|
From weekly San Marcos River Foundation email - This notice was put out early in June before a San Marcos City Council meeting, urging people to attend that meeting and give their views on this proposal. I haven't seen further information on this issue.
Anne
A major building project has been announced by the Chamber and Economic Development Council for San Marcos, but much more thought and discussion will go into this project before the Council votes on the issues involved. I've spent a lot of time researching the conference center that is being discussed, and here is what I have learned about the proposal. It is of importance to SMRF since it is being proposed for the land above Spring Lake, adjoining the Mimosa Circle neighborhood.
This issue started with a proposal by a well known international hotel builder and owner, Mr. Hammands, first for a convention center and hotel near the outlet malls on IH 35. He likes to build big hotels near capitals of states and universities. The project later evolved into a smaller conference center and hotel, with accompanying resort community, to be located on the land above the Brown School buildings, which is above the slough that feeds Spring Lake. The views from this high knoll are the draw that changed the plans for this project, which is called Gateway to the Hill Country.
If built there, Bert Brown Road, which runs by the old golf course building off Post Road, would be the main entrance to the hotel and conference center and would of course be widened and a bridge put in over the slough. There would probably be other entrances on Lime Kiln Road, and there would be a golf course along Sink Creek, in the flood plain area that is seldom flooded now because of the two Sink Creek flood control dams. There might need to be other entrances since the city would not want a land-locked development, so Holland Street's extension, or near Bluebonnet, might be other connections, though that is not decided yet.
The Holland Street extension was not put on the city's Transportation Master Plan because of environmental concerns about that location, so we will have to see how this will impact this choice.
Residences would be built around the hotel and conference center, and on the other high points of the land that reach all the way to Elm Hill Court and Oak Ridge Drive, and also include land near Inwood, Norcrest, Lamar and Mimosa Circle. The owner of the property envisions high-end, large-lot homes that are part of the "resort", but there are not yet plans drawn. The City Council wanted public input before plans are drawn. A lot of the land is on the recharge zone, some on the transition zone. The hotel would be about 2,000 ft. from the slough, but much infrastructure would have to cross the slough.
The hotel and conference center will be quite visible because of the height of the buildings, plus the fact that they are built on the top of the highest hill around the lake. But the homes might not be so visible, as the trees are so thick on the property. The owner of the land intends to keep a lot of trees, but of course the hotelier may be the one to make those decisions about the property he is building on, and the roads leading to it.
At this point, we cannot be sure of any of these plans, as they are not on paper yet, but I appreciate that Mr. Gilmore, the owner of the property is willing to show the land and discuss his concept openly with any who are interested. He has done a tree survey, and is attempting to preserve the large oaks on the land, and clumps of trees where possible, because he sees the trees as part of the value of the land.
The conference center would require considerable investment by the City, many millions of dollars, and also in the infrastructure like roads and water/wastewater lines. If it were built near the mall, that infrastructure would pretty much already be in place, saving a great deal of money. The disturbance that would occur to the slough area, and subsequent runoff into the lake, is also a factor that must be considered, when such major infrastructure work would be done at the lake site. Major road work would have to be built very quickly in the Aquarena Springs Drive, Post Road, Uhland Road area to connect this project to the Interstate, if it were built on the Spring Lake site. A bridge over the slough at Lime Kiln Rd. would also be needed soon, and the major springs that feed the river are just above that area, so the construction of the bridge would have major environmental impacts, and thus be quite expensive.
The costs of all this must be weighed when choosing a site.
The actual hotel, which could be in the 7 to 10 story range, with perhaps 280 rooms, would be built on the high knoll above Brown Schools. The accompanying conference center, which is not yet planned but could have a capacity of seating perhaps 3000, and the parking for both structures (3000 cars?), is not drawn yet. But the Council has asked for public input to know how the citizens feel about the project at this stage. Because the plans are not drawn yet, it is hard to do an engineering assessment of the runoff expected, but it is clear that roads and parking lots can cause serious pollution problems.
The river has already suffered a lot from the University's building projects, since they do not follow local ordinances that protect the river. In Austin they have discovered that parking lot sealants which release very toxic substances in runoff can have a major impact on water quality. These are problems we will have to deal with on this Spring Lake site, if we intend to protect the river for recreational use in the future. Our development rules only do minimal protection during small rainfall events, not big rainfall events. Past building projects in town like the apts. at Holland and N. LBJ which have caused mudslides down the creek beds that feed Sink Creek, and devastating erosion from increased impervious cover, illustrate the kind of damage that could occur.
The two local outlet malls are facing a downturn expected because a similar mall is being planned for the Laredo or Brownsville area, which could take the estimated one third of the San Marcos malls' business which is from Mexico. This proposed convention or conference center, if built near the malls on IH 35, could give them a real boost. The question is whether the hotelier can be convinced, and the City Council as well, to locate the project near the mall instead of Spring Lake.
|