New Downtown La Grange Plan Won’t Cut Any Parking

The La Grange City Council voted unanimously Monday night to authorize city staff to submit an application for a downtown revitalization grant.

The Texas Department of Agriculture (TDA), which administers the downtown revitalization grant program, already earmarked up to $1 million for the La Grange project. One of the main goals of the downtown project is to improve pedestrian safety and traffic flow around the Square. The initial concept faced some public opposition over the proposed removal of dozens of parking spaces around the Courthouse Square. After gathering public input, City staff refined the design twice. The third draft proposal presented Monday night will result in no loss of parking.

The plan will now undergo review by the TDA.

La Grange Main Street Manager Caleb Parks presented the draft to the Council Monday night.

“Other improvements you’ll see we’ve taken — right now there are 11 light posts around the courthouse,” Parks said. “We’re updating all 11 of those and we’re adding the 12th light post back in along Main Street and Colorado Street, brightening that corner up a little bit. And we’re adding an additional 36 lights, so that brings us 48 lights that we installed underneath this grant program.”

Parks said some of the public feedback expressed interest in extending improvements beyond the square. Monday night he said some of the additional lighting will reach beyond the Square into North and South Washington St., Main St. and West Colorado St.

At a previous public workshop meeting, the City collected input from property owners, tenants and other stakeholders in the downtown area. Based on that feedback, Parks said the City selected traditional lantern-style light fixtures along with trash receptacles and benches that feature wooden slats.

The lighting improvements include a mix of lights on poles and string lighting. Councilman Ken Taylor asked whether the string lights would be attached to buildings and if the City has gotten permission from the building owners to attach the lights.

“We’ve tested the waters on that, and talked to some of the property owners, and they’re all OK with it,” Parks said. “We’ll still be firming that up and finalizing that. Worst case scenario, if they really don’t want it, we could always find a pole to connect it to.”

Taylor also asked who would maintain the new lighting improvements. He noted that a contractor currently maintains some of the existing lighting around the Square.

“The string lighting would probably fall within our responsibility unless this company had some way of doing that,” Parks said. “I have not talked to the company about those.”

Taylor said he looked at the existing lighting the night before the meeting and found about half of it not working. Parks said he contacted the maintenance contractor that morning to request repairs.

Councilman Bryan Kerr asked about the project timeline. Parks said the City will now submit the design plan to TDA. He said TDA reviewers could request minor changes. Any changes would be reflected in the final design documents, which should be available this fall. At that point, the City Council will review the final plans and grant agreement for their approval. Grant funds would become available in February. The City would then solicit bids for constructhe tion.

“The earliest you’d be able to start any actual build work would probably be late next year,” Parks said. “We’ve been told by the businesses, ‘Please don’t do a bunch of construction in the fourth quarter of the year.’ So we’re definitely going to take that note. We’d probably not start anything like that until 2028.”

Parks said terms of the grant require construction to be complete within 24 months of the start of the grant agreement.

Kerr and Taylor urged City staff to hold a public meeting before construction starts to inform the community about the changes downtown and the construction timeline. Parks said he would organize such a meeting and communicate with the public about it.

In previous discussions, County leaders have questioned whether some of the improvements encroach on County-owned property around the Courthouse.

“So far everything we found is that’s our right-ofway,” said City Manager Jack Thompson. “So we’re staying within the right-of-way.”

Thompson said the City will conduct a survey so that engineers can prepare construction documents.

“So when we survey yet it for the construction docs, it’ll be reflected in there that it’s our right-of-way,” Thompson said.

Downtown business owner Gene Carson asked whether all construction will be completed at a cost under the $1 million cap.

“It was projected at around $908,000, and that’s to give us some wiggle room on the pricing,” Parks said. “So if things get more expensive when we get to the bid process, we’ve got some leeway on it.”

Thompson asked the Council for an affirmation vote on the project. It passed unanimously.