Open house set for SMART development

The SMART Development Project is the newest approach underway designed to impact an 888-acre parcel, long the subject for innovative planning and development.

The “SMART” project is a proposed industrial park under development by Scarborough Lane. Scarborough Lane, along with its partners and affiliates, stated on its website that it “seeks to better the greater San Marcos area and to improve the lifestyles of the people who live and work in the area.”

“People from all over the country are moving to Texas and we believe the Austin-San Antonio I-35 Corridor is positioned to capture much of the growth. With the addition of the SMART Development Project, San Marcos will join the shortlist of cities offering nationally strategic real estate developments with regionally connected infrastructure for industrial and commercial tenants,” said Clayton Kendall, Scarborough Lane Development vice president. “We are excited to partner with the City of San Marcos and Caldwell County to ultimately bring jobs to the region that will have a substantial economic impact on the community.”

According to Kendall, the two open house events will be held from 3 to 7 p.m. on Wednesday, March 15 and then once again, for the same hours on Wednesday, March 22. He said his company has been collaborating with the city June 2022. A team of seven staff members and consultants will be at the open houses to reach out to answer questions the public may have regarding this newest iteration project Both open houses will be at the Martindale Schoolhouse, 101 Lockhart St., Martindale.

Kendall said, “The current agenda item is to annex and zone additional land in the Smart Terminal agreement.”

SMART stands for San Marcos Air Rail and Truck Terminal, the umbrella for what is a 888acre planned industrial/ business park that takes as one core goal the promotion of rail service from inside Caldwell County in the vicinity of the San Marcos Regional Airport.

Katerra, based out of California, and a manufacturer of large building components and materials that can be used for final assemblies, was initially going to be the anchor business.

The site is currently located outside the City limits in the San Marcos Extra-territorial Jurisdiction (ETJ). An application for annexation is being considered concurrently with this request (AN-22-20). The zoning request is made up of five separate parcels, all of which are part of the SMART Terminal Development Agreement, which was originally approved in 2019 and then amended on January 17, 2023 to include these additional parcels. The request is consistent with the Heavy Industrial uses in the approved Development Agreement.

The company is widely active in development throughout Texas including Austin, Houston and Dallas/Fort Worth projects. Planning, design and the construction of commercial, residential and mixed-use properties represent the core of what the company does in the state.

The agenda item specifically is a request for a zoning change from future development (FD) to heavy industrial (HI) for approximately 588.821 +/- acres of land, more or less, out of the William Pettus Survey, Abstract No. 21 and the Thomas Maxwell Survey No.17, Abstract No. 188, Caldwell County, Texas, generally located on FM 1984 at the intersection between State Highway 80 and the future FM 110.

In February 2023, Franklin Mountain San Marcos I, L.P. requested an amendment to the SMART Terminal and Cotton Center Development Agreements in order to move +/‐600 acres from Cotton Center to the SMART Terminal. These amendments were approved by the San Marcos City Council in January 2023.

In February, the applicant requested annexation into the city limits and heavy industrial zoning for some of the land covered by the agreement. The annexation and zoning are requirements of the amended agreement.

Planned for 30 years, the FM 110 loop, in its final construction phase, is by design meant to circumvent the center of San Marcos, and approximately 11.25 miles long.

Located on the eastern edge of the city and Hays County, FM 110 connects Interstate 35 at McCarty Lane on the south side of the city with Yarrington Road at I-35 on the city’s north end. The loop is designed to provide a safe alternative for drivers who are passing through San Marcos on their way to SH 130, IH 10, or local destinations such as the outlet malls and San Marcos Municipal Airport.

The project has three segments: South (from SH 123 to FM 621), Middle (from FM 621 to SH 80), and North (from SH 80 to IH 35 at Yarrington Road). The roadway design included numerous challenges due to the Cottonwood Creek Watershed. A portion of this project encroached into the Soil Conservation Service (SCS) Site 13 Reservoir and the upper reaches of the San Marcos River.

The project needed significant coordination to align both short-and long-term transportation master plans for the city, the county and Texas Department of Transportation, specifically for the existing roadways that would eventually intersect with the loop.

To get more information about the SMART project and the open house, visit SMARTdevelopmentproject. com.