is carrying right now.

What Serenade Texas Delivers

Serenade is a $100 million project targeting the move-up buyer segment, with homes ranging from 1,800 to 4,500 square feet and priced between $400,000 and $900,000. Phase 1 breaks ground with 543 lots and is scheduled to open in 2027. Full buildout is projected at approximately 1,100 home sites, though current plans target around 875 to 1,000 at completion.

Six builders are signed for this Celina Texas master planned community: CastleRock Communities, DRB Homes, HistoryMaker Homes, Impression Homes, Risewell Homes, and UnionMain Homes. All homes fall within Celina ISD, which continues to be one of the primary draws for families relocating north of Frisco and McKinney.

The amenity package is built around the 16-acre stocked lake with a 750-square-foot fishing pier, resort-style pools, pickleball courts, a dog park, fire pits, and a trail network connecting throughout the community. Huffines’ stated strategy with Serenade is to deliver the full amenity suite before the first homeowners close , a break from the standard MPC model where amenities arrive years after residents do.

The Huffines Track Record in North Texas

Huffines Communities isn’t testing the Celina market. They’re doubling down on it. The firm has delivered more than 15,000 residential lots and 2,400 multifamily units across DFW over 35+ years. Their Heartland Town Center in Kaufman County is already 42% leased, and they recently broke ground on Horizon Lakes, a 900-acre community in Rockwall County targeting 1,650 homes at buildout.

Serenade Texas is their latest Celina Texas master planned community bet, and the location is calculated. The site sits roughly 29 minutes from downtown Frisco and 25 minutes from McKinney, two of the densest employment submarkets in North Texas. It also puts residents within commuting range of Sherman, where Texas Instruments and GlobiTech are constructing multi-billion-dollar semiconductor fabrication facilities expected to generate 3,000 high-tech jobs in Grayson County. That demand hasn’t fully priced into land values yet.

“Celina is close to fast-growing areas, plus many businesses continue relocating to DFW’s northern submarkets at a rapid pace,” said Don Huffines, founder of Huffines Communities. “Serenade is in an ideal location that offers proximity to major corporations while providing a living experience that emphasizes nature, neighbors, and serenity.”

Why Celina Keeps Winning

Celina issued 2,930 single-family residential building permits in 2024, a city record and a 17% increase from 2023. Population has grown from roughly 1,700 residents in 2000 to over 60,000 in 2025. That’s not a growth story. That’s a transformation.

What drives it: proximity to the Frisco and McKinney employment base, access to the Dallas North Tollway extension corridor, Celina ISD school quality, and land prices that still pencil against competing submarkets. Developers who moved early,Centurion American at Legacy Hills, Hillwood at Ramble, and now Huffines at Serenade, are locking in positions before infrastructure costs and land scarcity push entry prices beyond the range where projects work.

Serenade Texas is one of several Celina Texas master planned communities now in simultaneous construction. Ramble by Hillwood is a 1,380-acre project targeting 4,000 homes with a mid-2026 opening. Legacy Hills by Centurion American is a 3,200-acre, $4.5 billion project eventually projected to double Celina’s population. Shawnee Trail, the 150-acre mixed-use development at Preston Road and the Collin County Outer Loop, just confirmed a Walmart groundbreaking for April 29, adding retail infrastructure that anchors the trade area for all of these communities.

Taken together, this is coordinated growth of a kind North Texas hasn’t seen since the early Frisco build-out of the early 2000s.

What the $400K–$900K Price Band Signals

Serenade’s pricing band is deliberate and worth unpacking. The $400K entry point sits below what most new construction in Frisco now commands, where median new-home prices have pushed well past $500K, but well above the commodity builder floor in the outer-ring markets. Huffines is targeting the buyer who has been priced out of Frisco and Prosper but isn’t willing to sacrifice quality, school district, or finish level to find something attainable.

That middle-market compression is real. As a Celina Texas master planned community, Serenade is positioned to capture relocating families from the Metroplex core, remote workers with DFW employer ties who can afford to buy north, and professionals tracking the semiconductor corridor toward Sherman. All three segments are growing. None of them have an obvious alternative at this price point and this amenity level within 30 minutes of McKinney.

Land Intelligence: What Serenade Means for the Surrounding Area

Ground broken on a Celina Texas master planned community of this scale doesn’t just add houses, it reprices the land around it. Utility commitments, road widening agreements, and school district capacity planning all follow a project like Serenade. Tracts within proximity of Preston Road between FM 455 and the Grayson County line are worth watching closely for assemblage activity over the next 12 to 24 months.

Collin County has added more than 200,000 residents since the 2020 census. The northern edge of the county, and the land just across the line into Grayson County, is the next frontier. Serenade’s location near the Collin-Grayson border is a leading indicator of where developer attention is heading.

Serenade Texas is exactly what a maturing boomtown looks like when serious capital starts moving. This isn’t a speculative flip, it’s a $100 million bet by one of North Texas’ most experienced MPC developers on a market that keeps outperforming. As a Celina Texas master planned community, Serenade adds supply in the price band where demand is most concentrated, in a location that will only become more connected as Sherman-area semiconductor investment matures and the DNT corridor extends further north.

The first lots open in 2027. The land story around them is already being written.

Frequently Asked Questions

References

1. Community Impact — “Huffines Communities to bring 468-acre master planned community through Serenade Texas project in Celina” — April 8, 2026 https://communityimpact.com/dallas-fort-worth/prosper-celina/development/2026/04/08/huffines-communities-to-bring-468-acre-master-planned-community-through-serenade-texas-project-in-celina/
2. CandysDirt.com — “Priced Out of Frisco? Serenade Texas in Celina Starts at $400Ks” — April 12, 2026 https://candysdirt.com/2026/04/12/priced-out-of-frisco-serenade-texas-in-celina-starts-at-400ks/
3. Local Profile — “New 468-Acre Community Breaks Ground In Celina” — April 10, 2026 https://www.localprofile.com/community/new-468-acre-community-breaks-ground-in-celina-12120157
4. Huffines Communities — Serenade project page https://huffinescommunities.com/projects/serenade/
5. CandysDirt.com — “Master Planned, All at Once: Huffines’ Serenade Texas Breaks the Mold” — October 9, 2025 https://candysdirt.com/2025/10/09/master-planned-all-at-once-huffines-serenade-texas-breaks-the-mold/
6. City of Celina — Single-family permit data, 2024 https://www.celina-tx.gov