Arlington / Las Colinas

Welcome to Arlington and Las Colinas

These are two different places, so treat them that way. Las Colinas is a 12,000-acre master-planned district inside Irving, Dallas County, sitting about midway between Dallas and Fort Worth near SH-114 and DFW Airport. Its housing skews upscale and varied: high-rise and mid-rise condos, luxury townhomes, and single-family homes, plus gated golf communities like Cottonwood Valley and Hackberry Creek. The DART Orange Line runs through it. The trade-off is price and density; you pay more here, and much of it is condo and HOA living rather than a big yard. Arlington is its own city of roughly 400,000 in Tarrant County, wedged between Dallas and Fort Worth off I-30, I-20, and SH-360. It runs mostly single-family, with a median sale price in the low $300,000s (early 2026), and inventory that stretches from starter townhomes to lake and golf-course estates. The catch: Arlington has no passenger rail, so it's car-dependent, and stadium-event traffic is a real factor near the entertainment district.

Different cities, different districts. Confirm which one your specific address falls in before you count on any campus. Las Colinas (Irving) is split across three districts depending on where you are in the district:

• Irving ISD serves much of the core (elementaries such as Farine, Lee, and Freeman feed toward Travis Middle School and MacArthur High School).
• Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD (CFBISD) covers the western side and Valley Ranch (campuses include La Villita, Las Colinas, Landry, and Riverchase Elementary, Bush Middle School, and Ranchview High School, which opened in 2002).
• Coppell ISD serves a few northern pockets, including the roughly 375 homes at The Bridges at Las Colinas.

Both areas are strong here. Las Colinas was designed around water, with about 17 miles of canals, roughly 10 miles of hiking and biking trails, and more than 190 acres of parks, plus the 87-acre Lake Carolyn at its center. Arlington's headliner is River Legacy Parks, more than 1,300 acres of Trinity River hardwood forest laced with hiking and paddling trails, which is the anchor of a deep city park and recreation system.

In Las Colinas, the Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory carries the calendar, an indoor-and-outdoor complex that seats up to 8,000 and was voted a top Dallas-Fort Worth music venue by the Dallas Observer in 2025. Arlington runs on live events year-round: the Cowboys at AT&T Stadium, the Rangers at Globe Life Field (open since 2020, with a retractable roof), touring concerts at both, and a free summer concert series at the Levitt Pavilion in the revitalized downtown.

Las Colinas centers on the water. The Mandalay Canal Walk lines a Venice-inspired canal with restaurants and shops, Water Street adds newer dining and retail on Lake Carolyn, and the Mustangs of Las Colinas bronzes gallop across Williams Square. Arlington leans big and loud: Six Flags Over Texas and the Six Flags Hurricane Harbor water park, the Texas Live! entertainment and dining complex by the ballpark, and a downtown Urban Union stretch of craft beer, food, and music near UT Arlington.

Las Colinas grew out of El Ranchito de Las Colinas, the family ranch of Dallas businessman Ben H. Carpenter. He unveiled his plan on September 14, 1973, timed to the growth the new DFW Airport would bring, and built it around canals, lakes, and corporate towers. The Mustangs of Las Colinas, sculpted by Robert Glen, were dedicated at Williams Square in 1984 and remain the district's signature. Arlington is older and separate. It was founded in 1876 along the Texas and Pacific Railway, named after Robert E. Lee's Arlington House in Virginia, and incorporated in 1884 as a cotton-ginning and farming town. Six Flags Over Texas opened in 1961 and turned it into an entertainment city, and Arlington College became the University of Texas at Arlington in 1967.

Tell us which one you actually mean, because Arlington and Las Colinas serve very different buyers. Las Colinas fits people who want a walkable, upscale, low-yard lifestyle near the airport and corporate DFW, with rail access most of the metroplex doesn't have. Arlington fits families and value buyers who want single-family space and don't mind driving. Two local tips: in Las Colinas, confirm your school district before you fall for a house, because three districts crisscross the area; in Arlington, weigh how close you are to the stadiums, since event-day traffic near I-30 and SH-360 is a regular part of life there.

• Las Colinas Association: https://lascolinas.org
• City of Irving (education and services): https://irvingtx.gov/education
• Irving Chamber of Commerce: https://irvingchamber.com
• Arlington Convention & Visitors Bureau: https://www.arlington.org