Drive down IH-10 or Loop 1604 through Converse this year and you'll see cranes, permits, and construction fencing everywhere. A 125,434-square-foot H-E-B is rising at 10137 IH-10 East, a $21.2 million project set to wrap by late November. The ADS Sports Complex is adding pickleball courts, a restaurant, and a coffee shop to the city's growing list of "coming soon" attractions. Every headline about Converse in 2026 has been about something brand new.
Here's what those headlines miss: the thing Converse actually needed fixed wasn't new at all. It was the pool.
The One Pool Converse Has
Converse has exactly one public aquatic facility. Not one flagship pool among several, one pool, period, for a city whose own economic development corporation counts nearly 10,000 families as residents. This year, that pool is finally getting rebuilt. The Converse Community Pool renovation is a joint investment by the City of Converse, the Converse Economic Development Corporation, and Texas Parks and Wildlife, aimed at replacing aging infrastructure and improving visitor comfort and safety at the community's only public aquatic facility.
That detail matters more than it sounds. New construction gets the press releases because it's easy to photograph a rendering. Fixing something that already exists, and that residents have been using for years despite its age, doesn't generate the same excitement, even though it affects far more people on a random Tuesday afternoon in July than a sports complex still filing permits. The pool renovation is the rare 2026 Converse project that isn't chasing a ribbon-cutting for something new. It's catching up on maintenance the city let slide.
Saturday Mornings At Freedom Hill Haven't Changed
While the pool project works through construction, the one weekend ritual that's stayed exactly the same is the farmers market at Freedom Hill Park. It runs Saturday mornings, roughly March through October, with a handful of vendors sticking around into the winter months. Ample parking, paved and grass paths out to the vendor rows, and a warning that's worth repeating: popular produce and baked goods sell out early, so arriving close to 8 a.m. gets you first pick before the later crowd shows up.
This is the part of Converse that doesn't need an announcement or a permit filing to exist. It's just there, every Saturday, the same way it's been there for years, and it says something that the city's steadiest recreational habit is the one thing nobody had to build.
What's Actually New This Fall
Not everything new in Converse is a construction headline, though. Some of it is smaller and more immediate. A Wingstop is on track to open on E Loop 1604 N this winter, confirmed by a permit filing that put construction starting in August and wrapping by November. It won't change anyone's weekend plans on its own, but it's one more sign that Converse's retail corridor is filling in faster than most residents are tracking.
The community calendar for the rest of 2026 is also set, and it's worth having the dates in one place:
| Event | Timing |
|---|---|
| Fall Fest & Trunk-or-Treat | October 2026 |
| National Night Out | October 2026 |
| Christmas Tree Lighting | December 2026 |
| Holiday in the Park | December 2026 |
None of these are new to Converse. Fall Fest and the tree lighting are described as some of the city's most popular annual traditions, not first-year experiments. What's changed is the backdrop they're happening against: a city simultaneously building new retail, renovating old recreation infrastructure, and running the same holiday traditions it always has.
The Parks Plan Nobody's Built Yet
Here's the contrast that actually explains what's going on. In July 2026, the Converse Economic Development Corporation kicked off a Parks Design Initiative, hiring a consultant to prepare concept designs for both of the city's regional parks, Converse North Park and Converse City Park. The key word is concept. These are explicitly described as a framework for evaluating future improvement projects, not construction plans. Nothing is being built yet. The city is still figuring out what it wants to build.
Meanwhile North Park has been hosting Movies in the Park all summer, packed with families on blankets, snacks, and the kind of casual weeknight programming that doesn't wait for a master plan to exist. The park is already working exactly as intended for the people who show up. The planning process running alongside it is about the next version of that park, five or ten years out, not about whether the grass gets mowed this week.
That's the real story under all the Converse headlines this year. The big, visible projects, the H-E-B, the sports complex, the new Wingstop, are all still under construction or still in permitting. The projects that touch daily life right now, the pool and the two existing parks, are either finally being repaired or still years from a shovel. Converse's own EDC has said plainly that residents want more reasons to stay local instead of driving into San Antonio for dinner or entertainment. The pool renovation and the parks planning process are the city admitting that building new retail alone doesn't answer that. Somebody still has to take care of what's already there.
What This Adds Up To
If you live in Converse right now, your fall probably looks like this: a Saturday morning run to Freedom Hill before the good produce is gone, a Trunk-or-Treat in October, a tree lighting in December, and a pool that's finally getting the repair it's needed for years. The Wingstop and the H-E-B will show up eventually, and they'll be convenient when they do. But none of that changes the rhythm of a Converse weekend nearly as much as a working pool and two parks that are finally getting a real plan instead of just more traffic.
Converse isn't short on new construction. It never has been. What it's been short on is investment in what residents already use every week, and 2026 is the first year that's visibly changing.
If you're weighing what a neighborhood like this means for a move, whether you're comparing Converse to somewhere else in the Central Texas corridor or trying to figure out what your money buys here versus a few miles down the road, Marti Realty Group tracks projects like these as a matter of course, not as a headline chase. Get a free quote and see how much you can save when you're ready to talk specifics.
