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The city cut the ribbon for its new Mercer Street restrooms on April 17, just in time for Founders Day. It’s a project that has been a long time coming.
“About ten years ago, Pam Owen, the past director of the Visitors Center, saw the need and asked, how do we do it? And I told her it should be easy,” Mayor Bill Foulds said. “And here we are, ten years later, getting easy done.”
One of the big issues was funding, and also finding a place to put the restrooms. Then help came from the city’s Tax Increment Reinvestment Zones (TIRZ) board of directors.
“The restrooms started as a city project,” Keenan Smith, TIRZ project manager, said. “Then the TIRZ took an interest in it and adopted it as a priority project, which enabled the TIRZ funding to help pay for the building.”
Hays County Commissioner Walt Smith, who serves on the TIRZ board, was instrumental in the process, according to city council member Sherrie Parks.
“Hays County actually owned this strip of land, and through his work on the TIRZ board and his work as Hays County commissioner, he saw the need downtown,” Parks said. “He's just been a really good partner working with the city to try to make this happen.”
Mayor Foulds said he was reluctant to start the construction of the restrooms this spring, with Founders Day on the horizon. But crews were able to knock it out and he said they did a great job.
“It came in on budget, came in on time,” Foulds said. “That's a big deal nowadays, so I'm very, very thankful for that.”
Initially the restrooms will be locked down at about 10 p.m. each night and opened again when the maintenance team starts work each morning. That makes sure they are available during business hours for the area merchants. They will also be open for special events.
“These are handicapped accessible, and should be very nice. We're gonna have a crew here at least twice a day, keeping them clean,” Foulds said. “For Founders Day, I think we actually have somebody stationed here to make sure they're kept clean.”
Smith, an architect who has worked on several projects in historic districts, came up with the design for the restrooms. He partnered with Kevin Herron, who was the architect of record for the project.
“The idea was just to make it fit into the historic district and elevate the quality of it so that people would be proud of it,” Smith said. “The design sort of comes from the Hill Country - the butterfly roof and the native stone masonry, the broad overhangs to give shade. It just creates a comfortable, inviting place facing Mercer Street.”
The building also has windows right under the roof line.
“That's sort of a secret sauce - natural light coming in from above,” Smith said.
