New Katy Park Opens Honoring Late Developer
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KATY MAGAZINE NEWS
March 6, 2026
By Natalie Cook Clark
Just in time for Spring Break a new park has opened, and it honors the late developer, Ted Nelson whose Katy legacy covered 23,000 homes. Ted Nelson Memorial Park is located in Elyson, on the northwest quadrant of Katy.
Ted Nelson Memorial Park, located at the northeast corner of Katy-Hockley Cut-Off Road and Elyson Boulevard, next to Katy ISD’s Boudny Elementary School, is now open for Katy families to enjoy just in time for Spring Break.
“It’s no accident that Ted Nelson Memorial Park is located next to Elyson’s newest Katy ISD school,” says Jennifer Taylor, vice president of sales and marketing for Brookfield Residential and who worked with Nelson for more than 30 years. “You’ll see this kind of thoughtful design throughout Elyson and our other communities, because Ted believed that kids and families should never be far from a park or a school, or a trail that leads to one.”
According to Katy-based land planner Kerry Gilbert, Ted changed the trajectory of Katy’s future much for the better in the crucial growth era of the early 1990s, putting neighborhood schools and other amenities at the forefront of the developments he guided.
“Ted raised the bar and set the stage for all the development that has occurred in Katy since the earliest planning for Cinco Ranch began in the 1980s,” says Gilbert, who worked closely with Ted over four decades.
The late developer Ted Nelson and his team were responsible for 23,000 homes created staring in the early 1990s that include Cinco Ranch, Seven Meadows, Grayson Lakes, and Elyson. The park was dedicated in February in a ceremony attended by family and colleagues at Brookfield Residential.
When Elyson is completed, the 3,600-acre community will have 6,000 single-family homes, for a total of more than 23,000 single-family homes in the Katy communities led by Nelson, who passed away in 2023.
His team was also responsible for four other large-scale developments in the Houston region, as well as in Austin, Dallas and other cities across the nation.
Designed for students of Boudny Elementary and residents of Elyson, Ted Nelson Memorial Park has a playground with a soft mulch surface and shade structure.
Children can play games and gather on the open lawn area, stroll along the trail, and explore a butterfly garden with native pollinator plants. Picnics are encouraged, with several picnic tables, including a shaded ADA accessible table.
It also has an enclosed octagonal pit for gaga ball, a fast-paced, high-energy sport often described as a kinder, gentler version of dodgeball. The park is surrounded by several large existing live oak trees, along with newly planted pines, cedar elms and Shumard oaks.
Native grasses and flowering trees such as crepe myrtles and fringe trees add seasonal color throughout the year.
Katy ISD is on Spring Break next week, March 9-13, 2026. Katy is full of a many fun parks and trails for families to enjoy.
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