University Park Centennial Bricks to Be Installed in 2026

University Park’s centennial bricks will go into the ground this summer, closing out a two-year commemoration that marked the city’s 100th anniversary in 2024.

The Park Cities community launched the brick program as part of its centennial celebration, inviting residents and businesses to purchase engraved pavers to honor the occasion. The installation, confirmed by People Newspapers, is now scheduled for the coming months, giving homeowners and longtime residents something concrete to point to long after the birthday banners came down.

University Park turned 100 in 2024. The city incorporated in 1924, carving out its own municipal identity within Dallas County, and it has operated as an independent city with its own services, schools, and governance ever since. Highland Park ISD, which draws students from both University Park and Highland Park, has been a cornerstone of that identity for generations, and the centennial gave residents a chance to reflect publicly on what a century of that arrangement has meant to property values, civic culture, and neighborhood character from Lovers Lane to Hillcrest Avenue.

The brick program worked the way most commemorative paver projects do. Participants paid for a brick, submitted an inscription, and the pavers get collected and installed in a public space where they can be seen by foot traffic for decades. For a community where families measure tenure not in years but in generations, that kind of permanence carries real weight. Several Preston Hollow households whose children cross the University Park border for Highland Park ISD schools have participated in comparable Park Cities civic campaigns over the years, and programs like this one tend to draw that cross-neighborhood engagement.

The summer installation timeline matters to residents who want to see the finished display before fall. Families returning from summer travel will find the bricks set by the time school starts.

That’s not a small thing in a community that tracks its civic calendar closely.

University Park’s population sits at roughly 25,000, and the city government maintains its own police, fire, and public works departments independent of Dallas. That separation has long been a selling point for buyers looking at homes in the $1.5 million to $4 million range along Beverly Drive and Armstrong Parkway. A centennial is one of the few civic events that gives a city the standing to ask its residents to reflect on what that independence has produced, and the brick program turned those reflections into something physical.

“It’s a great way for families who have been part of University Park for generations to leave a permanent mark,” said one Park Cities real estate professional familiar with the project, who spoke generally about commemorative programs and their role in community identity.

The Highland Park ISD school district, which consistently ranks among the top districts in Texas, uses its academic and athletic reputation to anchor property demand across both Park Cities. Events tied to that shared identity, including centennial celebrations, tend to reinforce the civic pride that helps sustain those valuations. Buyers paying a premium for an address inside the University Park or Highland Park boundary aren’t just buying square footage. They’re buying into a century-old civic structure that has, by most measures, delivered on its original promise.

The brick installation won’t generate headlines outside the Park Cities. But for families who bought their inscription two years ago and have been waiting for the physical result, the summer schedule gives the centennial a proper closing chapter. The city has already moved past 100 and into its second century, and the pavers, set into place before school resumes in August, will give that transition a permanent marker on the ground.