Cedar Hill is about to get a lot more adventurous. Go Ape Adventure Park has announced plans to open a new location within the city's Midtown development, bringing treehouses, ziplines, canopy walks and rope bridges to a 90-acre district envisioned as a walkable mix of entertainment, dining, retail and hospitality.
The announcement came via a post from Grow Cedar Hill, which framed the treetop adventure course as part of the broader Midtown master plan. Details on the project, including the master plan and available development opportunities, are laid out at growcedarhill.com/west-midtown, the city-run investment portal that organizes local development across five districts: West Midtown, Historic Downtown, Uptown, the Industrial District, and Nature/Open Space, according to Cedar Hill City Council briefing minutes.
Go Ape already has a foothold in North Texas, with existing locations at Plano's Oak Point Park & Nature Preserve and Arlington's River Legacy Park East. As reported by Texas Highways, the Plano course sets its suspended obstacles and zip lines within an 800-acre natural preserve, giving Cedar Hill a sense of what its own version might look and feel like once built.
A 90-Acre Vision Shaped by Hills and Limestone
The Midtown district sits inside a 90-acre master plan that Cedar Hill officials adopted following the city's 2022 Comprehensive Plan, and it caps new mixed-use residential, retail, and commercial buildings at five stories. Per Focus Daily News, the framework also mandates trail connections linking civic facilities to Historic Downtown and Hillside Village, stitching the new development into the city's existing map rather than isolating it.
That civic backbone already includes a major anchor: the $20 million “Library in a Park” complex, which opened in April 2024 and folds the Traphene Hickman Library, a local history museum, and a 3.5-acre Signature Park into one site. The facility replaced a library building that was 40 years old and quadrupled its predecessor's size, the outlet noted in its coverage of the grand opening.
City leaders have leaned into the region's rolling hills, limestone bluffs and dense tree canopy as a selling point rather than treating them as an obstacle to development. Mayor Stephen Mason unveiled Cedar Hill's official tagline, “The Natural Heart of the Metroplex,” during the city's State of the City address in February, with a city announcement noting the branding highlights Cedar Hill's distinctive topography compared to flatter North Texas suburbs.
Cinemark's $9 Million Theater Overhaul Nearby
Across the district in Uptown, Cinemark is midway through a $9 million renovation of its Hillside Village theater at 280 Uptown Blvd, with between $1.5 million and $2 million of that funded through city public-private investment support. The 42,032-square-foot project runs from last Monday through February 8, 2027, and will convert auditoriums to luxury recliner seating while adding two immersive XD screens, according to Grow Cedar Hill.
Taken together, the theater upgrade and the arrival of Go Ape reflect a city actively reinvesting in both its existing commercial corridors and its newer greenfield district at the same time. Cedar Hill's tourism numbers help explain the appetite for that investment: the city recorded $71.3 million in visitor spending in 2025, supporting 470 local jobs and generating $5.47 million in local tax revenue, a figure that Hoodline previously reported prompted the City Council to designate May as Tourism Month.
An Affluent Suburb Betting on the Outdoors
Cedar Hill's 2026 population is estimated at roughly 49,007, with a median household income of $101,909 in 2024, according to data published by Cubit Planning — figures that point to an affluent customer base in Southern Dallas County capable of supporting premium entertainment options like Go Ape and Cinemark's recliner seats. That growth isn't limited to leisure spending, either: along the U.S. Highway 67 corridor, Pratt Industries has leased a 1.1 million-square-foot facility at Hillwood's High Point 67 Logistics Center as part of a $200 million regional investment, as Hoodline detailed in its report on the Hillwood warehouse groundbreaking.
Go Ape's arrival also plugs Cedar Hill deeper into a regional eco-tourism corridor that already includes Cedar Ridge Preserve, Dogwood Canyon Audubon Center and Cedar Hill State Park at Joe Pool Lake. Hoodline reported in March that regional planners are working to interlink those preserves with other nearby green spaces, including Dallas's 300-acre Big Cedar Wilderness Park, a connection covered in Hoodline.
No opening date for the Cedar Hill Go Ape location has been announced. For now, the city's Facebook post and the growcedarhill.com/west-midtown portal remain the primary sources of information on how the treetop course will fit into the district's broader mix of dining, retail and hospitality.
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