Hays County may be implementing new rules for events on the courthouse lawn after downtown businesses noticed a downturn in sales due to issues with parking availability and vendor setup blocking access during frequent downtown events.
Several impacted businesses, including representatives for Old Soul Exchange, The San Market, The Farmer’s Market, Cafe on the Square, Atypical Apothecary and Vagabond, as well as other stakeholders, met with Hays County Judge Ruben Becerra to come up with solutions, which could lead to a new county policy that should come to court at a later date.
Karly Schlievert, Director of Art Squared Arts Market, was also invited to the meeting since the Art Squared Market has a stringent set of rules that have not negatively impacted area businesses. She shared her expertise and the market rules to help the county craft a new policy.
Becerra said there has been a noticeable increase in interest for use of the courthouse grounds, which he encourages.
“With that growth, there’s a clear need to update and better define the existing use guidelines,” Becerra said. “What we’re working on right now is a more structured framework developed in coordination with local stakeholders aimed at improving organization, consistency and shared expectations around items like scheduling, vendor coordination and general use of the space. The goal is to strike a balance that supports community events while also respecting the needs of surrounding businesses and the integrity of the courthouse grounds.”
Rachel McCartney, Old Soul Exchange owner, was one of the business owners at the meeting and said she has seen a downturn in business during many events on the courthouse grounds. She said she’s commonly seen vendors park in front of her business without moving all day, blocking customer access, which can be problematic for disabled and older patrons. She said this was a common complaint among the businesses at the meeting.
One of those businesses was The San Marcos Barber Shop, which posted to Facebook that they would have to close the salon on Saturdays because “downtown events hurt the business and our customers have nowhere to park as vendors take up spots.”
Janice Hardaway, who co-owns The San Market with Kelly Bara, agreed that during many downtown events, vendors take up the limited parking for the whole day, but that is not the case with Art Squared.
“Art Squared affects me in a positive way,” Hardaway said. “I never see that issue with Art Squared, because Art Squared will come and set up before 9 a.m., and then they all move their cars somewhere else. I have suggested to the county that that might be a good thing to implement for other markets because I do think that that reduces the impact that it has on the other downtown businesses. Then you have the availability of parking for people who want to come to the market and the businesses downtown.”
Hardaway has noticed an uptick in business during Art Squared and the quarterly city of San Marcos events, but has seen the opposite in most cases.
“The other markets and events that happen downtown, I would say we're easily losing around $1,000 in sales when those are going on,” Hardaway said.
She added that the city of San Marcos is very communicative with downtown businesses when events are upcoming, which helps them prepare, and that county and city cooperation would be helpful also.
“It would make a huge difference if there was some coordination [between the city of San Marcos and Hays County], because the events that happen on the square really reflect upon the city of San Marcos and upon downtown as a whole,” Hardaway said.
Hardway pointed to the limited size of the Art Squared Market as another example of good market etiquette.
“They're limiting the size of the markets, so you're not just seeing a wall of tents across the courthouse lawn. They keep all of their booths along the sidewalk,” Hardaway said. “It's also minimizing the traffic on the grass — which County taxpayers paid a lot of money to put in new turf grass a couple years ago, and it's just been trampled and is dead and brown and sad.”
Hardaway suggested that the county limit event size as she noticed the wall of tents and food trucks for some events would visually block San Antonio Street — and therefore, her storefront — and physically make it difficult for people to get to the store and also the farmers market.
McCartney said downtown events put on by the San Marcos Main Street program “are designed to bring people downtown to patronize downtown businesses and support the downtown.”
“That's Main Street's main focus,” she said. “Then with Art Squared, it's community, it's local, it's a nonprofit, and I think that it appeals to multiple demographics.”
Art Squared keeps things professional by having a “juried market.”
“Not everyone can just come and set up at any given market,” Schlievert said. “They have to be a pre-approved vendor, and we have applications for new vendors that open twice a year during the times when we don't have markets, which is the months of January, February, and then again in the summer during July and August.”
To be approved for Art Squared, one must have their own tent, table and weights — to avoid using stakes in the ground — and a Texas Comptroller Tax ID number.
“Once they're approved, they're on my approved vendor list, and they can sign up for as many markets or as little markets throughout the years as they'd like,” Schlievert said.
Schlievert said Art Squared mimics the Farmer’s Market starting time of 9 a.m. to avoid disrupting that market’s operations, and vendors are required to unload their stuff then move their cars and set up afterward to minimize the amount of time taking up parking spaces.
Art Squared also doesn’t assign vendor spots but encourages them to set up along the side walk, rather than scattered across the lawn.
“We aren't capped out to the point where that's not possible, and I'm having to create other pathways,” Schlievert said.
Schlievert recommended a set of standardized booth location maps based on the size of the event. There would be three standardized maps: one for larger events like the Mermaid Festival, medium-sized events like Art Squared and smaller events like the car show.
Schlievert said the most important factor is that Art Squared receives grant money from the San Marcos Arts Commission, so they operate by trying to “support the economy in San Marcos and specifically downtown.”
“We're receiving money to support downtown businesses,” Schlievert said. “We are contractually obligated to advertise outside of San Marcos to bring visitors in, and hopefully, in an ideal world, give people enough things to do throughout the weekend, to spend the night in a hotel and spend money in town.”
Schlievert said she recommended in the meeting that the new county event policy have a standard starting time of 9 a.m., require vendors to be fully unloaded by 9-9:30 a.m., make vendors park off-site and limit the amount of vendor booths. She added that Becerra was amenable to these ideas and was an asset in keeping the meeting running smoothly and focused on solutions that work for all stakeholders.
Becerra said the courthouse grounds event policy is a continuously evolving draft as the county continues to gather input to ensure a wide range of perspectives is captured.
