Downtown Area Plan Open House draws community engagement

Residents gathered at the San Marcos Activity Center to engage and share ideas as city officials discussed progress made on the city’s Downtown Area Plan.

The City of San Marcos hosted an open house event Wednesday, inviting residents to share their visions for downtown.

Wednesday’s event featured multiple presenters from various city departments. Attendees were each given a sheet and a clipboard and asked to rank their 10 highest and lowest priority items from each key concept.

Key concepts and recommendations featured at Wednesday’s event were History, Art, Culture; Downtown Housing Options; Fostering Small Businesses; Building Form and Infill Development; Public Spaces and Amenities; Multi-Modal Connectivity and Parking; and Priority Streetscape Enhancements.

The Downtown Area Plan is part of the Vision SMTX Comprehensive Plan and has several listed purposes, including the establishment of a community and stakeholder led vision specific to Downtown; guidance for development and infrastructure investments in downtown for the next 20 years; strategically aligned investments for downtown; identification of downtown assets and character to preserve or enhance; and to position downtown for existing and employment areas and mixed-use centers.

According to Vision SMTX website, San Marcos’ Downtown Master Plan, adopted in 2008, is nearing 15 years old.

The Daily Record spoke with two presenters, one from Building Form and Infill Development, and one from Fostering Small Businesses regarding their visions for downtown San Marcos.

Building Form and Infill Development

San Hwang, associate civil and environmental engineering professor at Texas State University, believes one of San Marcos’ downtown area priorities should be managing stormwater runoff through permeable pavement.

“When I came to San Marcos in 2020, what I heard [about San Marcos] was the beautiful San Marcos River, and at the same time, the worst flooding event, 2015 I believe,” Hwang said. “What I’m doing is to improve livability [and] to enhance water quality at the same time.”

Hwang says the permeable pavement can control stormwater runoff and recharge groundwater.

“Not only is the stormwater [situation] not looking good, but it causes psychological stress to residents,” Hwang said.

Fostering Small Businesses

Freddy Medina of San Marcos Main Street said fostering small businesses is all about “trying to figure out what kind of strategies we can implement as a city to not only attract new businesses and emerging entrepreneurs, but also help them thrive and live on to see that next phase in their business.”

Medina said through a partnership with the Business & Community Lenders of Texas, Main Street recently launched ThinkBIG, a business improvement and growth program that provides one-on-one consultations and financial advice to entrepreneurs to “help them thrive and grow sustainably.”

“With the right type of events, we can bring new people downtown that are potential customers for these businesses,” Medina said.

Project Schedule

According to Vision SMTX’s project timeline, city officials are expected to formulate a draft and final Downtown Master Plan by December.

To learn more about the Downtown Area Plan, or to view the results of the Downtown Community Workshop and Downtown Online Survey, visit https://www.visionsmtx.com/downtown-plan/.