Hotel News

Dream Hotel brand enters Texas with cool new boutique hotel in Frisco

Coming to Frisco in 2026.

Courtesy rendering

Frisco is getting a new boutique hotel from a brand that's new to Texas: Called Dream Frisco, it's from New York-based Dream Hotel Group and will open as part of Firefly Park, a 230-acre mixed-use development at 8000 McKinney Rd., at the nexus of US Highway 380 and the Dallas North Tollway, that will also include offices, retail, homes, and restaurants.

Dream Hotel Group is a hotel brand and management company founded by Sant Singh Chatwal, also a restaurateur who built businesses in Ethiopia and Canada before coming to New York in 1981. The company's hotel brands include Dream Hotels, Time Hotels, The Chatwal, and Unscripted Hotels.

They currently have 15 hotels and 25 more in development, including New York, Los Angeles, Miami, Bangkok, and Nashville.

Dream Frisco will include:

200 rooms
rooftop pool deck and bar
state-of-the-art fitness center
four food and beverage offerings, including a signature restaurant, nightclub, social club, and lobby bar

Dream Hotel Group CEO Jay Stein says in a statement that Frisco is the ideal destination to expand the Dream brand as it's one of the fastest-growing markets in Texas.

"We are fortunate to collaborate with visionary developers like Wilks Development who share our same big dreams and bold ambitions to grow and develop our brand in new and emerging markets across the country," Stein says. "Firefly Park is the future of North Dallas, and we are thrilled to be a part of it."

Firefly Park is the latest name for a development that has previously been called The Oxbow at Frisco and also Frisco North. But Firefly Park sounds much cooler, yes?

A release says it will be nestled among 230 acres of untouched Texas countryside into which they will plunk 4.75 million square feet of commercial office space, 2,200 luxury residential mid- and high-rise units, townhomes, food & beverage offerings, 380,000 square feet of retail space, a planned music hall, and outdoor amphitheater. Farewell, untouched Texas countryside!

Public spaces will include a creek park and nature preserve with hike-and-bike trails, multiple ponds and water features, and state-of-the-art playground facilities.

Many involved with this find it to be "cool":

Frisco Mayor Jeff Cheney says: "When we started thinking about what the northern part of Frisco was going to look like, we knew it needed to be a different experience from the southern part of our city. Now, with the announcement of the Dream Hotel coming to Firefly Park, it adds a significantly different, cool vibe to Frisco."
Lynn Dowdle, president of Dowdle Real Estate, who connected Dream Hotel Group with Wilks Development, says: "Dream Frisco will offer up a sophisticated-cool factor like no other."

So so cool.

Dream Frisco follows recent signings of Dream Miami, Dream Louisville, Dream Oklahoma City, and Unscripted Oklahoma City, making Dream Frisco the fifth new hotel deal signed by Dream Hotel Group in less than five months.

In any case, it's still a long way off. Firefly Park isn't even scheduled to break ground until 2023. Dream Frisco, the hospitality centerpiece of the new development, will open its doors in 2026. Anything could happen. But today, today, all is bright optimism.

vacation

News for campers

New 650-acre state park coming to Lake Palestine in East Texas

Photo courtesy of TexasLand

Lake Palestine

East Texas is gaining a new state park at Lake Palestine that will include amenities like hike-and-bike trails, campsites, and lakefront access.

The Texas Parks and Wildlife Foundation has paid more than $10 million for a 650-acre ranch at Lake Palestine that will be converted into a state park, the agency says. If the park opened today, it would be the 90th state park in Texas.

The ranch, roughly 100 miles southeast of Dallas, had been on the market for a little less than $10 million. Roughly 60 percent of the ranch is wooded, and about 40 percent is pastureland.

The foundation will make improvements to the site, about 18 miles west of Tyler, before handing it over to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department in late 2027. That’s when funding from the Centennial Parks Conservation Fund will become available for the department to acquire the property.

The deal preserves one of the last large habitat sites in that part of East Texas and will ultimately expand public access to Lake Palestine. The lake encompasses more than 25,500 acres and touches four counties. White-tailed deer, bobcats, and waterfowl are among the creatures that populate the habitat.

“Opportunities to protect a property like this don’t come along very often, and when they do, timing is critical,” Anne Brown, the foundation’s executive director, said in a release. She said the land will “ultimately become a place where generations of Texans can enjoy the outdoors.”

The Pollard family had owned the ranch, which housed their pecan farm, since 1940. Aside from the pecan orchard, the property includes pine forests, ponds, a seven-acre lake, and Lake Palestine frontage.

Sam Pollard, president of Texas Pecan Nursery, said the property “is part of my soul. It means a lot to me that we can leave a legacy for people to enjoy.”

The foundation says visitors to the future park will be able to enjoy blufftop views of the lake, watch wildlife and birds, and walk around the pecan orchard. They’ll also be able to take advantage of boating, paddling, swimming, and fishing at Lake Palestine.

Rodney Franklin, director of the state park system, called the site an “East Texas gem” and thanked the Pollards for enabling “this special slice of the Pineywoods to be accessible for generations of Texans.”

The parks and wildlife agency plans to create the park in phases, starting with guided access, followed by daytime access and then full-day and overnight access. The agency will invite public input about the park’s development.

Planned amenities include hike-and-bike trails, traditional and primitive campsites, day-use areas and lakefront access.

The NextEra Energy Foundation, a philanthropic arm of NextEra Energy and NextEra Energy Resources, chipped in $100,000 to support the future park. NextEra supplies electricity to about one million customers in Texas, mostly through its Gexa Energy subsidiary.

In addition, the wildlife foundation tapped into the state’s Land Conservation Loan Fund for the ranch purchase. The voter-approved, donor-supported fund aids land conservation efforts. Dallas-based Lyda Hill Philanthropies was an inaugural backer of the loan fund.

lake palestine parks state park texas