"Rarely would I ever run into my neighbors at the other grocery stores I used to shop at in the area," developer Deric Salser told the Sunnyvale Star after the Tom Thumb at Belt Line Road and Town East Boulevard opened. "Now, at Tom Thumb, I see multiple friends and neighbors literally every time I go in. Mission accomplished for the neighborhood destination."
Nearly ten months after that store opened, the rest of Gateway Park is filling in, and the order matters. So far the tenants serve errands and kids' activities: a shipping store, a children's gym, a car wash down the road. The two sit-down restaurants Salser described for the first building have not been confirmed open. For dinner out, Sunnyvale still goes where it went before the grocery store arrived.
A corner that almost became a convenience store
In 2020, the land at Belt Line and Town East was on the market. Salser said the owner had been trying to get houses or industrial projects approved there. When those stalled, the owner decided to sell to a national convenience store chain. Salser's account of his reply was short: "Stop, I'll buy it all." He said the corner was "too important not to be master planned as a 'gateway' to the town." He has lived down the street from it for 25 years.
The anchor came first. Tom Thumb opened at 3400 N. Belt Line Road on December 17, 2025, the day after a ribbon cutting, according to the Town of Sunnyvale. The store covers 59,000 square feet. It stocks more than 1,000 locally sourced products and has a Starbucks kiosk, a pharmacy with a drive-thru lane, and Drive Up and Go pickup. The Sunnyvale Star described it as the result of more than four years of work to bring the town its first grocery store.
Salser has also said what he thinks the store is for. "I think any type of marketplace is a third space," he said. "Grocery stores build community and provide places to socialize." The rest of the first phase was supposed to add places to sit down and stay.
The first building, tenant by tenant
The in-line building facing Town East Boulevard, next to Tom Thumb, was pitched with six tenants: The UPS Store, two sit-down restaurants including E-Bar Tex Mex, a medical clinic, The Little Gym, and Dorado nail bar. Here is where each one stands as of early October 2026, based on the tenants' own pages and state construction filings.
| Tenant | Address | Status as of October 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| The UPS Store #8222 | 200 E. Town East Blvd., Suite 100 | Open with posted regular hours |
| The Little Gym of Sunnyvale | 200 E. Town East Blvd., Suite 106 | Open; classes and memberships, access for registered members and party guests |
| Dorado Nail Bar | 200 E. Town East Blvd. | TDLR file for a 4,004-square-foot space lists "Inspection Complete"; public opening not confirmed |
| E-Bar Tex Mex | Gateway Park, first building | Announced; no confirmed Sunnyvale opening |
| Second sit-down restaurant | Gateway Park, first building | Not yet named publicly |
| Medical clinic | Gateway Park, first building | Not yet named publicly |
The filings with the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation show how close some of these spaces are. The Little Gym's file lists a construction start of March 16, 2026, and a planned completion of April 24, 2026, with inspection complete. The UPS Store's file lists April 11 to May 11, 2026. Those are scheduled dates, not proof of a ribbon cutting. Still, they line up with the two tenants that now have working location pages.
Just up Belt Line, Tommy's Express Car Wash held its grand opening at 3217 N. Belt Line Road over three days starting Thursday, August 6, 2026. The Sunnyvale Chamber of Commerce cut the ribbon, and the event raised support for Sharing Life, a food pantry that serves Dallas County families, according to the International Carwash Association.
Taken together, the open list covers groceries, prescriptions, shipping, kids' classes and a car wash. Those are things people come for, finish and leave. None of the corner's restaurants has a confirmed opening yet.
Where Sunnyvale still goes out to eat
The sit-down meals are still at older places that took years to build up, and Salser had a hand in one of them. He calls Sunnyvale Park Square, next to Town Hall, "probably my favorite Sunnyvale project." He says more than 20 businesses are now based there, after "a pandemic, road construction, and runaway inflation." He is a partner in Hope Coffee and in Assembly House, a restaurant and wine bar. He gives the coffee shop's drive-thru credit for its survival: "Without that drive thru, Hope Coffee would not exist."
The other dinner spot has an even longer backstory. Joe Duncan started in barbecue in 1979 at Smoke's BBQ in Lake Worth, and in 1988 he started Baker's Ribs in Dallas. For more than 30 years he drove past the old Kearney's feed store, sometimes stopping for firewood. He bought it in 2018. "Finally lost my mind," he told the Sunnyvale Star. Early customers sometimes walked into Kearney's Feed Yard looking for cattle feed and found brisket, chicken fried steak, cold beer and a stage out back.
"We're not just selling beer, burgers and barbecue. We're giving people a place to belong." — Joe Duncan, Kearney's Feed Yard, to the Sunnyvale Star
Kearney's has its own plans. Duncan has described covering the backyard so it can host concerts in any weather, with a new outdoor bar and a permanent stage. No completion date has been published. The spring crawfish boils, which the Star says feed hundreds of people in a day, are already a fixture on the calendar.
Belt Line has other businesses that serve repeat customers. Hounds Town Sunnyvale, a 7,000-square-foot dog daycare and boarding facility at 3705 N. Belt Line Road, has five climate-controlled play areas, 50 boarding suites, and grooming.
The next pieces are a retail shell and a sports complex last described as a concept
What comes next at Gateway Park will decide whether the corner becomes a place to spend an evening. Two projects matter most, and they are at very different stages.
Victory Shops at Gateway Park. A TDLR filing registers a new 20,445-square-foot retail shell at 3200 N. Belt Line Road, with an estimated cost of $3.7 million. It lists a June 1, 2026 start and a December 1, 2026 completion target. Its status reads "Project Registered," and no tenants have been named.
The Athletic Club. The full Gateway Park plan includes a roughly 30-acre youth sports complex with fields for soccer, flag football and lacrosse, plus futsal, pickleball and sand volleyball. An indoor-outdoor restaurant and concession building would serve the fields. As of February 2026, the Sunnyvale Economic Development page described it as "currently under conceptual planning." The idea is older than the grocery store. In November 2021, The Dallas Morning News reported plans for a Sunnyvale youth sports complex with a groundbreaking targeted for the second quarter of 2022.
The town also has a third concept, near Park Square. Salser has described Town Center Village, across the street from Hope Coffee, as a proposed first phase of four historic-themed, mixed-use buildings on five acres. He called it "a cousin of Sunnyvale Park Square." It was in planning when he discussed it, and no approval has been confirmed since.
Salser estimates that once Gateway Park is fully built, it will carry a property tax valuation of about $60 million and its businesses will generate more than $40 million a year in taxable revenue. Those are developer projections for a project that is only partly built.
What fills the calendar from now through December
Until those restaurants and fields open, Sunnyvale's best-attended get-togethers are on the town and Chamber calendars. A few dates are set:
- October 21 and 28, 10:30 a.m.: Story Time at Doris Padgett Public Library, with "Ghosts" on the 21st and "Monsters, Blobs, and Pumpkins" on the 28th. The library's monthly book club meets October 21 at 5:30 p.m.
- October 27, 5:30 to 7 p.m.: The Sunnyvale Chamber's 6th Annual Trunk or Treat at 222 N. Collins Road.
- October 30, 2 to 4 p.m.: Halloween Craft-a-palooza at the library.
- November 11: Town offices and the library close for Veterans Day.
- December 3, 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.: The Chamber's Holiday / Sharing Life Luncheon at Sunnyvale Town Hall, 127 N. Collins Road. Sharing Life is the same food pantry the car wash opening supported in August.
Residents of Stone Canyon should plan around one more item this season. Atmos Energy's pipeline replacement, which is mostly in that neighborhood, was underway as of August 24, 2026. The town's notice says construction is expected through late December 2026, with restoration starting in January 2027. Calais Court, Arroyo Court, Stone Canyon Drive, Boulder Lane, San Gabriel Way and Ranchero Drive may be affected.
Farther out, the TxDOT Dallas County design list for Q4 2025 shows U.S. 80 from Belt Line Road to Lawson Road still in design, with letting estimated for September 2028 at about $348 million. That project is not under construction this fall.
The next scheduled date for Gateway Park itself is the December 1 completion target for the Victory Shops shell at 3200 N. Belt Line Road.
New stores, a car wash and planned restaurants all count when buyers compare one Sunnyvale address with another. If you're wondering what this round of openings means for your home, Bray Real Estate Group can walk you through it. Get a Free Home Valuation and see where your property stands as Gateway Park fills in.
