Mitchell addresses growth at state of Kyle

Kyle Mayor Travis Mitchell examined the city’s growth during his State of the City Address this week. 

Mitchell's speech, which took place on Tuesday during the Kyle Area Chamber of Commerce’s October luncheon, focused on Kinder Morgan, infrastructure and the city's economic development. 

Mitchell, who has held the office of mayor since 2017, said the city council is tasked every day with wading through various proposals from developers and the community alike to figure out which proposals fit into the overall strategic plan for the city. 

Mitchell noted that development patterns in the City of Kyle are shifting. 

“We are placing less of an emphasis on single-family detached, suburban sprawl type subdivisions and far more of an emphasis and focus on new urban vertical mixed-use type projects that get the maximum use of tax dollars, that have a minimal impact on the environment and that create the highest possible return on investment from the standpoint of taxation, which benefits all,” Mitchell said.  

One mixed-use project on the horizon for Kyle is Uptown, a development project that “seems to be gaining momentum,” according to Mitchell. 

He said there are four major components of the Uptown project: a new Kyle park, a hotel and convention center, a vertical class A office building and a potential police station.

“Uptown is going to be a style or type of development that does not exist in the City of Kyle, it does not exist in the city of Buda and it does not exist to this scale in the city of San Marcos,” he said. “The project engineers and architects behind Uptown were the ones that worked on Midtown in Houston that did architectural design work for the Domain, in particular, phase two.”

Mitchell also focused on the growth that has already occurred in Kyle. The city has issued 484 new single-family residential permits in the last 12 months, and 46 commercial certificates of occupancy, according to Mitchell.

“We have 17 home builders and 11 subdivisions within the City of Kyle and the ETJ,” he said. ”We have announced multiple major economic development projects in the last 12 months, the most recent of which was about two weeks ago the Smile Direct Club. Eight hundred and fifty new jobs coming to the City of Kyle with an average wage of $40,000, which means some will be more, some will be less.”

Likewise, a microprocessor semiconductor manufacturing company, ENF Technology, will establish its U.S. headquarters in Kyle, with construction estimated to begin next year, Mitchell said. 

“So here's the thing: growth in the city is happening,” Mitchell said. “It's happening all over the city and right now we are seeing a lot of traction in our Plum Creek area because the infrastructure with 1626, Kohler's Crossing, I-35 and the 45 toll road and 2770 are all coming together to create an opportunity for large employers in large-scale, high-quality-of-life projects to come to the City of Kyle.”

Mitchell delved into his experience dealing with Kinder Morgan, the company behind the pipeline which would run through Kyle city limits. 

“The interesting thing is that last year, I have been spending more time thinking about and processing through Kinder Morgan and our struggles with them and their proposed pipeline than perhaps any other single initiative,” Mitchell said. 

Mitchell discussed the ordinance the city passed that led Kinder Morgan to file a lawsuit against Kyle and ultimately settle for $2.7 million. 

“Over the course of several weeks, we were able to put into place an agreement that still requires them to bury the pipeline in certain strategic areas more than twice the federally mandated depth,” he said. “As well as a provision that prohibits Kinder Morgan from ever pumping crude oil through that pipeline, all 430 miles of it, into eternity.”

On infrastructure, Mitchell said that the city passed a $87.3 million budget, $35.7 of which will go to capital improvement projects. 

Mitchell concluded his address by asking the audience to encourage their councilmembers to continue thinking about the future of the city. 

“There is a path forward that takes into account the concerns and values of the majority of our residents and increases the quality of life such that when the growth happens, and it will, it won't be something that makes us cringe,” he said. “But it will be something that gets us excited because we know that the planning process that we have gone through and the strategy that we are employing is going to have maximum return on our investment.”