Horseshoe Bay Resort donates land for new City Hall; voters will have say
Horseshoe Bay Resort recently donated land for a new Horseshoe Bay City Hall. The 3.5-acre plot is near the Summit Rock development on FM 2147, across from the Escondido subdivision. The city expressed a need for more space earlier this year.
Horseshoe Bay residents will vote on the proposed expansion in November.
“(The current City Hall is) still functional, but in the last 15 years, we’ve outgrown it,” said Mayor Cynthia Clinesmith about the offices at 1 Community Drive. “We’ve used every available space. We’ve cleaned out closets and turned them into small offices. There is literally no other space available.”
The new city center will have room to host events, something the current building can’t easily accommodate.
“We’ll hold our Christmas holidays there, our Earth Day, and workshops to help people with xeriscaping,” Clinesmith said. “It will serve multiple purposes.”
The city also will look at expanding on an additional 6 acres currently owned by the Lower Colorado River Authority and adjacent to the donated land. If the city is successful in its pursuit, the LCRA will lease the land to it for several years for $1.
Currently, the LCRA land is littered with towers, wires, and gas lines, making it difficult to build any structures on it. The city hopes to use this tract for overflow parking, trails, and other recreational purposes for residents.
The city will continue to maintain the current City Hall after the expansion is completed. Offices for the city manager, city secretary, finance department, and human resources will move to the new building.
“For now, we’re going to build a smaller footprint,” Clinesmith said. “It will house the council chambers and city administrative offices.”
Once construction is complete, the current City Hall will be the main office for Development Services.
The city will start talks during its regular council meeting on Tuesday, Aug. 12, to discuss how it will pay for the expansion.
“We’ve been anticipating this need for a few years,” Clinesmith said. “We created a building fund that we’ve tried to add to whenever we could. We’ve got some infrastructure already going in place, so that will also take some cost off of it.”
Due to these cost-saving measures, taxes will not be raised to fund this project, Clinesmith said.
The issue will be on the November ballot. If approved by Horseshoe Bay voters, the city hopes to begin sending out construction bids in January.