Changes are coming to Georgetown's town square: FOX 7 Council Report

GEORGETOWN, Texas - Georgetown has one of the most popular town squares in Texas, and the city is working on changes to accommodate all the visitors coming downtown.

City manager David Morgan sits down with FOX 7 Austin's Mike Warren to discuss in the FOX 7 Council Report.

MIKE WARREN: David, thanks for being here.

DAVID MORGAN: You're welcome. Happy to do it.

MIKE WARREN: You know, it's all about parking up in Georgetown this week, the city council talked about expanding parking restrictions downtown. So what changes are they talking about? What should people be aware of?  

DAVID MORGAN: Well, as you indicated, our town square is very vibrant. We have residents coming to the square every day, as well as visitors from across the region, across the country. And so parking is in high demand. And we've had a three hour parking strategy in our downtown for a number of years now. And we're constantly looking at ways in which to make sure that we're having accessible parking for everyone coming to visit downtown. We've seen a couple of different streets that have that we feel like would be beneficial to move to three-hour parking so that it's…those areas aren't having to be parked all day long by one car, but being able to be rotated through. And so City Council's approved expansion of three-hour parking for a few of our streets, but that we're not done there. We have plenty of other plans to expand parking in our downtown. Right now we have a downtown parking garage that's under construction, will be done by the end of 2025, and we'll be adding 315 parking spaces to our downtown. And we just finished updating our downtown master plan. And within that plan, it calls for an additional parking garage. And so we'll be working on a second parking garage in our downtown over the next few years as we could just continue to see downtown, continue to grow. We want to make sure that it's a great place to visit. And part of that is making sure there's a place for you to park.

MIKE WARREN: You know, there's also a project for a city center, festival space. What would that look look like? And tell us more about that.  

DAVID MORGAN: Sure, sure. We're excited to start that construction. There is a festival space that will be under construction this year. And and the reason for that festival space and because we just have so many special events and activities and festivals that happen in our downtown because our square is so popular and business is arriving on the square itself, we want to try and look for ways in which we can have special events where we don't have to close streets down. And so this festival space, which will be by our library and city Hall, will create an outdoor lawn and a pavilion and performance venue for small performances and small events and festivals where we see things like farmers markets and other kinds of activities happening. And again, it's tied right next to our library. And so there's a great opportunity to have outdoor programming for our library as well.

MIKE WARREN: Well, you're right, because it really is happening up in Georgetown and it's got to be great as the city manager. One other question, talking about the city of Georgetown employees there. There is a plan for paid parental leave. What is going on That why now? What's that going to look like?

DAVID MORGAN: Sure. Well, you know, if you look at a number of other cities around us in this region, as well as a lot of private employers, this is becoming a pretty common benefit. You know, we're a service organization and our people are most important asset. So we're regularly looking at ways in which to add benefits to being a really attractive place to work for our employees. And so we decided to move forward on this because we're always looking at our benefits program. And so we've just been looking at this for over the last few years and decided to move forward just based on the needs and interest of our employees as well as what we're seeing across the region. And we've got a number of other benefits that we offer to make Georgetown a great place to work. And so this will just join our other benefits that we have. 

MIKE WARREN: Yeah, it's a good kind of busy in Georgetown. All right. We are out of time. City manager David Morgan. We really appreciate it.

DAVID MORGAN: Thank you very much.