If you have heard someone mention "the new park by McFee" this summer, you are probably picturing the fenced dog park going in at McFee Park on McFee Road. That project is real and it is close. But it is not the only one. Farragut has a second park moving through Town Hall right now, tied to the same stretch of road, discussed at the same board meetings, funded by a completely different pot of money, and years away from opening. Confusing the two means getting the timeline wrong on both.
Here is what is actually happening, and when.
What's Finishing At McFee Park This Year
McFee Park, at 917 McFee Road, is Farragut's largest developed park, and it has been growing in phases since its Phase 3 opening in June 2022 brought about 26 of its 51 acres into use. Last September, the Town held a ribbon cutting for Phase 4: a 127-space permeable paver parking lot and a trailhead pavilion serving the Adaptive Mountain Bike and Hiking Trail. That set up the phase residents have actually been asking about.
Phase 5 is a fenced dog park, split into separate small-dog and large-dog sides, plus a two-stall restroom and storage building at the entrance. According to the Town's own project page, the dog park is on track for completion this summer, with the restroom following in the fall. The money behind the restroom became official business in May, when Farragut's Board of Mayor and Aldermen approved a $252,800 construction contract with Skilled Services, reported by farragutpress on May 21, 2026. That approval came after an earlier round of bids for a prefabricated version came in near $400,000 and got rejected as too expensive.
What the dog park is joining is already a full park, not a bare field with a splash pad. Current McFee Park amenities include:
- A 1.45-mile bike trail
- A 0.78-mile Red Trail
- A 0.30-mile Blue Trail
- A splash pad
- Lighted tennis and pickleball courts
- Three picnic pavilions, including one built for special events
The dog park slots into a park that already has real mileage on it. It is the missing piece for the neighbors who have been walking those trails on leash for years and asking, reasonably, why there was nowhere to let a dog off it.
The Other Park Nobody's Walked Yet
Here is where the naming gets confusing. West of McFee Road, near the intersection with Boyd Station Road, sits a separate 70-acre property the Town bought back in 2023 for $5.5 million, with 15 of those acres donated by the property owner. In 2025, Farragut landed a $2.75 million federal Land and Water Conservation Fund grant to help develop it.
Nothing about that land is built yet. What happened in May was the planning step: the same board meeting that approved the dog park's restroom contract also approved a $134,340 professional services agreement with Tunnel-Spangler & Associates to draft a master plan for the new site. Per farragutpress reporting on the meeting, the scope includes a roundabout entrance off McFee and Boyd Station roads, internal roadways, parking, and pedestrian and bicycle circulation, all built to satisfy the Land and Water Conservation Fund's grant requirements.
TSW's project manager, Brandon Sutton, told the board his firm expects to finish the master plan within six months of getting the notice to proceed. But a finished master plan is not a finished park. Construction of actual recreation facilities on the new 70 acres is not expected to begin until 2027 at the earliest.
"We're excited to be here," Sutton said.
Two Projects, Same Road, Different Clocks
| Phase 5 Dog Park & Restroom | New 70-Acre Park | |
|---|---|---|
| Location | McFee Park, 917 McFee Road | West of McFee Road, near Boyd Station Road |
| Size | Fenced small-dog and large-dog areas, 2-stall restroom | 70 acres, 15 donated |
| Funding | Town capital budget, $252,800 restroom contract (May 2026) | $5.5 million land purchase (2023) plus $2.75 million federal LWCF grant (2025) |
| Current status | Under construction | Master plan contract just awarded (May 2026) |
| Expected completion | Dog park summer 2026, restroom fall 2026 | Master plan within six months of notice to proceed; recreation construction expected to begin by 2027 |
Laid out side by side, the mismatch is obvious. One project is a dog park you could plausibly be using by early fall. The other is a plan document that will guide construction the Town has not started yet.
Why The Mix-Up Matters
Both projects share a road name and both cleared board approvals in the same May meeting, which is exactly the kind of overlap that turns into secondhand confusion at a neighborhood cookout. If someone tells you the "new McFee park" opened, ask which one they mean. If it is the dog park at the existing McFee Park, you could be there this fall. If it is the 70-acre site near Boyd Station Road, you are looking at a master plan on paper and a construction start that, per the Town's own timeline, is still roughly a year out.
For residents near McFee Road, the practical takeaway is simple. The park you already use, with its trail mileage, splash pad, and courts, is about to get better this year. The park you have not visited yet is real, funded, and moving, but it belongs on a longer calendar. Knowing which timeline applies to which acreage saves you from waiting on the wrong one.
If you are the kind of Farragut resident who tracks board meetings for park updates the way other people track high school football schedules, this is one worth bookmarking. The dog park will likely be the more visible milestone this year. The 70-acre site is the one to watch for how Farragut keeps growing its green space over the next few years.
Whichever park you end up walking first, it is a good problem for a town this size to have two of them in motion at once.
If Farragut's neighborhoods, parks, and everyday details like this are the reason you want to live here, or the reason you never want to leave, the Shannon Foster-Boline Group team knows this town street by street. Reach out anytime you want a local read on a neighborhood, whether you are curious about a listing or just want to talk through what a stretch of McFee Road is actually like to live near.
