Drive past Tomichi Trail this month and you will see cleared ground, equipment tracks, and a chain-link perimeter where there used to be an empty lot. That is Butler Rough Hollow Park, and Lakeway broke ground on it in early July, with Mayor Thomas Kilgore and council members O'Brien, Hook, and Brown on hand for the ceremony. The city expects it open to the public by summer 2027.
What most people driving past will not know is that the park now under construction is not the park Lakeway originally planned to build. It got smaller, it got safer, and it got more public than the first draft, and all three changes trace back to two rounds of resident pushback that most of the neighborhood never saw happen.
What's Actually Going In the Ground
The final design, approved by City Council in July 2025, includes:
- An amphitheater with limestone block seating
- A mountain bike course with skills features
- A basketball area with six individual hoop stations
- A multisports field for baseball and soccer
- A ninja fitness course
- A shaded, accessible playground
The site sits on close to 47,700 square feet near Tomichi Trail, with roughly 30,000 square feet of that dedicated to concrete trails connecting the pieces together. It is not a pocket park. It is a full amenity build, and it is the second of five projects funded by the $22 million Lakeway Parks Bond that voters approved in May 2024 with 68 percent support.
The $3.5 Million Version That Got Cut
Here is the part that did not make it into most of the local coverage that just repeated the ribbon-cutting date.
When Lakeway held its first public input meeting on the park in October 2024, about 40 residents showed up at the Highland Village Pavilion and asked for more than the city had budgeted. Parks and Recreation Director Andra Bennett told council what happened next in blunt terms:
"What was originally slated as a $2 million project ballooned to a $3.5 million project."
The extra scope included things like an elevated, feature-rich bike course that alone was originally quoted at $32,000 by the design firm but rose to an estimated $113,000 once a vendor factored in the actual infrastructure, ramps, and dirt work required to build it safely. Faced with a plan that had grown 75 percent past budget, the Parks Department spent the next six months cutting it back down, landing on a roughly $2.6 to $2.7 million version that council approved in July 2025.
That number held up through competitive bidding. When the city put the project out to nine contractors this spring, Millis Development and Construction came in as the lowest responsive bidder at $2,072,196, and Lakeway awarded them the contract in April 2026. The company had already built similar park projects for Frisco and Fort Bend County, and city staff scored their prior performance a 9 out of 10.
So the number worth remembering is not one figure but three: a $2 million starting point, a $3.5 million wish list, and a roughly $2 million contract that actually got built. The gap between those numbers is where six months of city staff time and two public meetings went.
The Fight Over the Fence
The other change residents pushed for is easy to miss but says more about how the neighborhood operates than any amenity list does.
The original concept floated at that October 2024 meeting would have fenced off part of the new park for exclusive use by neighboring Rough Hollow Elementary School during school hours, opening it to the general public only afterward. Several residents at that meeting argued against the idea, and by the time the revised plan reached council in July 2025, the school-hours fencing was gone. The park that is now under construction will be open to the public the entire time.
The same round of feedback also moved part of the bike course off the sidewalk after residents raised safety concerns, trading some of the original layout for a route the city now describes as safer and better shaded. Community Impact's coverage of the July 2025 vote noted both changes came directly out of resident input collected over the prior nine months.
A Timeline of How We Got Here
| Date | Milestone |
|---|---|
| Oct 28, 2024 | First public input meeting at Highland Village Pavilion; roughly 40 residents attend |
| Dec 16, 2024 | Revised plan presented to council; budget already tracking toward $3.5 million |
| Jul 21, 2025 | Council approves leaner ~$2.6 million plan; school-hours fencing dropped, bike course moved off sidewalk |
| Apr 20, 2026 | Construction contract awarded to Millis Development and Construction at $2,072,196 |
| Early Jul 2026 | Official groundbreaking |
| Summer 2027 | Expected public opening |
A Public Park, Not a Private Amenity
Worth being precise about here: Rough Hollow's recreational identity has mostly run through private, HOA-adjacent amenities, the Yacht Club and Marina, the Highland Village pool and splash pad, the 20-plus miles of trail already inside the community. Those require a key fob and, in the marina's case, a membership.
Butler Rough Hollow Park is a City of Lakeway project, funded by a citywide bond and open to anyone, resident or not, once it opens. It sits alongside the neighborhood rather than inside its gated amenity system, which means it will function differently than the club-style spaces residents are used to. No fob, no lottery for a slip, just a public field and trail system a short walk or bike ride from the neighborhood.
What to Expect Through Next Summer
The city's own estimate put the construction window at around 300 calendar days from groundbreaking, which lines up with a spring or summer 2027 finish depending on weather delays, a normal variable for any Hill Country build that involves grading and irrigation work through a Texas summer.
For context on pacing, Butler Rough Hollow Park is only the second of the bond's five projects to reach construction. The first, Activity Center Park at the Lakeway Activity Center, opened in September 2025 and has been drawing 50 to 100 visitors a day according to Bennett. The next project in line, Lakeway City Park, only had its design contract awarded in November 2025, and the city's own timeline does not have that one breaking ground until June 2027. That means Butler Rough Hollow Park will likely be the newest public amenity in the immediate area for at least a year after it opens, without another bond project competing for attention nearby.
If you want the fuller rundown of how the neighborhood already spends its time outside the new park, a season-by-season look at Rough Hollow's calendar is worth a read. And if you are watching the construction fencing and wondering what else is changing nearby, the full Rough Hollow neighborhood page tracks the broader picture.
The short version for anyone who has been wondering what is actually happening behind that chain-link fence: the park getting built right now reflects two years of the city getting told no by its own residents, on the school fence and on the bike course, and adjusting. That is a more interesting story than a ribbon-cutting date, and it is one most of the coverage skipped.
Questions about what a project like this means for property values or timing in Rough Hollow specifically? Jeff Joseph has been tracking this market long enough to talk through it directly. Let's Connect.
