🌳 Frisco Just Broke Ground on a 1,000-Acre Park

This one's been a long time coming. Like, really long. Frisco officially broke ground today on Grand Park, a 1,011-acre signature park just west of the Dallas North Tollway that's been in the works since voters approved bond funding back in 2006.

Mayor Cheney compared it to Central Park (which is only 843 acres, for the record). He called it a "generational gift." I'd call it the thing that's going to make every future home listing in this zip code say "minutes from Grand Park."

Phase 1, called Civic Park, is 68 acres and will include:

Future phases bring a children's section with tree houses and playgrounds, sports facilities, and a botanic garden. City Council approved a nearly $44 million contract with Crossland Construction to get Phase 1 built.

The reason it took 20 years? An old lead battery recycling plant called Exide Technologies contaminated the land nearby. Frisco ended up buying the site in 2020 and handling cleanup themselves, a process that cost over $62 million total. That's a lot of tax dollars toward something that didn't even make the parks map.

You may have heard about Texas's new Education Freedom Accounts, the state program that gives families public funds to spend on private school or homeschooling instead of their assigned public school. Think of it like a voucher, but deposited into an account you control.

The first wave of awards just went out.

What families can receive:

Round 1 prioritized students with disabilities from households under ~$165K, plus their siblings. Over 274,000 families applied statewide, and the first ~42,600 are getting notified now through Thursday. A lottery for lower-income families runs this week too.

If you applied, check your email and your spam folder today.

Accepted families have until July 15 to confirm a private school enrollment if that's the route they're taking.

Emily and I are planning to homeschool our oldest for kindergarten this fall. The $2,000 homeschool amount isn't huge, but it's real money toward curriculum, and the state formally recognizing homeschool as a legitimate option matters more than people realize.

CJ Williams is a senior at Frisco Heritage. He throws shot put and discus. And he is scary good.

This month, at the District 11-5A meet, he threw the discus 221 feet, 3 inches, breaking the Texas state record that had stood since 2002. Only eight athletes in national history have thrown farther. His throw is the third-best in the U.S. in the last nine years.

He's signed with Ole Miss and has his eyes on breaking the national high school discus record of 237-6 set in 2011 by Ryan Crouser, who went on to win three Olympic gold medals in the shot put. Williams also leads the nation in the shot put this outdoor season with a throw of 72 feet.

The wild part: he's doing all this while managing patellar tendinitis, having taken three weeks off from practice, and currently unable to do squats. His coach says he watches video of every practice throw and critiques himself. The state meet is May 14-16.

He quit football after freshman year because he wanted to go to the Olympics. His coach says Williams announced that goal as a freshman. He's 17 years old and already in the conversation with the greatest prep throwers in American history.

Yes, the median Frisco home value has dipped. But the sellers getting hurt right now aren't the ones who bought three years ago; they're the ones reacting emotionally to headlines instead of actual local data.

Your specific street, your specific floor plan, your specific school zone: that's what determines your number. Not a Zillow index.

Emily's job is connecting you with an agent who can tell you the difference.

👉 Thinking of selling this year? Start with Emily before you make a pricing mistake.