The Celina Downtown Center is scheduled to open in late 2026, introducing a mixed-use civic campus to the historic downtown area. The five-story structure will house a library, city offices, community spaces, and a parking garage. Kimley-Horn served as the structural and civil engineering partner for the project, working alongside architect HED and the City of Celina.
Upon opening, the library will occupy the basement and ground levels, while the second and third floors will serve as city office space. The city plans to construct a separate new city hall in the future.
Once that building is complete, the upper floors of the Downtown Center will convert entirely to library use, expanding the space available for reading and learning without requiring new construction. The fifth floor will include a multi-purpose room, an employee break area, and a rooftop terrace intended for events such as weddings and business gatherings.
The building’s design features a cast-in-place post-tensioned concrete frame with steel upper elements. A mass timber atrium serves as the focal point of the open lobby. The basement includes a raised access floor supported by pedestals, which allows for the installation of HVAC, power, and data infrastructure underneath.
This setup provides power distribution for lighting, computer stations, and displays while maintaining flexibility for future layout changes.
An adjacent parking garage was constructed before the main building to address long-standing parking shortages in the district. The garage is sized to serve the broader downtown area, not just the new center. During construction, the garage’s upper deck functioned as a staging platform for the main building.