New retail center coming to north side

It’s easy to look at the growth San Marcos has experienced and say it’s all over town.

On closer inspection, however, there’s a segment of the city that hasn’t seen the retail development that’s occurred elsewhere — but that’s about to change.

On track to open later this year is The Shops at Mill Street Crossing, a project of local resident and businessman Henry Oles that, he says, will fill a long-standing need. 

“The north side has been ignored for a long time,” he said. Not by those who build apartments marketed to Texas State University students — there are three new complexes adjacent to the planned shopping center with a total of 6,000 beds and 27,000 households within a five mile radius. But rather, by retail. A single gas station on the Interstate 35 access road is the extent of recent openings.

Those nearby complexes are “over 90 percent occupied” and that’s not counting “thousands of others” who live along Post Road, Lime Kiln and Hilliard.

From left are Greg Lutz, Schertz Bank; project developers Henry and Marian Oles and general contractor Eric Cromwell. Submitted photo

Oles said the shopping center will be opened in two phases and that the anchor store of Phase I will be a much-needed grocery store. “Mill Street Market will be kind of a super convenience store carrying a wide variety of things — everything from milk and eggs to milk and produce. It will be like a miniature full grocery store.”

After that, he anticipates Phase I — which is already fully permitted — will have a coffee shop, exercise facility, pizza shop and doctor or dentist offices. Spaces to be leased will range from 300 to more than 5,000 square feet.

Ground was broken for Phase 1 in December and the site is a quarter-mile from the interstate and one and a quarter miles from the Texas State campus. It’s next door to the Old Mill Business Park, which Oles purchased in 1988, beginning the renovation of what was a wool processing mill to a office complex that now houses clients including a physical therapist and Head Start, among others, in its 120,000 square feet.

Some of that space is now opening, as Community Action Agency, which has officed there for the past 20 years, has moved to its new location at The Village of San Marcos. The San Marcos CISD also has its administrative offices in the Old Mill Park while the school board decides what to do about a replacement for its Central Office, recently demolished because of mold and other air quality issues.

Phase II, when it opens, will likely contain a restaurant and service shops, Oles said. 

Oles said he’s gotten positive feedback from people in the area. “They ask, ‘why wasn’t this done years ago,’” he said. “There’s been nobody to service that area.”