McKinney Cotton Mill: A Working Building, Not a Rendering

East of State Highway 5, a brick mill still sits on Elm Street the way it has since 1910. People park along the building. They go in for a wedding, a leased office, a studio day. The mill is not waiting on a ribbon. It is already a place you can walk into.

This is the McKinney Cotton Mill, at 610 Elm Street in McKinney. It is an event hall. It is a leased building. It is not a rendering of a district that does not exist yet. What made it news again this summer is the land directly south of it, and two City Council votes on that ground.

From three floors of cloth to a listed district

The mill opened in 1910 as a three-story factory southeast of downtown. The mill's own history page says that by 1930 the site had become a company community, with a baseball team, a band, a school, a recreation center, and family homes. A tornado in 1948 destroyed the third floor.

Collin County History records that by 1960 the rebuilt mill ran 670 looms and produced 300,000 yards of cloth a week for Texas Textile Fabrics, from locally grown cotton. That same local-history account calls it the "largest denim mill in the entire world." The mill's website puts it this way: "officially recognized as the world's largest denim manufacturer." That claim is theirs. It is a local-history line, not an independent audit.

The mill closed in 1969, after 59 years. The McKinney Cotton Mill Historic District was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on October 8, 1987, as NRIS 87001740. The district is bounded roughly by Elm Street, the railroad tracks, Burrus, Fowler, and Amscott.

Terry Casey bought the property in 1996. The mill's own site names Paula Salter as co-purchaser. The family still owns it. McCall Casey has spoken for them in public. In 2023, Chandler Casey was quoted as mill manager.

What the mill actually is

The mill is a working address. The mill's events page lists a Grand Hall, an Event Hall that holds up to 350 people, and an outdoor Dye Room. Studios and offices are leased. The leasing page describes tenants that include artists, lawyers, sound designers, and startups.

MillHouse McKinney, a women's coworking space co-founded by Beth Beck and Aimee Woolverton, occupies Suite 1000. Community Impact has reported they have been a tenant since 2018.

That is the honest limit of a piece written from public records and a site visit that has not happened yet. The people who work the halls, the lease desks, and the studios do not belong in a story unless they choose to be in one.

The land south of Elm

On June 16, 2026, McKinney City Council voted 6-1 to add 15.7 acres to Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone No. 1. Council member Patrick Cloutier voted no. It was the first applicant-initiated expansion of that zone since it was created in 2010. Cotton Mill Partners and Presidium Cotton Mill submitted the petition. The acreage sits directly south of the mill.

Coverage of the larger site's size does not line up. Community Impact's 2026 TIRZ story described a 33-acre Presidium Cotton Mill site. In 2023, the same outlet put the overall site at 32.1 acres. Those are the two figures on the page. This piece does not pick one.

Cloutier called it "a project that is meritorious of consideration of TIRZ" and still voted against it. The district, he said, has "so many priorities right now." He said the land's infrastructure is "very ancient," and that he did not even think it had storm sewers. "I'm going to vote no."

On July 21, council voted 4-3 to waive $2,946,900 in roadway impact fees through the Neighborhood Empowerment Zone. Cloutier, Geré Feltus, and Michael Jones voted against. City staff had recommended denial. Planning manager Cassie Bumgarner said the denial rested on height, massing, and scale against the mill and nearby one-story homes.

Presidium, the Texas developer on the project, has described four apartment buildings and about 1,140 units. The 2023 site plan put the count at 1,135. Phase 1 is five stories, 66 feet at its tallest point. The later buildings are seven stories, 90 feet. Two office buildings, 27 artist lofts, and parkland are also in the plans. Full build-out has been cited around 2030.

Cost quotes in 2023 ranged from about $750 million, from Presidium's Josh Eames, to "just under $1 billion," from Mark Farrell, then Presidium's president of development. This piece does not pick one. The economic claims that followed, about $933 million in 20-year impact and $38 million in city tax, came from Presidium. That figure is theirs.

A Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation filing for 720 Anderson Street lists a six-tier garage with a five-story multifamily wrap, $56 million, start date October 15, 2024, completion April 1, 2027. That is a filing. It is not a walk of the site.

The density argument is not new. In 2023, McCall Casey told Community Impact that seven stories would "bring the right density to make this a cultural district, which is what we've always wanted to be for McKinney." Chandler Casey, quoted that year as mill manager, said the family had been trying to rebrand "the dusty cotton mill that it looks like from the outside" into "a thriving arts and creative community that we have here."

Then-mayor George Fuller said, "Eliminating the food desert, the restaurant desert, the entertainment desert, that's only going to happen with density." Feltus, who voted no on the 2023 heights and the 2026 waiver, said, "I love the idea because I think it will be unique from west McKinney; I just hate the height." Beller, voting yes this July, said the project "fits with what we need to bring about in old McKinney."

The mill is not those apartments. The mill is the brick building that already has tenants. The votes this summer were about whether the city would put public money behind what would rise next to it.

How to show up

The McKinney Cotton Mill is at 610 Elm Street in McKinney. The mill's site is mckinneycottonmill.com. Events and leasing go through that site. Contacts listed there are McCall and Chandler Casey. The phone number on the contact page is 972-838-7558. MillHouse McKinney is in Suite 1000, weekdays 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Its home online is millhousemckinney.com.

If you go, go as a customer or a neighbor, not as a spectator of a skyline that is still on paper. Book a hall if you have an event. Walk into MillHouse if that is the suite you came for. This is a hall you can book and rooms that already have tenants, not a groundbreaking.

Collin County likes to talk about new campuses and tax base. This one is a 1910 mill that still takes a street address. A family kept the brick standing. Tenants filled the rooms. Council spent two nights this summer deciding how much public money the land next door would get.

That is a McKinney story worth telling. A mill that outlived the looms. A listed district that still takes tenants. A summer fight about height and fees, next to a building you can already walk into.