Correction: the Bastrop Fine Arts Guild annual fundraiser for 2010 will take place Sunday afternoon (April 11, not April 17 as previously reported).
Amplification: Guild officials will briefly outline their plans for redeveloping the Clardy site on Chestnut Street as part of the event, according to fundraising chair Karol Rice. See the previous post on this site.
Bastrop, Tx–Ongoing public works construction projects on Chestnut Street are setting additional private development dreams in motion, including a modest barbecue restaurant and an ambitious arts center immediately west of the Union Pacific rail line and almost next door to a new city hall and convention center.
Steve Cartwright is opening a small barbecue restaurant in part of the Star Mart convenience store at Chestnut and Haysel Street. Remodeling work is underway and the opening is planned for early May.
Cartwright operated a popular barbecue restaurant in the 900 block of Main Street beginning in the late 1980s and later built and sold the current Cartwright BBQ on Texas 71. A non compete clause in the sales agreement for that enterprise is expiring, he said in an interview this week. He plans to open his new venture with a basic barbecue menu, a few tables and takeout service, he said.
Meanwhile, immediately across Chestnut to the north, Clyde Clardy said he has agreed to sell the site and its metal-clad 19th century building of 12,000 square feet to a local arts group which hopes to redevelop the the property as an art center with studios, teaching space and display galleries. Presently used as an auto repair facility, the main building dates to the 1890s or earlier and was formerly used to house a cotton gin, cotton seed storage and still later a grain storage facility beside the rail depot.
Clardy, who has owned the property since 1970, said the transaction has up to a year to close. He would not comment on the agreed sales price, put by one unconfirmed source at $400,000.
The non profit Bastrop Fine Arts Guild has been raising funds for a few years with the goal of establishing a downtown gallery and related arts facilities. The group will hold its major annual fund raising gala, An Artful Afternoon, on April 17 in Bastrop.
Owners of other Chestnut Street properties, including the Star Mart and the former coin operated laundry at Chestnut and Hill Street, also report being approached in recent weeks by property shoppers interested in the area and its redevelopment potential.
The Bastrop Economic Development Corp. is paying for utility, sidewalk and landscaping upgrades along Chestnut from Water Street to the railroad. That work could be finished as early as June.
City voters approved building a new city hall in 2003 and work began early this year. The building should be finished and occupied before year’s end. The convention center, which will be largely paid for with hotel room rent taxes, is expected to open early in 2011.
Bastrop, Tx–A Bastrop man was sentenced to 32 years in prison Monday for his role in a November 2008 convenience store armed robbery. Tyson Tarver, 29, drove the getaway car after two others held up the All-Star Convenience Store at Chestnut and Pecan on Nov. 26 that year, a Bastrop jury ruled last week.
Today the same jury sentenced Tarver to 32 years in prison, based in part on his prior arrest and conviction history dating back to 1998.
Edwin Williams, 29, pleaded guilty last week to his part in the heist in return for a 30-year prison term as part of an agreement with prosecutors. Another co-defendant in the case, Nathaniel Pellerin, 20, testified against Tarver last week, apparently under a separate plea agreement with prosecuting attirneys. Pellerin has not formally been tried or sentenced for his role in the case.
Bastrop, Tx–The so-called Old Iron Bridge across the Colorado River on Chestnut Street may not feature advertising signs for community events and fundraisers much longer.
On Tuesday the city council approved hanging signs for two events on the 1923 structure next month. But later in the meeting the council also approved on first reading a new law which will, if given final clearance, ban hanging similar notices in the future. The ban has been pushed by the city’s Historic Landmark Commission and the Parks Board.
The bridge is listed on The National Register of Historic Places and became part of Bastrop’s park system after it was donated to the city once a new concrete span was completed on Chestnut/Loop 150 by the Texas Department of Transportation.
The council asked City Manager Mike Talbot to identify alternative high traffic sites where future community event announcements can be located in the city. Talbot said he will try to develop recommendations by late April for council consideration. The present bridge carries about 16,000 vehicles a day, said Talbot.
Bastrop, Tx–Bastrop school officials have delayed the start of classes by two hours on Wednesday in the wake of cold, snowy and possibly freezing weather overnight Tuesday.
School will begin at 9:45 a.m. Wednesday for students in grades Pre-K to 4. Students in grades 5 to 12 will begin classes at 10;30 a.m., according to an announcement emailed from BISD offices at 9:20 p.m. Tuesday.
As rain, sleet and snow dusted the Bastrop area during the day Tuesday, emergency management officials worried about the possibility of icy bridges and roads if temperatures fell below freezing overnight.
The Bastrop City Council called off its 6 p.m. meeting Tuesday because of weather conditions.
Bastrop, Tx–Officials from some 40 construction firms packed city hall in Bastrop earlier this month, lining up out into Main Street to attend a pre-bid conference for those hoping to win contracts to erect a new city hall and convention center on Chestnut Street.
The turnout shows there is keen interest in the twin multi-million dollar projects and gives hope that the bidding competition will be sharp when proposals are submitted next month, said Bastrop City Manager Mike Talbot during a Dec. 23 interview. Site preparation work will be bid separately, and the office of site engineer Gene Kruppa in La Grange has also been flooded with inquiries from potential contractors, said Talbot.
City officials hope the show of interest during a period of economic downturn in Central Texas will translate into lower total project costs. Constructors are being invited to make offers for either the 15,000-square-foot city hall or the 25,000-square-foot convention center–or both in a single package.
Talbot said construction should begin early in 2010 and he expects both facilities to be open by the year’s end.
Bastrop, Tx–City utility customers who have paid their bills on time for at least a year are in line for water and electric service deposit refunds before Christmas. Those eligible for the refunds include residential and commercial customers, the city council agreed at a meeting Dec. 8.
Refund checks–not credit against current and future bills–should be in the mail by Dec. 15, City Manager Mike Talbot said in a Dec. 10 interview.
Those eligible for deposit refunds include customers who paid their bills late no more than twice in the past 12 months, said Talbot. The refund plan was approved, in general terms, when the council approved its operating budget for the 2009-10 fiscal year in September. Tuesday’s action authorized the refund action and included a broad overhaul of the city’s utility policies aimed at making Bastrop services more competitive with area cities, said Talbot.
Under revised rules adopted this week, new city customers may not be required to put down deposits for utility service if they can show a good record of payments to previous providers, said Talbot.
Bastrop, Tx–City Planning Director Stacy Snell will leave her post effective Dec. 18 to take up a new job as planning manager in New Braunfels. In an interview today, Snell said she will be working for a boss whom she came to know while working as a planner in Leander.
Snell has been Bastrop’s planning director since October 2005.
New Braunfels, a major tourist destination between Austin and San Antonio on the Comal River, now has a population of some 55,000. Bastrop’s current population is estimated at roughly 8,000.
Bastrop, Tx–Heavy rainfall and resulting sotrm water runoff over the Nov. 20-22 weekend forced the closure of a low water crossing on Riverwood Drive at Piney Creek in Bastrop for a much as four months.
The creek marks the western boundary between the City of Bastrop and Bastrop County on Riverwood Drive. City and county officials closed the crossing Nov. 23, saying the structure was undermined, failing and unsafe for further vehicle traffic.
Repair or replacement costs may be in the tens of thousands of dollars, but who will cover the repair expenses is uncertain, apparently. City and county officials met Nov. 24 to discuss the issue. When the crossing was built in the late 1980s, planning and other responsibilities were shared between the city and county, said former Pct. 1 county commissioner Johnny Sanders.
In a Nov. 25 interview, Bastrop City Manager Mike Talbot said he has discussed repair responsibilities with present Pct. 1 Commissioner Willie Pina, but some documents suggest the city limits end at the east bank of Piney Creek on Riverwood, a road which extends west from Carter Street in Bastrop, across the creek and farther west along Reid Bend on the Colorado River for another two miles or more.
If that proves to be the case, the creek crossing itself may be a county responsibility to repair or replace.
In a letter delivered to Riverwood Drive residents on Nov. 27, Commissioner Pina said the present crossing “will collapse if traffic is allowed to continue” using it. It will remain closed for up to 120 days while repair or replacement is being designed and carried out, he said. In the meantime, access to homes in the area remains open from Carter Street north of the Union Pacific Railroad line, across a separate Piney Creek bridge and along Reids Bend Road.
Neither the city nor county budgets for the 2009-10 fiscal year anticipate major repair or replacement of the Piney Creek crossing at Riverwood. Commissioner Pina’s Nov. 27 letter said the work will be put out for competitive bids by private contractors, suggesting the cost is likely to be more than $25,000 and possibly more than $50,000.
The city manager’s comments on Nov. 25 did not preclude the possibility that Bastrop could contribute to repair costs. Pina hinted he would like to raise the height of the crossing so that closings due to high water flow on Piney Creek could become less frequent.
Bastrop, Tx–New residential construction is resuming in the city following a two-year hiatus. The city planning office has issued permits for erection of 14 new homes in the Hunters Crossing subdivision, Planning Director Stacy Snell said during a brief interview today.
In fiscal years ending in September 2008 and 2009 the Bastrop planning section issued only two home construction permits, according to city reports. As recently as September this year city officials were withholding new permits for additional building in Hunters Crossing because of questions about how the subdivision storm water drainage system was functioning.
The drainage issues were settled this fall and new home construction permits have been issued, said Snell.