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The San Marcos City Council has made “downtown vitality” one of its strategic initiatives for 2019. But amid rapid growth, ongoing roadwork, plans for paid parking and constant changes, what does “downtown vitality” mean?
“It means something different to everyone,” said Rebecca Ybarra-Ramirez, director of destination services for the Convention and Visitors Bureau and Main Street. “It’s a mix of different ideas. Basically, it’s beautification, retention of businesses, an increase of traffic to the downtown area — whether it be businesses, whether it be pedestrian traffic, whether it be residences … just making it pedestrian and user friendly. And when I saw user friendly, bringing more people to the downtown area.”
‘Quality of place’
The council’s list of strategic initiatives details some plans for downtown vitality, including the revision of the Downtown Master Plan to reflect greater support for diversified business activity and defining the city’s goals regarding economic vitality, design, organization and promotion. Another goal for downtown is improving its “quality of place” and identifying sites and assets that could promote San Marcos’ status as a destination. Ybarra-Ramirez described it as taking places like Kissing Alley and other nooks downtown and turning them into “people places.”
Part of drawing people to the downtown area involves beautification — another of the city’s goals. Ybarra-Ramirez said right now, there are several different styles and colors of benches and other fixtures downtown and there’s no real consistency. However, she said, staff now has a pattern book for downtown to begin standardizing fixtures and landscaping.
The city’s initiative for downtown also involves reviewing and assessing vacant and neglected buildings in the area. Though there are new businesses moving in — Cheer and Chow, Santi’s Tacos, Toma Taco and others — there are still plenty of empty spaces for lease downtown. Ybarra-Ramirez said the city recognizes that high rent is an issue with some of the spaces, especially since empty retail space can be a writeoff for property owners who want to hold out for tenants who can pay the rent they are asking for.
“It not only sucks the life out of a building,” Ybarra-Ramirez said of vacant spaces, “it sucks the life out of downtown — or the environment it’s in, whether it’s here or somewhere else.”
Ybarra-Ramirez said city staff members have begun discussing incentives for businesses to move in downtown, but such talks are still in the early stages. She said one of the first steps the city wants to take is gathering ownership information, lease information, names of general managers and managers and an inventory of the types of businesses downtown.
“We didn’t have that,” she said. “We should have always had that, and we don’t.”
Ybarra-Ramirez said the strategy for downtown used to be focused on events, which did bring people into downtown, but, “Now we have vacant buildings to deal with, beautification to deal with ... we’ve got to make improvements to draw people downtown.”
‘There’s so many great ideas’
The student housing projects going up around the downtown area will increase traffic, Ybarra-Ramirez said — not just from students but also from their parents.
“These parents come in to visit these children, the thousand people that will be downtown — it’s going to bring more traffic to downtown,” she said.
That extra traffic, Ybarra-Ramirez said, will in turn draw more businesses to the downtown area.
Moreover, the city’s parking plan will help with beautification and vitalization efforts — and the more people who visit downtown and pay for parking, the more revenue there will be.
Revenue is important for many of the downtown vitality efforts that are under discussion, Ybarra-Ramirez said, such as providing more signage to help people find their way downtown and other measures to draw people in. For instance, she said, there is the small park-like area being developed on Hutchison Street across from Showdown that is also meant to serve as a mobility hub. Hutchison Street will also serve as a sort of gateway leading people from the parks along the river to the downtown area.
“It’s already built, it’s pedestrian friendly, we don’t have to deal with TxDOT [Texas Department of Transportation] right of ways,” Ybarra-Ramirez said of Hutchison Street.
She said residents came up with the idea of putting in a sort of archway to welcome people to downtown, and city staff determined that putting the arch over Hutchison would be ideal.
“We’re going to investigate the cost, and different options,” she said. “... And it will be a metal arch that will go over on the corner of Hutchison and CM Allen, going into the downtown area.”
The city has to make sure the funding is there, she said, but the project is likely feasible.
“There’s so many great ideas,” she said. “It’s just the money.”
Of course, right now a large obstacle between the river parks and downtown is the ongoing construction on CM Allen Parkway, which has been delayed by 48 days of rain and many soaking rains. However, Ybarra-Ramirez said, workers are taking care of as many issues as possible during the road reconstruction.
“Now that they have the street all torn up, might as well make all the improvements on the infrastructure and everything else instead of tearing it up later,” she said.
Ybarra-Ramirez also noted that downtown is already beautiful and has attractions like the historic Hays County Courthouse.
She said she always hears people say that San Marcos should become Georgetown or Fredericksburg.
“No, we want to be San Marcos,” she said. “Everybody has their own uniqueness, their own qualities, and we have a great downtown. We have a beautiful courthouse downtown. Beautiful grass … well-maintained. And now Judge Becerra is trying to have a community event every month, bringing more people in, bringing more awareness.”
Ybarra-Ramirez said she believes that the city council’s decision to make downtown vitality a stated strategic priority will put new energy behind ideas that have been talked about for a long time.
“Now the focus is there for hopefully the next two to three years,” she said.
