"It's just a lovely, serene place to be." That's how Yfat Yossifor, a visual journalist for KERA News, described the North Shore Trail last month, standing on the Flower Mound side of Lake Grapevine where the water disappears and reappears through the trees. It's the postcard version of the lake, and it's real. But if you live in Grapevine or Colleyville and don't own a boat trailer, getting onto the water from your side of the shoreline has mostly meant one of two things: paying an outfitter to rent you a kayak at Meadowmere, or driving around to the north shore.
That's starting to change, and it's worth understanding exactly what's changing and what isn't, because the timeline on this one is longer and more layered than a single ribbon-cutting.
What Council Actually Approved on September 1
On September 1, Grapevine's City Council approved construction plans for Phase 2 of Settlers Park, a $3.4 million buildout that adds paved paths, a completed fishing pier, a large group pavilion, a primitive camping area, and a kayak launch to the 23-acre park across from the intersection of State Highway 26 and Bass Pro Drive. The project still needs sign-off from the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department before anyone breaks ground, since the state agency is contributing $1 million toward the total cost. Parks and Recreation Director Trent Kelley told local reporters the city hopes to get that approval in September or October. Once it clears, construction takes 10 months to a year, which puts a realistic opening somewhere in 2027, not this fall.
The rest of the funding, $2.4 million, comes from the city through Tax Increment Financing Zone No. 1, a mechanism that draws on property tax and new development revenue in a defined area to pay for public infrastructure inside it. State grant money like the TPWD's $1 million typically comes with a condition attached: the agency's non-urban outdoor recreation grants reimburse up to half of eligible costs, but only if the city keeps the funded site as public parkland permanently.
That $3.4 million number is worth pausing on, because it hasn't been stable. Back in 2024 and again in 2025, city planning documents pegged the anticipated Phase 2 budget at $4.5 million. The plan Council actually signed off on this month came in a full million dollars lighter. Scope changed somewhere in that gap, and residents following the project over the years would have watched the number move more than once before it landed where it is now.
Why This Took Nine Years
The land under Settlers Park didn't start as a city project at all. It began as a 15.9-acre donation to Grapevine from Grapevine Equity Partners LLC, a company led by Mehul "Mike" Patel, chairman and CEO of the hospitality firm NewcrestImage. The site, originally called Silver Lake Park, wasn't renamed Settlers Park until March 2019, the same month the city secured its first state grant, $500,000, to get the project moving.
From there, the pace was slow by design. Ten of the park's fifteen-plus acres are preserved as natural open space, home to a spring-fed pond, mature woods, and wetlands the city deliberately chose not to touch. Only six acres were ever meant for active development. Phase 1, approved by Council in 2023 at $3.3 million, delivered the basics: restrooms, a soft-surface trail, gravel parking, a boardwalk, and a pavilion. It finished in 2025.
Notice what's missing from that list. Back in September 2023, when the first phase was still under construction, the outgoing Parks and Recreation director, Chris Smith, told Council the fully developed park would eventually include a fishing pier, a trail network, and a launching point for kayaks and paddle boats. Three years later, those are exactly the pieces Phase 2 is finally building. The kayak launch isn't a new idea grafted onto the project. It's the part of the original plan that had to wait.
Smith retired in early August after 29 years as director, following nearly 25 years with the city overall. Kelley, his successor, previously helped design The REC, Grapevine's multigenerational community center, and his arrival lines up with an update to the city's Open Space Master Plan, a broader framework for park investment that City Manager Bruno Rumbelow commissioned to replace a 2018 version. Whether that's coincidence or a new director clearing a backlog, Phase 2 landed on Kelley's desk within a month of him taking the job.
Where Everyone Already Launches a Kayak
Settlers Park isn't creating paddling access to Lake Grapevine out of nothing. The lake already has an official paddling trail recognized by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, with put-in points at Meadowmere Lane, where outfitters including a lakeside rental operation, DFW Kayak, and DFW Surf all rent kayaks, paddleboards, and gear on site. Routes from there run anywhere from about four miles to just over nine, depending on which stretch you paddle. Boat-launch access for your own trailered kayak also exists at Oak Grove Park, though that ramp shares space with fishing boats headed for the main body of the lake.
If you already own a kayak and just want to put it in the water without renting or hauling a trailer across town, the closest dedicated option today is Twin Coves Park on the lake's north shore in Flower Mound, a 243-acre park with its own launch. For a Grapevine or Colleyville resident, that's a real drive around the water, not a quick trip.
What Settlers Park changes is proximity and cost. Once the launch opens, it will sit inside Grapevine's core commercial corridor, across from the entrance to Bass Pro Shops, a few minutes from neighborhoods rather than out at one of the Army Corps recreation areas that ring the lake's edges. You won't need to rent gear or own a trailer. You'll need a kayak and a parking spot.
For boaters who want something bigger than a kayak, that infrastructure already exists elsewhere on the lake. Scott's Landing Marina, inside Oak Grove Park, is the largest marina on Grapevine Lake with direct access to open water. Silver Lake Marina, on the south shore, is home to Sam's Dock and its fleet of pontoons and jet skis, plus the Rockin' S Express Bar and Grill for anyone who wants dinner without leaving the water. Settlers Park isn't competing with either. It's filling the gap between those full-service marinas and a solo paddler with their own gear.
The Fire Ban Detail Worth Knowing Before You Pitch a Tent
The primitive camping area is one of the more appealing additions in Phase 2, but anyone planning to use it should know that the city has had a fire ban in effect this year across all city and lake parks. Open fires, fire pits, fire rings, and charcoal grills are currently prohibited; gas grills are the one exception. Fire bans in North Texas tend to track drought conditions and can lift when rain returns, so the rule in place today may not be the rule in place once the camping area actually opens. Still, it's the kind of detail that's easy to miss until you've already loaded the cooler, and worth a quick check with the city before an overnight trip.
The Trail Piece That Matters More Than the Launch
The least flashy line item in Phase 2 might be the most useful one long-term: paved paths that connect Settlers Park into Grapevine's citywide trail network, which already spans more than 67 miles linking over 1,000 acres of parkland. Right now, the soft-surface trail built in Phase 1 effectively dead-ends at the park's boundary. Once the paved connection goes in, a resident biking from a neighborhood near downtown or the Grapevine Mills corridor could, in theory, ride straight to the lake without ever loading a kayak into a car.
The city also picked up an additional 7.2 acres next to the park last October specifically to add parking and an ADA-compliant entrance, a detail that suggests the trail connection and accessibility upgrades were planned together rather than tacked on separately.
What to Watch For Next
None of this happens by the time the weather cools this fall. The realistic sequence is state approval sometime in the next month or two, then up to a year of construction after that. For now, the practical move if you're curious is to keep an eye on the city's own Settlers Park page for updates, since the timeline has shifted before and will likely shift again before the pier and launch are actually usable.
What's clear already is that the wait has a shape to it: a land donation before 2019, a name change and a $500,000 grant that same year, four years to finish the basic shell, and now, nine years after the first pond and wetlands were set aside, a funded plan to finally build the part everyone originally wanted.
If you're weighing what life actually looks like in Grapevine or Colleyville beyond the school ratings and the price per square foot, this is the kind of civic detail that tells you more than a listing sheet ever will. The Pistana Group spends as much time tracking what's happening at the parks department as we do tracking closings, because the two aren't as separate as they look. If you're thinking about a move to this side of the lake and want a neighborhood-level read on what's coming next, not just what's for sale, reach out and we'll walk you through it.
