Initial plans for a mixed-use, master-planned 164-acre development called Wolf Lakes Village were approved by the Georgetown City Council at its meeting last night. The project includes office, retail, entertainment, hotels, and 2,400 housing units totaling 5.3 million square feet of development phased over several years.

The town center concept for Wolf Lakes Village features a walkable neighborhood with an amphitheater, open-air pavilion, plaza square, pocket parks, playgrounds, trails, and lakes. The project at the northwest corner of Interstate 35 and University Avenue in Georgetown is projected to begin construction next year. (Rendering credit: Wolf Lakes, LP)

Wolf Lakes Village is designed to include a regional employment center with more than 725,000 square feet of corporate office space that would be home to 4,500 employees. This type of development with office space will create a higher tax value than traditional retail development. The developer estimates the complete development to be valued at $1.7 billion by 2050, versus $460 million if developed as a traditional shopping center.

The dense, multi-use development planned for Wolf Lakes will have a variety of public infrastructure needs, including roads, drainage, utilities, structured parking, park development, and trails. A tax increment reinvestment zone for the Wolf Lakes development area—the fifth such zone in Georgetown—will be used to help fund this public infrastructure. The reinvestment zone sets a base year after which new property tax generated by increased values in the Wolf Lakes development will help to reimburse public infrastructure constructed by the developer. The new property tax value created within Wolf Lakes project itself funds the public infrastructure, not any property tax revenue from outside the Wolf Lakes reinvestment zone. The City of Georgetown will participate in the reinvestment zone at 70 percent of new valuation with a cap of $100 million in reimbursement over 30 years. Williamson County will participate at 50 percent of new valuation with a cap of $30 million over 20 years. Reimbursements can begin after 150,000 square feet of commercial development has been permitted.

Public improvements planned for Wolf Lakes Village include enhancements to nearby roads such as the I-35 and University Avenue intersection as well as other off-site improvements. The City of Georgetown is working with developers, Williamson County, and Texas Department of Transportation to proactively plan capital improvements to improve traffic flow in conjunction with development in the area.

The Berry Creek Interceptor is an underground non-pressurized wastewater line serving current and future developments along the State Highway 195 and Ronald Reagan corridors in Georgetown. A future segment of the line will be discussed at the Williamson County Commissioners Court meeting on Dec. 11, 2018. A public hearing about the proposed line will be held at the Williamson County Commissioners Court meeting on Dec. 18, 2018.

Learn more about the project at the Berry Creek Interceptor FAQ page.

The Williamson County Elections office has posted unofficial final results for the Proposition A street maintenance sales tax election on Nov. 6 in Georgetown. The proposition is for the reauthorization of a 0.25 percent sales tax dedicated to the maintenance of city streets in Georgetown.

These are the unofficial final results:

To see a complete Nov. 6, 2018, election results, go to wilco.org/elections.

Michael R. Bloomberg today announced Georgetown as a winner of Bloomberg Philanthropies U.S. Mayors Challenge, a yearlong competition that challenged city leaders to uncover and test bold, inventive ideas to confront the toughest problems faced by cities today.

Nine cities will receive $1 million to begin implementation on potentially breakthrough solutions to homelessness, the opioid crisis, mobility, climate change, and economic opportunity.

Georgetown was selected as a winner for their innovative approach to developing a “virtual power plant.”

Georgetown aims to lease rooftop space for solar panels and ground space for batteries from residential and commercial properties, offsetting the future need to purchase additional power from outside sources to meet growing peak power demand in this completely renewable energy-powered city.

While Georgetown is the first and largest city in Texas to secure 100 percent of its purchased power from renewable sources, there are cost uncertainty and reliability concerns related to transporting that energy over long distances. This plan will help shore up some of those uncertainties.

“Last year, the Georgetown City Council adopted a new vision statement: Georgetown: A caring community honoring our past and innovating for the future. Like all cities, we know in this radically changing world we need to be agile and innovative to remain sustainable, competitive, and resilient,” Georgetown Mayor Dale Ross said. “Bloomberg’s iterative approach helped us engage with the public in a way that dramatically improved our idea. With Bloomberg’s support, we’ve developed a model with greater community support and better financial viability. We look forward to making the ‘virtual power plant’ a reality.”

Georgetown joins Denver, CO; Durham, NC; Fort Collins, CO; Huntington, WV; Los Angeles, CA; New Rochelle, NY; Philadelphia, PA; and South Bend, IN as winners of the U.S. Mayors Challenge.

“Mayors across the country are tackling the big issues that Washington is ignoring. This competition is designed to help them do even more, by incentivizing and supporting big – and achievable – new ideas,” said Michael R. Bloomberg, founder of Bloomberg Philanthropies and three-term mayor of New York City. “Congratulations to all of the winning mayors, who represent cities large and small, in regions across the country. We look forward to seeing the results of their work — and to helping the ideas that prove most effective spread far and wide.”

The Mayors Challenge Selection Committee, co-chaired by Former Ambassador Caroline Kennedy and Former Xerox Chairman & CEO Ursula Burns, is comprised of distinguished policy experts, artists, academics, business executives, and social innovation leaders. The committee evaluated the cities applications based on their idea’s vision, potential for impact, implementation plan, and potential to spread to other cities to choose Georgetown as among the nine winning cities.

New to the Mayors Challenge this year was a 6-month “test and learn” phase where each of the 35 Champion Cities received up to $100,000 and technical assistance to test and build support for their ideas. Cities tested core components of their ideas with residents, improved and refined their proposals, and developed a plan for implementation and impact measurement.

“The process the City has undergone to test this idea is counterintuitive to how we typically work. Bloomberg’s iterative approach allowed us to present a rough outline of an idea and solicit public feedback that dramatically shifted the concept,” said Jack Daly, assistant to the City Manager of Georgetown. “This pivot helped us structure a new concept that had greater community support and better financial viability. Already the City is using the “test and learn” method in other programs like our ridesharing pilot and the update of our comprehensive plan.”

The U.S. Mayors Challenge builds on the success of previous Bloomberg Philanthropies-sponsored Challenges in the U.S. (2013), Europe (2014), and Latin America and the Caribbean (2016). Previous Mayors Challenge winners include São Paulo, Brazil with a program to increase farmers’ income and reduce urban sprawl; Barcelona, Spain for work to create digital trust networks that support at-risk elderly citizens; and Providence, RI, for a program to measure and reduce the “word gap” among low-income children during pivotal brain development years. For more information, visit mayorschallenge.bloomberg.org.

The City will host an open house meeting Oct. 29 from 4:30 to 7 p.m. in Council Chambers, 101 E. Seventh St., to discuss the results of surveys related to properties on the City’s historic resources survey and in historic overlay districts.

Individuals interested in providing feedback on the development process for historic properties can also sign up to meet with the City’s planning staff in 15-minute increments on Oct. 24 from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. by emailing historic@georgetown.org.

The results of the City’s outreach efforts will be used to make informed decisions regarding what is working and any improvements that are needed to the development process related to historic properties.

For more information on the current processes, visit historic.georgetown.org.