Pedro Urbaez lives close enough to the construction site that he can watch it from his own yard. When the city broke ground last December, he told a reporter he'd already made a promise to his wife.
"I told my wife she will see me walking here every day."
That's the kind of claim you can only make if the thing you're waiting for is actually happening next door, not three exits down the interstate. For Torino residents, the thing is Torino Regional Park, a 195-acre site off North Torino Parkway that has been promised, in one form or another, since 2007. The land underneath it is still largely undeveloped, waiting for crews to catch up to what's already been rendered on paper. By the time it's done, it will be the largest park the city has ever built. What's less clear, if you're only skimming the renderings the city has released, is how much of that 195 acres you'll actually get to walk into first, and when.
The Numbers That Are Actually Locked In
Here's what's confirmed as of this fall. The park sits at 5601 North Torino Parkway, between Conley Drive and Delcris Drive, on land the city has been sitting on for nearly two decades. Groundbreaking happened the second week of December 2025, with Mayor Shannon Martin calling it a two-decade promise finally coming due. The construction contract, worth roughly $20.5 million, went to Burkhardt Construction, a West Palm Beach firm that used the occasion to mark its own 50th year in business, presenting the mayor with a golden shovel at the ceremony. The most recent target for Phase 1 completion is June 2027, a date that's held steady in city planning documents through at least August of this year.
That June 2027 number matters because earlier coverage of the project, some of it still floating around online, cited vaguer windows like "late 2025" or "by the end of 2026." Those dates have been superseded. If you're timing a summer with this park in mind, plan for 2027, not next year.
195 Acres, But Not All at Once
Here's the part that gets flattened in most of the coverage: the 195 acres isn't one build. The site is divided into parcels, and only one of them has money and a contractor attached to it right now.
| Parcel | What it's for | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Parcel A | Wetlands, conservation land, the lake feature, and the Phase 1 amenities | Under construction, funded, targeting June 2027 |
| Parcel B | Roughly 15 acres eyed for potential future facilities like a library or aquatics center | Not yet funded or scheduled |
| Parcel C | Land near the Florida Turnpike planned for athletic facilities | Not yet funded or scheduled |
What this means in practice: the playground, splash pad, skate park, and trails opening in 2027 will all sit on Parcel A. The library, aquatics, and athletic fields that show up in some of the city's early concept art don't have a budget or a builder yet. If you're picturing the finished 195-acre park as a single opening day, adjust that picture. What's coming next summer is real, funded, and specific. What comes after that is still a wish list.
The Trails Grant That Wasn't Settled Until This Spring
Even inside the funded portion, the details have kept moving. In May, the city held a public meeting asking residents to weigh in on an application for a Recreational Trails Program grant, money that would pay for additional walking and biking paths at the park beyond what Phase 1 already covers. That's a small but telling detail. The trail network that shows up in the fly-through renderings on the city's site wasn't fully locked down with its own funding source until this year, well after construction had already started on the rest of the park.
If you've been assuming the whole trail system is baked into that $20.5 million contract, it isn't entirely. Some of it is still being built out through a separate grant process that only became public this spring.
A Sculpture Still Looking for an Artist
The other recent wrinkle: in June, the city put out a call for an artist to design a landmark sculpture at the park's main entrance, meant to match the "Fairytale Forest" theme running through the rest of the design. The application deadline came and went that same week. As of this writing, no artist has been publicly announced.
Small detail, but it says something about where the project actually stands nine months after groundbreaking. The playground pods have names. The skate park has a nickname. But the piece of art that will greet every visitor at the gate was still an open request as recently as this summer.
What Phase 1 Actually Contains
Setting aside what's still in flux, here's what is funded and under construction on Parcel A right now:
- A "Play Forest" playground built around named, forest-themed sections: an owl-shaped pod called Hoot Hollow, a castle pod called Phoenix Fortress, a swing pod called Mystic Meadow, and a smaller village pod called Moonlit Marsh
- A bug-themed splash pad
- A skate park nicknamed Dragon's Lair, designed by Action Sports Design, the firm founded by Mike McIntyre, whose past work includes professional skateboarder Tony Hawk's personal skate park
- A fishing pier and kayak launch on the park's lake
- A boardwalk crossing the site's existing wetlands
- A group pavilion built to hold more than 200 people
- Pickleball, basketball, and tennis courts, plus multi-purpose fields and a beach volleyball court
That's a genuinely full slate for a first phase, and it explains why the $20.5 million price tag doesn't feel padded once you see the list. It also explains why residents who've been asking for a skate park since the city's last one closed back in 2010 are paying particularly close attention to this one.
Driving Past It While It's Still a Site
If you've noticed new roundabout construction near North Torino Parkway and East Torino Parkway, that's connected to the park too. The city has been building intersection improvements to handle the traffic a 195-acre destination park will eventually bring, and more work, including a possible widening of the East Torino corridor, is still contingent on future bond funding. None of it is disruptive on the scale of a full road closure, but it's worth knowing the orange barrels near the site aren't unrelated background noise. They're part of the same project.
In the meantime, Torino residents aren't without options. Charles E. Ray Park, about ten minutes from most Torino addresses, already has tennis courts, a basketball court, a baseball diamond, and pavilions for family gatherings. The Town Center at St. Lucie West covers the rest of a typical weekend, from Sprouts and Walmart for errands to Texas Roadhouse, Chick-fil-A, and Spice Thai for dinner.
The Honest Timeline
So where does that leave things nine months after the ceremonial golden shovel came out. Phase 1, the part with the named playground pods, the skate park, the fishing pier, and most of the trails, is genuinely under construction and genuinely on track for a June 2027 opening. The rest of the 195 acres, the library, the aquatics center, the athletic complex on Parcel C, exists only as a concept without a construction timeline attached. Even inside Phase 1, small pieces like the entrance sculpture and part of the trail funding were still being sorted out earlier this year, months after construction had already started.
None of that makes the project any less real. It makes it more useful to understand in pieces rather than as a single finish line. When Pedro Urbaez said he'd be walking there every day, he was talking about a specific, funded, dated piece of ground, not the entire 195-acre promise the city has been carrying since 2007. That's the park Torino residents should actually be counting down to.
If watching your neighborhood's biggest addition in decades take shape has you thinking about what a home here is actually worth once that park opens its gates, the Beachfront Brooke Team knows this stretch of Port St. Lucie block by block. Schedule Your White-Glove Listing Consultation whenever you're ready to talk through what it means for your own address.