Months after celebrating the completion of a $10.6 million construction project downtown, the city of San Marcos is planning to build additional drainage features downtown on University Drive and Guadalupe Street to address flooding in the area.
Kristan Alvarez, owner of KnD’s Resale N More, a boutique located at 312 N. LBJ Drive, San Marcos, said her store has been dealing with flooding because of rains earlier this spring.
“As soon as the water came up above the curb, within five seconds the water was gushing in,” she said.
The downtown reconstruction project upgraded many roads and utilities and was also meant to improve drainage in the area.
“As soon as [my customers] see cones or caution signs, people do not want to come downtown. They automatically think construction. I hate when people tell me, ‘I don’t want to go downtown. There’s construction everywhere.’ I’m just tired of it.”
— Kristan Alvarez, owner of KnD's Resale N More
Alvarez’s response to the flooding has been to line the outside of her store with sandbags.
“I just feel like the outside of our store is crazy,” Alvarez said. “It looks messy.”
Laurie Moyer, director of engineering and capital improvements for the city of San Marcos, said there are inlets in front of KnD’s, Royal Cleaners and other businesses on LBJ, but the volume of water the area has been receiving is greater than what those inlets can capture.
“That’s because we’re not capturing that water upstream where it’s supposed to be captured,” Moyer said. “Those inlets were sized and designed to be part of an overall system, and with capturing the water further upstream you would not have this volume of water coming to those inlets.”
The original downtown project called for the full drainage system to be built concurrently with the other recent downtown improvements, which included street reconstruction, expanded sidewalks, landscaping and utility relocation. At a July 7 meeting, council directed staff to move forward with a portion of the original drainage plan that will help capture an additional 25-30 percent of rainfall downtown.
New inlets will be built along University between LBJ and Guadalupe and on Guadalupe between Pat Garrison and Hutchison Street at a cost of $800,000. The project is planned to begin in September and will last about 30 days, city staff said. The city plans to pay a premium to ensure a short timeline.
Alvarez said her business has been negatively impacted by the continuous construction downtown.
“As soon as [my customers] see cones or caution signs, people do not want to come downtown,” she said. “They automatically think construction. I hate when people tell me, ‘I don’t want to go downtown. There’s construction everywhere.’ I’m just tired of it.”
