Crestwood businesses appear set to close

UPDATE: According to the city of San Marcos, a grace period has been granted for water to be shut off to the building. "Conversations are still happening between the City, County, and property owners," Lauren Surley, director of Communications & Intergovernmental Relations for the city of San Marcos said. "Barring any TCEQ enforcement against the City and County, the City of San Marcos has committed to the property owner that the water cutoff will happen no earlier than March 31."

ORGINAL: With the odds becoming increasingly high that the businesses at Crestwood Center off Old Ranch Road 12 will be forced to close in less than a week, the mood of those facing their last days to offer food, drink and services was surprisingly upbeat.

On its Facebook page Monday, the Gray Horse Saloon posted it was hanging in until the “bitter end,” calling on customers and friends to help the business go out with discounts and free pool “until we’re done.”

The St. Patrick’s Day celebration there this Friday will likely be the swan song for the bar and the owners stated they are hoping it will be a gathering to go down in the memory books, according to its social media posts.

“Due to unresolved issues with the septic system that services Crestwood Center, we will be closing Gray Horse after business on Friday 3/17, AKA St. Patrick’s Day,” the 3-year anniversary of the saloon’s first COVID closure of 2020, the saloon owners posted.

“It has been a true pleasure to have been a part of this amazing community,” the saloon owners posted on Facebook. “We are all heartbroken that it has come to this. Please refrain from negativity. This is not the fault of any of the tenants nor the City of San Marcos/County of Hays.” The saloon stated that the city and county worked to “help solve this issue and we are all concerned about preserving the fragile and amazing environment where we all live.”

Last week, Lauren Surley, director of communications & intergovernmental relations, communications, for the City of San Marcos, stated the dilemma facing these businesses receiving their water service from the city was “the property’s septic system, which is shared with a neighboring private business that annexed into the city limits, is out of compliance with regulations and poses a health and safety risk to the community.”

The city and Hays County have been working together and were in contact with the owners of “both properties for years to discuss options to safely address their wastewater needs, which included holding meetings with the property owners and tenants to keep everyone up to date on discussions, but no resolution has been reached among the involved property owners.”

In response to what is perceived to be a serious and ongoing health and safety risk posed to the community by the failed septic system, as of time of press Monday, it appeared that the potential was high for the city to be forced to cut off water service to the shopping center.

According to Surley, that decision “is still pending action on the part of the property owners. The business owners have been aware of the possibility for about six months. The City of San Marcos and Hays County continue to work with the owners to come up with an amenable solution,” she stated.

A city official said Monday that regarding any potential disconnection of water service, there was no new information to share.

The landlord for the Crestwood Center, UC2, LTD, was reached Monday for comments regarding the status of the businesses. Jimmy Umstattd, representative and spokesperson for the company, said, “I haven’t been over there in the last couple of days,” but that he has respect for each of the businesses facing closures. In a Sunday article in the Daily Record, he took issue with the city and county position, saying he had never received “notification from the city as to any kind of intention they might have” to suspend water services to the center’s businesses. Specifically, he said, no notification was received by UC2, LTD.

He said that he might be able to say more in several weeks, but could not go into detail now about what further action may be taken to keep the water on and the businesses running.

He said that over the years keeping all of the spaces filled at the center was not easy, and now, it is especially hard, with the center well occupied, that a failing septic system is threatening so many livelihoods.

“That’s been a kind of a struggle since we stepped in, to get it full,” he said.

The other business adjacent to the center on Old Ranch Road 12 that is part of the water and wastewater service discussion, is the Ranch Road Storage and U-Haul dealer. The owner could not be reached for comment as of time of press.

For the Gray Horse Saloon, the next several days will be filled with Happy Hour specials each day before the close. The proprietors stated they have discounted all inventory in an effort to bring the community to its doors, sending saloon out with as much fanfare as possible.

In a telephone interview Monday, Pamela Steger said that the status of hers and many of the other businesses with which she is in contact, “is the same really.”

She said it was “kind of in limbo,” but for her what remains is the reality that the water will be cut off by Saturday, March 18, barring “some miracle.”

Steger said, “Everyone is dealing with it differently.”

She said that she was going “to go look” in the community for a possible place to relocate her award-winning business, and was happy to receive leads regarding a possible relocation site.

Earlier she had posted on her social media, that this is “almost unbearable for most of us here in the center including employees.”