Business continues to pour in for Hays County
It’s little wonder that developers and employers large and small have rushed into Hays County. Nationwide from 2010 to 2020, it grew faster than any other county with a population of 100,000 or more.
Expansion like that leaves a footprint on everything from workforces to waterways, and to the chagrin of those who remember the green and the quiet, the people and pavement keep coming.
But for builders and employers, busy means better.
More people means more available laborers, and “all skill levels are here,” said Jason Giulietti, an economic development proponent in the San Marcos area.
The proximity to surging populations in and around Austin and San Antonio sweetens the deal for businesses.
Take the case of Amazon, which ranks second on the Fortune 500 list. It’s taken a shine to Hays County, whose population rose 53.4 percent, according to census data.
Amazon is the county’s biggest employer, with more than 5,000 workers in its warehouses, according to Giulietti’s business development group. The Seattle-based super retailer will open its
fourth warehouse there this month.
Giulietti, president of the Greater San Marcos Partnership, stood recently at the edge of the new warehouse site. He looked on as construction workers buzzed in and out of the distribution facility, which covers more than 1 million square feet and will store products that are larger than a suitcase.
Companies look at the Interstate 35 corridor and say, “We need to be here. We know the growth is here. There’s opportunity. There’s land to build facilities, and there’s people to then occupy those jobs,” Giulietti said.
Just down the street from the Amazon warehouse sits a “spec” building, which a developer constructed on the assumption that businesses will arrive and need a place to set up shop. Giulietti’s group announced recently that the new 85,000-square-foot facility will welcome an East Coastbased company that uses robotics to provide automated laundry services to major hotel chains.
Giulietti said Cooperative Laundry did a market analysis and found that more hotel rooms were coming online in Austin than in New York City.
“So they said, ‘We need to be down here.’”
Last year, Hays County welcomed six large companies, according to the Greater San Marcos Partnership. This year, 13 more began to construct buildings in the county or moved into existing spaces — or announced plans to do so. They have created or are expected to create at least 750 jobs, most of which pay more than the county’s average income of $44,000.
The goods
The business growth has three main benefits, said Kelsee Lee, San Marcos’ economic and business development manager: tax revenue, jobs and access to goods and services.
For taxes, more industry means a lighter burden on residents, she said. For jobs, having “such diverse businesses” means a lot of employment opportunities. And for goods and services, a new H-E-B, for example, is “something that really resonates with the citizens because it’s a company they can go and use every day.”
A new doughnut shop resonates as well.
On a humid August morning, owner Danny Taing pulled a tray of biscuits out of the oven to prepare for the morning rush at Babe’s Doughnut and Coffee, 214 N. LBJ Drive.
Babe’s has two other collegetown locations — in College Station and Tuscaloosa, Ala., — and Taing likes the “local feel” of San Marcos’ bustling downtown square.
There are “not as many big chains down here,” Taing said, so it’s “easy to get recognized as a local mom-and-pop shop, which is what we’re trying to go for: scratch-made items like doughnuts and homemade biscuits.”
Seeking to capitalize on the city’s growth, Taing opened right before the pandemic. It was a rocky first year.
But the city helped with grants to pay for half the cost of the store’s sign as well as for improvements to sidewalks and bike lanes downtown, Taing said. The city organizes a farmers market that draws customers on the weekends, when the shop can use the extra business.
Lee emphasized the city’s partnerships and “efforts to rebrand and invest heavily in infrastructure.”
Taing appreciates that. There is a “team of downtown people that make sure we have the tools that we need to open up and stay open,” he said.
Growing pains
It’s not all wine and roses, though.
Some residents watching the expansion point to inadequate infrastructure, overcrowding and degradation of natural resources and landscapes.
Sharri Boyett moved to San Marcos in 1993 and bought a house off Stagecoach Trail, at the city’s edge. She said that back then, her neighborhood had a lazy feel, with plenty of wildlife and “dead end” signs.
But thousands have moved to the area since then, and things couldn’t be more different.
“We live in a place that was beautiful and wooded, and now we have Astroturf and landscaping companies and homeowners associations telling people what they can and can’t plant,” she said. “It’s the quintessential reflection of those lyrics, ‘You paved paradise and put in a parking lot.’”
Boyett, who has a master’s degree in business, said she hasn’t seen the influx of good, high-paying jobs for which she had hoped.
Diane Wassenich, a longtime San Marcos resident, served as the executive director of the San Marcos River Foundation for 34 years.
Now retired and speaking on her own behalf, she lamented the depletion of natural resources and its implications for drinking water.
“A lot of us moved here because of our beautiful rivers and springs,” she said. “But if you build too much impervious cover — like hard surfaces, rooftops, sidewalks, driveways, streets and roads — then you don’t have the ability for the rainfall to go down into the recharge zone and settle into the aquifer, which is what feeds our rivers and creeks.”
Wassenich hopes local lawmakers will pay greater attention to the long-term effects of development.
She cautions that developers and landowners, who have financial interests that determine the nature and location of growth, “might not have the interest of the whole community at heart.”
A new look
Lee, the economic and business development manager, said that for a long time, San Marcos had a reputation as an outdoor recreation spot and a college town.
“But we’ve really seen that perception change,” she said.
Folks at Texas State University hope their contribution will enhance the new climate.
Stephen Frayser runs the university’s Science, Technology and Advanced Research Park. The 58-acre incubator helps to develop technology- and sciencefocused startups and get them off the ground.
“We’re dealing with folks doing things like creating advanced aerospace gels and semiconductor materials and diagnostics,” Frayser said.
The park lets businesses use its laboratories and technological facilities for up to five years. In exchange, they have to give something back to the university. In most cases, they hire Texas State students as interns or employees.
The university’s incubator is helping create “a new and vibrant economic base in the area,” he said.
“It’s job creation. It’s image development,” he said. “It’s putting together a set of values that help make that sale of why you should be here.”