Tag: city brand

Three great workshops!

1. San Marcos is getting a new logo.
2. Quick update on some water and wastewater fees
3. What are we going to do with the river parks and Quail Creek Park?

Let’s go.

….

Workshop 1: Time for branding!

In this economy, with the price of a tank of gas pushing $4, you know what I could really go for?

A NEW CITY LOGO!

Now, San Marcos has already had a logo for the past decade or so:

I think it’s called “The Waterfall Logo”. But it’s stale, yes?

So we hired some consultants. They’ve been working on this for about a year. It cost $80K. (But it did not come out of taxpayer money. It came from the hotel taxes on visitors.)

First the consultants got to know us:

I guess. Then they summarized us:

Ok, that’s pretty on-the-nose.

Apparently everyone said the same thing: we’re surrounded by cookie-cutter suburbs and San Marcos is kinda allergic to that vibe. We’re like authentic, man.

So […drumroll…] here’s what the new logo looks like:

I don’t hate it? It’s kind of a cross between Willy Wonka and Splash Mountain:

Sure, why not.

….

Honestly: this is a completely normal, standard thing that cities do. The goal is to drum up tourism and visitors.

So what can we put our logo on?

Brochures, definitely.

What else?

How about those new signs on I-35?

Day AND night, yessir.

What about a flashy cut out fountain sign?

We got you!

MORE SIGNS! Signs everywhere!

Your garbage can will get branded!

It’ll be on your new safety vest!

Your whole wardrobe is going to be on theme!

Now we’re cooking with gas! Let’s go!

What else can AI hallucinate?

Giant murals!

And your fine new necklace:

Or some pins, perhaps?

This will be perfect for when you go off-roading with your bros:

And this will be perfect for off-roading with your grandma:

Savor the round, gold hardness of commemorative San Marcos coins:

So circular.

And finally, drink some romantic San Marcos river water with your sweetie, in your very own San Marcos champagne flutes:

You’re going to be so popular, just you wait.

…

What does council say?

Question: How quickly will all this schwag show up?
Answer: Don’t hold your breath!

The free parts – meaning the digital images – will start immediately. None of that other stuff is getting ordered today, though.

For everything else, they’ll keep using the old stuff. Over the next five years, when a sign needs to be replaced, or a commemorative coin loses its sparkle, they’ll replace it with the new version.

…

Sidenote: Apparently everyone really hates Austin’s new logo:

Yeah, it’s not great! whoops.

….

Workshop 2: Water and Wastewater Impact Fees

Impact fees are fees paid by developers when they build something new. These fees would go to help fund water and wastewater projects.

We haven’t updated these fees in a while, so they’ve fallen behind:

Orange is where our fees were set in 2018. Red is the new, proposed fees in 2026.

Council all basically fine with it. Maybe some rebates for green infrastructure?

This will come back in September.

…..

Workshop 3: The River Parks and Quail Creek Park

First, the River Parks:

The river parks are a little confusing, because there are15 different names for this long stretch of land.

Let me help!

• Dog Park is by Walgreen’s
• Skate Park is by the library
• Memorial Park is by the Activity Center
• City Park is the Lion’s Club
• Plaza Park is the stage for Movies in the Park, Music at the Park, Sights & Sounds, etc
• Children’s Park is the big playground
• Rio Vista is where the falls are.
• Ramon Lucio is the baseball fields

Today we’re talking about just this part:

Within that, they’re really focused on the down river parks: Children’s Park, Rio Vista, and Ramon Lucio.

Here’s some issues:

1. Parking.
   There’s not enough parking by the Children’s Park and Rio Vista. But you also don’t want people to park too close to the river, because that’s bad for your river.

2. The outdoor pool at Rio Vista

• No one really uses it, mostly because of all the traffic to the river. We need a big city pool that residents can get to more easily.
• This is where Quail Creek park comes in. Can we put the pool out there?

3. The baseball fields

• Should these be relocated somewhere else, where they wouldn’t compete with the river traffic?
• Can we put these out at Quail Creek?

…

City staff floated like eight different versions of what it could look like, but here is staff’s main proposal:

I know, super tiny.

Council mostly focused on the children’s park, the pool, and the baseball fields:

Here are the main changes:

• Parking lot by Children’s Park is moved closer to the street, has way more spots, and has a roundabout.
• Street parking is angled and head-in, instead of parallel parking like it is now. This makes a lot more street parking.
• No more pool, but yes to splash pad.
• Tennis courts stay.
• Only one baseball field.

What does Council say?

Right now there are four baseball fields and one softball field. Everyone HATES the idea of getting rid of these.

(Apparently some people felt the baseball fields were unaesthetic? Like if you’re driving by on I-35, you might see them and shudder? And then go kick a puppy?)

Anyway, the baseball fields are staying.

…

Amanda: It’s a problem that we don’t have any drop-in soccer fields. The ones at Five Mile are off-limits, unless you are part of a league. Lots of people just want to play pick up games.

Josh: In El Paso, there were little soccer fields all over the place.

Staff: We can consider that!

Amanda:
– Soccer fields could be small. Just some area for people to play.
– How about some tables with built in chess/checkerboards?
– We need some community theater space.
– Is there going to be plenty of shade?

Answer: We’re planting lots of trees, and there will be little shade structures. Chess boards can work. The theater part will take some thinking.

….

Let’s go on to Quail Creek.

Quail Creek is a new park that we bought in 2022, located here:

I’ve never been there, but Google maps tells me that not a whole lot is going on:

Basically, it’s an old golf course that’s gone to seed.

So what do we want to do with it?

Maybe this?

Again, that’s super tiny, I know.

Zooming in:

So basically, we could get:

• Big pool, splash pad, playground
• a few soccer fields
• a lot of tennis and pickleball
• a bunch of baseball diamonds
• a disc golf course
• a dog park

There’s plenty of space, and we’re just in the dreaming stage.

What does Council say?

If we’re keeping all the baseball diamonds at Ramon Lucio, do we still need 9 more here?

Everyone says yes, let’s have all 9. One perk is that we could send baseball tournaments out to Quail Creek, especially on busy river weekends.

(Softball is all played across the street at the Gary Softball Fields.)

Final note: dreaming is cheap! Building all this stuff and maintaining it is expensive. None of this is going to happen soon.