Why would a parade known for giant balloons and "¡Vuelta!" cheers give its Grand Marshal spot to three golf course designers?
Their next project sits about a mile down South Ware Road from the Convention Center. The City of McAllen's October 21 parade release named the Alarcon-Morrish-Ochoa Golf Design Group as Grand Marshal for the 2026 McAllen Holiday Parade on Saturday, December 5. The group is World Golf Hall of Famer Lorena Ochoa, Rafael Alarcón and Carter Morrish. They're also the team designing a new city golf course next to Champion Lakes, and its designers expect construction to start in November. So the holiday season is doing two jobs. It's the usual celebration, and it's also an early look at where McAllen is putting its recreation money on the south side.
A holiday theme built around McAllen's green spaces
This year's theme pairing points the same way. The city's July 30 announcement said "Wild Christmas" for the parade and "Wildbright" for the South Pole Illuminated Festival were "inspired by the connection between holiday magic and McAllen's beautiful green spaces."
The floats show real places in town. The same release describes illuminated floats with local birds singing carols at the Center for Urban Ecology, nocturnal animals wrapping presents around a Camp McAllen campfire, and a trompito carrying an axolotl from Mexico. The city says the celebration is meant to connect families with "hiking, kayaking, camping and discovering green spaces."
The parade has plenty of momentum behind it. The city reports more than 265,000 guests in 2025 and a ninth International Festivals & Events Association Best Parade in the World award. With crowds like that, the choice of Grand Marshal gets noticed, and this year the city picked the people who will reshape a stretch of South Ware Road.
What Ochoa's team is building west of Champion Lakes
The project was announced at the 2026 State of the City address. The city's February 13 release places the course at 2701–3501 South Ware Road, directly west of the existing Champion Lakes Golf Course. It's the first course Ochoa has co-designed in the United States.
It's a short course, and the city says it offers "far more than a traditional par-3 layout." Here's how the city's planning documents describe it:
| Feature | What's planned |
|---|---|
| Layout | 18 holes, par 57 |
| Hole lengths | Under 100 yards to more than 250 yards |
| Design touches | Beach-style bunkers, raised greens, rolling fairways, tree clusters, water features, native Rio Grande Valley vegetation |
| Buildings | Clubhouse of roughly 8,000 square feet, plus a 16,000-square-foot maintenance building |
| Stated priorities | Water conservation, environmental protection, education, youth development |
A hole of less than 100 yards is one a child or a first-time golfer can actually finish. That fits how Ochoa described the project to Texas Border Business on October 20. She said accessibility matters, especially for children and families who don't know golf, and that the course is also meant to host competitive tournaments. The city release has Alarcón making the same pitch:
"It will be a golf course the local golfer will be proud to call home, and one the visitor will talk about when they return home."
In the same Texas Border Business interview, Alarcón said construction is expected to begin in November, with the goal of having the course ready for play by the end of 2027. Both dates are targets, not promises. The city hasn't published green fees or a total cost yet. When Ochoa told ValleyCentral she hopes to play golf at the new course, she was talking about a place that is still mostly paperwork.
Two tunnels would tie Ware Road together
The golf course is one piece of a larger plan for Ware Road. The Rio Grande Valley Business Journal reported in March that McAllen plans three pedestrian tunnels, and two of them run under Ware Road.
The first, a $4.5 million box-culvert crossing, would connect the McAllen Convention Center complex to Westside Park. From there, visitors could pick up the trail that loops around a resaca inside the McAllen Nature Center. The second would run under Ware Road about a mile south, near the McAllen Disc Golf Park, and connect the new Ochoa course with Champion Lakes.
The Monitor reported in July that the city chose Go Under Ground, a Harlingen contractor, for the Convention Center tunnel. A TxDOT spokesman told the paper work was slated to begin in September or October, with completion by December 2027 if all goes as planned. The Monitor's cost figure is different. It cited a TxDOT engineer estimate of $3.8 million, which it said fell short of what the city expects the project to cost. The crossing is meant for one of the city's busiest roads. Ware Road carries about 38,000 motorists a day, and city transportation engineer Rene Gonzalez told The Monitor the tunnel has to come first before the trail connections can follow.
Put the pieces in order from north to south and the plan is easy to see: the Convention Center, Westside Park and the Nature Center trail, then Champion Lakes, the Disc Golf Park and the Ochoa course. The Grand Marshal team will ride in December, and the plan has its finish line about a year later. The city's construction timeline for that stretch of Ware Road runs through the end of 2027.
Where the season actually happens this year
The parade itself isn't on Ware Road. According to the official parade FAQ, it's based at McAllen Veterans Memorial Stadium. Gates open at 3:30 p.m., the parade starts at 6 p.m., and the 1.5-mile route begins on Bicentennial Boulevard. Free parking and the Polar Express shuttle run from South Texas College from noon to midnight on December 5, with drop-off along 23rd Street at Quince Avenue.
The festival is on Ware Road. Wildbright opens November 27 at the Convention Center's Oval Park, the north end of the planned corridor. Here are the dates to put on the calendar:
- Friday, November 27: Wildbright opens with the lighting of a digital Christmas tree more than 100 feet tall, which KRGV reports is the tallest in America.
- Wednesdays and Thursdays through December 18: KRGV reports that Lone Star National Bank's Free Kids Days give free admission to children 12 and under. On the 2026 calendar that works out to December 2–3, 9–10 and 16–17. Check the dates at southpoleoftexas.com before you go.
- Saturday, December 5: The Wild Christmas parade, with 39 balloons including South Padre Island's Ridley the Sea Turtle, the Very Hungry Caterpillar and Horton Hears a Who. ValleyCentral reports tickets start at $12.
The festival's biggest addition this year is a new 80-foot real-ice skating rink. KRGV's list of returning attractions includes Santa's South Pole Castle, the South Pole Express by Metro McAllen, a holiday carnival, an artisan market, weekend fireworks, hundreds of giant wildlife-themed lanterns, a food court and the Driscoll Electric Parade.
For parade seating, the city's October release lists three options: stadium seats, the South Padre Island Vuelta Zone, and reserved seats along the route. Tickets are at mcallenholidayparade.com, which also has the sign-up page for volunteers who guide balloons and carry banners. The on-air lineup is Michael Irvin returning as English-language host, Julián Gil on the Spanish-language broadcast, and Johnjay Van Es of the nationally syndicated Johnjay & Rich Show joining this year.
What to watch on South Ware Road after the lights come down
If the November groundbreaking happens on schedule, people driving past Champion Lakes in the new year should see the first signs of work west of the existing course. The Monitor reported the Convention Center tunnel will be built in phases with lane shifts along Ware Road, starting on the east side. Both projects are aiming for late 2027. If they stay on track, the 2027 holiday season would be the first with a short course built for beginners and a tunnel under Ware Road in the same corridor as the festival.
At Mauricio Saldana, we follow projects like the Ochoa course and the Ware Road tunnels because they shape what daily life looks like on McAllen's south side over the next few years. If you own a home near South Ware Road and want to know how your property compares while this corridor takes shape, request a free home valuation and we'll go through it with you.
