Mansfield's long-planned neighborhood park overhaul is splitting into two separate projects, and the more active half is moving first. The Mansfield City Council has approved a construction contract for a disc golf course at James McKnight Park, with building work set to begin by the end of September and the course expected to open for play by spring 2027.
The course will begin and end at James McKnight Park, located at 700 US Highway 287 N, according to Mansfield Texas Parks & Recreation. That site was determined to be the best fit for the course because it already has a large parking lot and restrooms, letting the layout keep active disc golf traffic contained to the softball park and linear trail spaces rather than spilling into a residential street. The fairways will wind through wooded areas along the Walnut Creek Linear Trail as they connect the start and finish points.
The decision to anchor the course at McKnight East rather than at the neighboring Robert and Ann Smith Park was a direct response to public input. City staff adjusted the project layout after neighborhood feedback raised concerns about traffic and parking on Wisteria Street, according to Mansfield Texas Parks & Recreation, which noted that McKnight East's larger existing parking lots and restroom facilities made it a better staging point for disc golf players.
Smith Park's Playground and Trail Still Stuck in Design
While disc golf construction moves ahead, the passive neighborhood portion of the project remains in a holding pattern. That work, planned for Robert and Ann Smith Park at 302 N. Wisteria St., includes a playground, a looped trail, and parking lot improvements, but the design for that portion is still underway and requires more significant environmental studies because of the nearby creek. City officials expect that piece of the project to be ready for play in late 2027 or early 2028, according to Mansfield Texas Parks & Recreation.
The park now known as Robert and Ann Smith Park was formerly called James McKnight Park West, and city documents still occasionally reference the older name. Mansfield City Council officially renamed the site in 2025 to honor longtime residents and community volunteers Robert and Ann Smith, one of several park renamings the city enacted that year, per the City of Mansfield.
A Grant-Funded Project Decades in the Making
The disc golf course is partially funded by a $750,000 grant from Texas Parks and Wildlife. That grant, a non-urban outdoor recreation award from the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission, was funded federally through the Land & Water Conservation Fund and required a matching $750,000 contribution from Mansfield's half-cent sales tax fund toward a total estimated park improvement cost of $2.1 million, as reported by the Fort Worth Report.
The 302 N. Wisteria St. property has waited a long time for this kind of investment. The land was originally acquired and opened in 1988 using an initial Texas Parks and Wildlife grant, but it remained largely undeveloped for nearly 35 years, serving mainly as a quiet access point to the Walnut Creek Linear Trail rather than a fully built-out park, according to the City of Mansfield. In Mansfield's 2020 Parks and Recreation Master Plan, redeveloping the property ranked as the fourth-highest priority project in the city's southwest quadrant and stood as the highest-ranked unfunded project before the state grant came through, per Mansfield Parks and Recreation.
Data presented to state officials in January 2023 helped make the case for that funding. According to Trust for Public Land data cited by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission, only 20% of Mansfield residents lived within a 10-minute walk of a public park at the time, and the neighborhood surrounding Smith Park was identified as the most economically disadvantaged area in the city.
Design Work Stretched Over Two Years
The path to an actual construction contract took time. The city formally kicked off design procurement in September 2024 by issuing a Request for Qualifications for professional design services, with submittals evaluated that October before design work began, according to the City of Mansfield. Design reached 80% completion by late 2025, setting up this month's construction contract approval.
The disc golf course will sit within a broader, growing trail network. Mansfield expanded the adjacent Walnut Creek Linear Trail in July by opening a 1.25-mile, 12-foot-wide concrete segment connecting Elmer W. Oliver Nature Park to the 360 Tollway access road, per Mansfield Texas Parks & Recreation. Maintenance crews cleared understory brush along the creek corridor ahead of final course construction, and city regulations continue to prohibit wheeled recreation, including electric bikes and skateboards, on the soft-surface natural trails to protect soil conditions and ecosystem integrity.
Mansfield Parks and Recreation, the department overseeing the project, is CAPRA-accredited and a five-time TRAPS Gold Medal winner. It was named a National Gold Medal finalist by the National Recreation and Park Association for mid-sized cities in both 2025 and 2026, according to the City of Mansfield.
Open questions remain for once the dust settles on both halves of the project. City officials have not yet said what the final total construction cost will be once environmental reviews wrap up on the Smith Park side, and how traffic flow will actually perform at McKnight East once the disc golf course opens to players in the spring won't be clear until it's up and running.
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