Revival Square retail project delayed
Applicant must bring new request to Bee Cave city staff and the City Council.
The retail town center project known as Revival Square, which has been in the works for several years, could be in jeopardy since the applicant must bring a new Planned Development District application to be scrutinized and approved by Bee Cave city staff and the City Council in the coming months.
The ambitious project, which would sit where the Revival rustic furniture store is at 13308 Texas 71, has seen its plans scaled down.
The square is no longer planned to feature a large church structure as presented to council in 2013 but will feature several smaller buildings built from the same stone,
Revival owner David Camp told the council before it voted to make him apply again.
“It’ll have a main street mixed with retail, a beer and wine garden; it’ll have fresh local produce,” Camp said during the May 9 council meeting. “It’ll be a mix of light activities as far as music, shopping and a gathering place for the community . ... It’s just a synergistic main street of creative people and small business owners.”
That is, if the project gets built at all. Camp said the concept is “dead” if he and his team have to take the time to complete a new development district application.
Camp and his attorney came before the Bee Cave City Council on May 9 to ask to extend the deadlines associated with the site plan for the Revival Square project and hoped to present the changes as site plan amendments, a less involved and extensive application process than a new application would be.
Camp said the first Planned Development District application took two years and considerable capital to complete, and the originally proposed reconstructed rustic church concept is out of reach at an estimated $9 million to erect.
“What you’re feeling is panic,” Camp said. “We don’t have the capital. We’re trying to stay as close to the original plan as we possibly can for this reason.”
But the City Council put its collective foot down: Structural changes as extensive as suggested by Camp will have to jump through all of the requisite hoops before the city lets Camp move any dirt.
“Do you really think taking the church out of the project doesn’t require a PDD amendment?” Mayor Pro Tem Bill Goodwin asked. “It’s mind-boggling to me that anyone could suggest otherwise . ... When we voted on it, the church (structure) was front and center. I believe the majority of the council at the time put a great weight on that. This is not the same project.”
Camp accused city staff of giving his team the runaround and not setting clear expectations about the project, and he argued that the city’s ordinances allowed structural changes so long as the intent of the project remains the same. City staff and city council, disagreed.
“We don’t entertain financial aspects of the project; that’s not our end of the bargain,” Mayor Caroline Murphy said. “We can’t really make judgments on our laws on the applicant’s ability or not to pay.”
The City Council unanimously voted to give the applicant three months to file an administratively complete application, and six months to file a technically complete application, from June 30, 2017.