On July 20, 2026, the building at 1289 Johnson Road went dark. For about four years The Hub served tacos, chicken fingers, burgers, margaritas and beer, and it hosted events in the mixed-use development off SH 121. Founder and CEO Brad Zeitlin told Community Impact that more than half a million people had come through since it opened in 2022.
He also gave a reason for the closing, and that reason explains the next year at The Farm.
"The total spend in the submarket is not adequate to support the current concept, causing the challenges we faced."
That statement, reported by Community Impact, is about one concept in one building. What happened in the six weeks after it shows The Farm moving away from a single all-purpose anchor. It is being rebuilt around several venues with narrower jobs, plus enough new hotel rooms, offices and apartments to put more people near them every day.
Four days, then six weeks
The closing was announced on a Monday. By Friday, July 24, JaRyCo Development, the Allen-based developer of The Farm, said the former Hub property had a new owner. Community Impact reported that JaRyCo's July 23 release described the buyer as a "nationally recognized food and entertainment venue operator with similar facilities around the country." The plan is to renovate the building, add dining and entertainment, and reopen in early 2027.
JaRyCo president Bruce Heller said his team had met that morning with "the financial group that now owns the former Hub property" and that "we are not able to share details until the plans are finalized." As of mid-October, no source we found names the operator, so treat the early-2027 date as a projection.
On August 31, city leaders and project officials broke ground on High 5 Exchange at 2361 Quail Covey Road, also inside The Farm. So within six weeks of the founder saying the submarket's spending couldn't support one venue, a national operator had bought that venue's building and a second entertainment company had started building elsewhere on the same development.
Where The Farm stands in its build-out
Construction on The Farm started in March 2021 with a 15-year build-out plan for 135 acres. JaRyCo and the Johnson family, who owned the farmland for decades, are developing it together. In the July release, Heller said, "With everything currently underway, we have only about 40 acres remaining to develop out of our original 135 acres."
That means about 70% of the land is built or committed only five years into a 15-year plan. The Hub opened in 2022, the year after construction began, and served as restaurant, bar and event space all at once. The venues coming next will open on a site that already has offices, homes and a hotel going up around them.
What's open at The Farm right now
For the rest of 2026, The Farm has one operating entertainment venue and a lot of open space.
Chicken N Pickle, 1221 Johnson Road, opened in May 2025. Its Allen location page lists a restaurant, a bar, reservations, online ordering, and pickleball and other games. The development's dining page lists indoor and outdoor gathering space and private-event space there. One caution: that same dining page still shows The Hub and its former food vendors. None of them are open.
West Lake Park sits at the west entrance to the development. The Farm's site describes it as a 4-acre park with a 1.5-acre lake, a picnic area, a boardwalk overlook, a playground and recreation space.
The trails may be the most useful thing on the property right now. The development has more than 2.5 miles of hike-and-bike trail around its perimeter. That includes the Watters Creek Trail and the Farm Trail, which runs from West Lake Park to the Greenbelt District. All of them connect to the City of Allen trail system and are designed to link to McKinney's later. The 16-acre wooded greenbelt along Watters Creek was preserved as part of more than 32 acres of open space, nearly a quarter of the whole development.
The trail and greenbelt are already finished, and none of the construction ahead is scheduled to change them.
The fall calendar
The Farm's family event series has two dates left this year. The Barnyard Boo Bash ran on October 10. The remaining dates are both at Chicken N Pickle, 1221 Johnson Road:
- Saturday, November 14: Family Fun Days at The Farm, 9 a.m. to noon.
- Saturday, December 12: Family Fun Days at The Farm, with a 9 a.m. start. The listing's description says it ends at noon, but its date line prints a different end time, so check with the organizer before you plan your afternoon around it.
Both are morning events. That leaves time to walk the Farm Trail from West Lake Park before or after.
What gets built, in order
Here's the construction schedule as reported over the summer. Every date is a developer or operator projection, and all of them can move.
- Home2 Suites by Hilton. Construction on the 124-suite hotel was set to begin in October 2026. The developer's page lists a meeting and conference center, a fitness center and a pool.
- FarmWorks One office building. It's already running. In July it had five tenants operating, build-outs underway for two more, and additional leases pending. Heller expected the building to be about 85% occupied by the end of 2026.
- The former Hub building. The new operator plans to renovate it and reopen in early 2027.
- Flex office, retail center and boardwalk restaurant district. The flex office project is scheduled to start construction in early 2027. The retail center and boardwalk restaurant district are in design, and a retail development partner is expected to buy the land and start building by early 2027.
- Alta Preserve. Wood Partners' 311-unit apartment community is under construction and expects residents in July 2027. It's the company's third residential phase at The Farm, after Alta at The Farm and Alta Magnolia.
- High 5 Exchange. Opening is planned for the fourth quarter of 2027.
Look at what comes first. The hotel and offices go up before most of the new entertainment space opens, and apartments open months before High 5 does. When the later venues arrive, they'll have hotel guests, office workers and residents within a short walk. The Farm's plan puts restaurant, entertainment, hotel and retail uses in a Central District along the Farm Trail, within 1.5 blocks of any part of the project. The venues opening in 2027 will open with people already living, working and staying around them.
High 5 Exchange is built for a different visit
High 5 Exchange is a different kind of business from the food hall that closed on the same development. Bowling anchors it. Community Impact's groundbreaking coverage lists 16 full-size lanes and 8 duckpin lanes, plus a laser tag arena, escape rooms, augmented and virtual reality, an arcade floor and a 36-hole outdoor miniature golf course. It will also have a food and beverage menu, a full bar with craft cocktails, and party packages for birthdays and corporate events.
Founder and president Scott Emley told Community Impact he expects "hundreds of thousands of visitors annually." The company's existing locations are in Austin and Lake Travis, and Allen will be its first in DFW. Emley said the Allen project had been in the works for more than five years. Plano-based SLX Capital joined as a partner about six months before the groundbreaking.
Put High 5, Chicken N Pickle and the renovated Hub building together, and by late 2027 The Farm will have three separate places to spend a Saturday instead of one. Each one depends less on being the only draw. A full bowling-and-attractions center, a pickleball venue, a reworked dining and entertainment space and a planned boardwalk restaurant district would each pull a different kind of visit. Instead of asking one concept to carry the whole site, The Farm is spreading the submarket's spending across several businesses and adding the hotel and apartments that bring it closer.
For now, the practical version is simple. Chicken N Pickle, West Lake Park and 2.5-plus miles of trail are open today. Family Fun Days returns November 14 and December 12, and the next big change is the early-2027 reopening at 1289 Johnson Road. If you want to know how The Farm fits into the wider SH 121 build-out, our earlier look at growth signals along the SH 121 corridor covers more of it, and the Allen neighborhood page keeps the rest of town in view.
If you live near Johnson Road or Quail Covey Road and want to know how a hotel, 311 new apartments and a 2027 entertainment opening could affect your street or your home's value, Andrew Bradshaw follows The Farm's build-out closely. He's glad to walk you through what's planned near you. Work with Andrew, or start with a home valuation.
