What's New in Arlington This November: Pickleball Courts, the First Taco Bell, and Park Updates

A few genuinely useful things landed in Arlington this year, and a couple of them came together in the last few months. The pickleball courts at Haller Middle School are open and free, Arlington's first Taco Bell is on its way to the Smokey Point corridor, the Jensen Park restroom project is done in time for the new pump track, and dog owners need one heads-up: the off-leash area at Stormwater Wetlands Park has been closed since July. Here is the detail, pulled from the city's own project pages and local reporting.

Pickleball courts are open at Haller Middle School

Arlington now has five outdoor pickleball courts at the east end of the Haller Middle School gym, at 600 East 1st Street. The city marked the opening with a ribbon cutting alongside Snohomish County and the Arlington School District on May 22, 2026. The project cost about $400,000, split between a $200,000 county grant and $200,000 in city construction sales tax, and the courts come with permanent lines and nets. They are free and open to the public whenever school is not in session. For a town that has been short on dedicated courts, that is a real addition, and the school district gets use of the facility for its own programs, too.

Arlington's first Taco Bell is coming to Smokey Point

Arlington has never had a Taco Bell, which quietly surprises people who assume every freeway town does. That changes this winter. The city's first location is under construction at 7755 204th Street NE along the Smokey Point corridor, and The Herald reported in August that it is slated to open December 14, 2026. Mountain Mike's planted the first of those regional flags here in December 2024, and the corridor has been busy since. The Taco Bell is another sign that the I-5 side of town keeps drawing national names.

The Jensen Park restroom and parking project is done

The restroom and parking expansion at Jensen Park is substantially complete. The city's public works quarterly report from late April says the parking lot is paved and striped, the restroom is installed and powered, and only a punch list remains. That timing matters: it is the support facility for the 14,000-square-foot pump track that opened July 29 after a community push that ran about 15 years. The improvements cost about $560,000, funded by about $100,000 from Snohomish County and roughly $460,000 from the city's real estate excise tax.

Dog owners: one park is closed, one is open

Stormwater Wetlands Park, including its fenced off-leash dog area, has been closed since July 6, 2026 for treatment of invasive knotweed. The city's closure notice is still up and no reopening date has been published, so plan around it. York Park has a second off-leash dog area that remains open, and it is the better bet in town until the wetlands park is back.

Bottom line

Arlington keeps finishing real projects: free courts people can actually use, a corridor that keeps adding familiar names, and park improvements that make a popular facility a better trip. The dog park closure is the one thing to plan around this month. If you are weighing a move here, that kind of momentum is worth knowing about, and if you already live here, most of it is free to enjoy.