Walk the Square this month and the old courthouse still catches your eye first. Butcher paper covers the tall windows of the building that has anchored downtown McKinney's evening calendar since the early 2000s. A temporary restroom trailer sits a block over on South Kentucky Street, there because the building's own restrooms are torn out mid-renovation. Behind the paper, crews are still working through roof repairs, plaster, and electrical work, according to a Community Impact update from late July.
Two doors down, the tables at Centro on the Square are full by 6:30 on a Wednesday.
That contrast is the actual story here. McKinney's largest cultural landmark, the McKinney Performing Arts Center, has been closed since February. By most visible measures, the Square got busier while it happened, not quieter. If you assumed downtown would feel emptier with its anchor building dark for the better part of a year, the last six months argue otherwise.
What's Actually Closed, and For How Long
MPAC closed to the public on February 1 for a renovation that the city has priced at roughly $10 million, with McKinney City Council approving up to $9.2 million in construction funding back in February. The building sits inside the former Collin County Courthouse, which has served as the Square's cultural anchor for more than two decades. Fort Worth-based Byrne Construction is managing the job, with Architexas handling the historic design work, and one of the more specific details in the renovation plan calls for the old judge's bench to be pulled out of storage and rebuilt into a bar inside the theater.
As of that late-July update, officials were still targeting a fall reopening, but no firm date had been set. If you've been holding off on plans assuming the building would be back by Labor Day, that's worth adjusting. Demolition is essentially finished, but floors and windows are still ahead of the crew.
Where the Curtain Actually Went
The theater going dark did not mean McKinney lost its stage programming, it just meant that programming had to relocate. The McKinney Repertory Theatre and the Young Actors Guild of McKinney have spent this year hosting shows at other venues around town rather than pausing their seasons. If you've noticed a community theater production advertised somewhere other than the courthouse steps this year, that's why. It's a temporary displacement, not a shutdown, and it says something about how much of downtown's cultural life runs through organizations rather than through any single building.
The Businesses That Opened Into the Gap
Here's the part that actually surprised me digging into this. While the Square's marquee venue sat behind construction fencing, at least three new operators moved in and bet real money on foot traffic that, on paper, should have taken a hit.
Centro on the Square opened this year at 112 E. Louisiana St., directly across from MPAC, a location the restaurant's own announcement makes a point of noting. The concept comes from Brian Dunne, owner of Mexican Bar Company, and George Stergios, owner of Knife Steakhouse, who spent more than six years as neighbors in the restaurant district at The Shops at Willow Bend in Plano before deciding to build something together in McKinney instead. The space itself has history: it's the storefront Harvest Seasonal Kitchen vacated when that restaurant relocated within downtown and rebranded as Harvest at the Masonic.
What stands out is the reasoning Dunne and Stergios gave for choosing this address specifically. In their opening statement, they said the steady foot traffic they observed on the Square during MPAC's construction period reinforced their decision to plant a restaurant there rather than second-guess it. In other words, the building being under scaffolding wasn't a warning sign to them. It was evidence the Square could carry itself.
"The Square is truly unique and has a pulse of its own."
A few blocks over, Shorty's is bringing a different kind of bet: hot dogs, smash burgers, and a full bar along North Kentucky Street, from owners Bryan and Angela McVay. The announcement in February targeted a spring opening. Bryan McVay has said he wants the restaurant to double as a small archive of the Square's history, and he's been collecting old photographs and video footage of downtown to display once the doors are open.
And in June, four months after MPAC's doors locked, the McKinney Chamber of Commerce opened its own venue two blocks away. Gather on the Square is chamber-owned and chamber-operated, run under President and CEO Lisa Hermes, and it's built to host everything from weddings and birthday parties to civic meetings and corporate gatherings. The Chamber's announcement frames it as a reinvention of a space that's changed operators before, which tells you the Square has more than one organization actively trying to keep foot traffic moving through its doors while the courthouse sits empty.
The Square Right Now, at a Glance
| What | Status | Detail |
|---|---|---|
| McKinney Performing Arts Center | Closed since Feb. 1 | Targeting fall reopening, no confirmed date as of late July |
| Centro on the Square | Open | 112 E. Louisiana St., former Harvest Seasonal Kitchen space |
| Shorty's | Targeted spring opening | North Kentucky Street, hot dogs and cocktails |
| Gather on the Square | Open since June | Chamber-run event venue |
| McKinney Farmers Market | Open, weekly | Saturdays at Chestnut Square |
| America 250 Wonder Women Exhibition | Closing Aug. 26 | McKinney Cotton Mill |
What Never Paused
While the theater renovation and the new restaurant openings have been the visible headlines, the Square's older routines never skipped a beat. The McKinney Farmers Market has kept its Saturday schedule at Chestnut Square Heritage Village on South Chestnut Street all year, running from roughly 8 a.m. to noon through the warmer months. The downtown trolley is still running its usual schedule too, Thursday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. and Sunday from noon to 5 p.m., connecting parking to the shops and restaurants without anyone needing to route around construction.
Those two constants matter more than they sound. A market and a trolley don't generate headlines, but they're the infrastructure that kept people walking the Square on a normal Saturday even while its most recognizable building sat empty.
Two Weeks Left for the Wonder Women
If you've been meaning to get to the Cotton Mill this summer, the window is closing. The America 250 Texas Trailblazing Wonder Women Exhibition has been running at the McKinney Cotton Mill since mid-June and wraps up on August 26. After that it's gone, so if it's been on your list, this is the month to actually go.
The Real Takeaway
None of this means the theater doesn't matter. When MPAC reopens this fall with a rebuilt stage, new seating, and a bar built out of an old judge's bench, it will add real capacity back to downtown's calendar. But the last six months made something clear that wasn't obvious before the scaffolding went up: the Square's pull was never concentrated in one building. It's distributed across a market that runs every Saturday, a trolley that runs every week, and a run of independent owners who looked at a construction zone and decided it was still the best address in town.
That's a different read on downtown McKinney than the one you'd get from a tourism brochure, and it's the kind of thing you only notice by watching what actually opens while the landmark is dark.
If you're already living the Saturday-morning-market, dinner-at-Centro version of downtown McKinney and you're curious what a home in this part of Collin County is actually worth right now, or you're weighing a move closer to the Square, Clinton Asalu is a text or call away. Let's connect, get your instant home valuation, or start your home search.
