If you drove out to The Farm on a Friday night in late July expecting to grab dinner at The Hub, you found the lights off. The open-air food hall that anchored the development since 2022 shut its doors on July 20, and it isn't reopening under that name. JaRyCo Development, the company behind The Farm, has confirmed that a new operator, described only as a nationally recognized food and entertainment venue company, will take over the space and relaunch it in early 2027.
That's not a small thing to lose track of if you've built a weekend routine around it. But the more useful fact for anyone living here right now isn't just that The Hub closed. It's that this is happening at the exact same time Allen's other major gathering spot, Watters Creek Village, changed hands entirely. Two different properties, two different reasons for the upheaval, landing in the same calendar year. If you've assumed either place will look the same by next spring, that assumption is worth checking.
The Farm's Founding Anchor Just Went Dark
The Hub was the first entertainment tenant to open at The Farm, the 135-acre mixed-use development at Sam Rayburn Tollway and Alma Drive. It ran for roughly four years before closing this summer. JaRyCo president Bruce Heller told Community Impact that the site's new owner is still unnamed publicly, but is already reviewing plans to renovate the existing building and add new dining and entertainment concepts. Heller's own language was direct: they met with the financial group that now owns the former Hub property and reviewed the plans that morning.
That's roughly half a year with the space sitting empty before a relaunch, a long stretch for a piece of real estate that used to be a default Friday-night stop for a lot of Allen families.
The Rest of The Farm Didn't Skip a Beat
Here's what makes the Hub closure less alarming than it sounds in isolation. Chicken N Pickle, the indoor-outdoor pickleball and dining venue elsewhere on the same property, opened in May 2025 and hasn't slowed down. The Hub going dark didn't touch it.
The office side of The Farm is filling in too. FarmWorks One, the development's first speculative office building, already has five tenants operating, with build-out underway for two more and additional leases pending. Heller told Community Impact he expects the building to reach roughly 85 percent leased by the end of 2026. On the residential side, Watters Edge, the 112-townhome project inside The Farm, is fully built and every unit has sold.
Even High 5 Entertainment, the bowling and laser tag venue long associated with The Farm, isn't actually open yet. As of the developer's own July 23 update, High 5 is expected to break ground within about eight weeks, putting a groundbreaking somewhere around mid-September 2026, years after it was first announced back in 2023.
So the picture at The Farm right now looks less like decline and more like a busy construction site mid-shuffle. Here's the honest breakdown of where things stand:
Already open and running:
- Chicken N Pickle (open since May 2025)
- Watters Edge townhomes (112 units, fully sold)
- FarmWorks One (five tenants in, on pace toward roughly 85 percent leased by year end)
Still on the way, not open yet:
- The Hub's replacement concept, targeted for early 2027
- High 5 Entertainment, expected to finally break ground around mid-September 2026
- Katy Trail Ice House Ranch, the brand's third and largest DFW location, confirmed for a 2026 groundbreaking at The Ranch along SH 121
- Home2 Suites by Hilton, a 124-suite hotel with construction set to begin in October 2026
- Alta Preserve, a 311-unit multifamily project expected to welcome residents in July 2027
The Katy Trail Ice House project alone is worth watching. It's slated for more than two acres along Rowlett Creek, with three barbecue smokers and seating for up to 1,200 people, according to Community Impact's coverage. Allen EDC President Dan Bowman confirmed the groundbreaking is expected this year. That's a regional-scale beer garden landing inside a development that, according to Heller, has only about 40 of its original 135 acres left to build out.
Across Town, Watters Creek Just Changed Hands
While The Farm was losing an anchor tenant, Watters Creek Village was changing owners entirely. In April 2026, Dallas-based Gillon Property Group and New York-based Town Lane acquired the 46-acre shopping and office center along US-75, according to Community Impact. The property includes about 360,000 square feet of retail and 100,000 square feet of boutique office space, anchored by a Market Street grocery store and long-running tenants like Anthropologie and Barnes & Noble.
The new owners weren't quiet about their plans. Gillon Property Group CEO Drew Steffen framed the acquisition as a bet on upside, not a rescue:
"Watters Creek Village is already a flagship destination in a thriving Allen submarket, and we believe its best days are still ahead."
Their stated strategy covers three fronts: updated signage and wayfinding, a push to bring in higher-performing national and regional brands alongside chef-driven restaurants, and expanded seasonal programming and community events.
The first concrete proof of that strategy is already dated. The Melting Pot, the fondue restaurant chain, confirmed an August 2026 opening at the northeast corner of Watters Creek Boulevard and Simone Lane, according to Community Impact. It'll be the third Melting Pot location in North Texas, led by local franchisees Tracie and Dan Greene. It joins a lineup that already includes Vaqueros Texas Bar-B-Q, run by James Beard-nominated chef Trey Sánchez, and Bread Winners Café.
Two Different Kinds of Churn
It would be easy to lump these two stories together as generic "Allen is growing" news. That misses what's actually useful here.
The Farm's disruption is operational. A tenant closed, and the developer is now shopping the space to a new concept while everything built around it keeps running. Watters Creek's disruption is financial. Nothing there closed. A new ownership group bought a healthy, functioning property specifically because they think they can extract more value from it, and they've already put a public timeline and a first new tenant behind that bet.
For a resident, the practical takeaway isn't "everything is changing" in a vague sense. It's that two separate mechanisms are reshaping where you'll end up eating, shopping, and hanging out over the next twelve to eighteen months, and they're not on the same clock. The Farm's timeline runs through 2027 for its biggest pieces. Watters Creek's changes could show up faster, since the new owners are actively leasing and have already landed one confirmed opening this quarter.
What's Actually On the Calendar Right Now
None of this means Allen goes quiet while the construction sorts itself out. The Village at Allen runs a Saturday open-air market with rotating local vendors, farmers, and makers, free to attend. Over at Watters Creek Village, free live music runs on the Village Green, with patio dining and grab-and-go food from the surrounding restaurants and first-come, bring-your-own-chair seating. Later in the year, Armor Brewing hosts the Allen Fall Festival, a shopping-small event with local vendors and boutiques. Full listings and current dates are on Visit Allen's events page.
That's the part of Allen that hasn't changed at all this year, and won't. The infrastructure around it is what's in motion.
If you're trying to keep a mental map of where things stand in this city, the honest version is this: check before you drive out for something specific, because two of Allen's biggest gathering spots are mid-transition for entirely different reasons, on entirely different timelines. That's not a reason to worry about the city's direction. It's just the kind of detail that only shows up if you're actually paying attention to what's happening here, not just to what used to be here.
Have questions about how any of this touches your specific part of Allen, whether that's The Farm, Watters Creek, or somewhere in between? Joseph Bazan has been tracking this market long enough to know which changes matter and which are just noise. Reach out anytime, no pressure, just straight answers.
