By Moses Leos III
A popular Austin-based Tex-Mex chain has signed a lease to open a restaurant in San Marcos this summer.
Chuy’s Fine Tex-Mex Restaurant will join an entertainment center and gym as new tenants in the Springtown Shopping Center. The center is in the midst of receiving an investment and overhaul valued at up to $27.4 million by Austin-based Endeavor Real Estate Group.
The center is located 205 W. Hopkins Street, along I-35 where it intersects with Hopkins Street, the main thoroughfare into downtown and to Texas State University.
Chuy’s will occupy approximately 6,500 square feet and an outdoor patio, in a location that acts as the ‘front door’ to the center, according to the developer. Construction is anticipated to begin in March, with the restaurant opening sometime this summer.
“Nothing energizes a shopping center more than a high-volume industry-leading restaurant like Chuy’s. We look forward to building on this momentum as we continue to work with other best-in-class tenants for the project,” said Buck Cody, principal with Endeavor. “While we still have work ahead of us in order to stabilize Springtown, we believe that our tenant mix positions the center to be the retail and entertainment draw for the students at Texas State and the residents of San Marcos, and the outlying communities as well.”
Chuy’s, which was founded in 1982 in Austin, owns and operates 69 full-service restaurants across 14 states.
“San Marcos has been on our radar screen for a while because of its growth rate. We just needed to find the perfect location, and we’ve found that with Springtown,” said Don McKechnie, director of real estate and construction for Chuy’s. “Now with that decided, we’ll focus our efforts on designing a restaurant that’s as custom and unique as San Marcos itself.”
San Marcos shot up by 7.9 percent, from 54,567 residents to nearly 59,000 from July 2013 to July 2014, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Figures released by the bureau in 2015 indicate San Marcos was the fastest growing city for three consecutive years. Since 2010, San Marcos’s population has increased by 30 percent.
The Springtown Shopping Center was in bleak shape when Endeavor purchased it in November 2014. The center held an occupancy rate of 10.5 percent. Four owners had control of various parts of the center, which hampered redevelopment efforts.
Endeavor has signed leases with Gold’s Gym and EVO Entertainment Group’s The Spot, a six screen luxury theater and bowling alley. Both leases were announced in September 2015, with the gym anticipated to open this month and The Spot expected to open sometime late this summer.
Endeavor has developed centers throughout the Austin area such as The Domain and Southpark Meadows. In all, Endeavor has developed and/or acquired more than 12.6 million square feet of various types of space in the Austin market since its inception in 1999, and presently manages 5.9 million square feet of space here.
