STAFF REPORT

After a two-week timeout, Carson Properties’ plans for a nine-floor mid-rise one block from the courthouse square easily passed through the San Marcos Planning & Zoning Commission on Tuesday. Only one of nine planning commissioners voted against the bar-raising project.

These sight-line visualizations drafted by Craycroft-McElroy-Hendryx, a Dallas-based architecture firm, helped convince undecided decisionmakers that the building will not be an unsightly behemoth looming over downtown as some opponents feared. From many vantage points around the square and thereabouts, the Carson building will not even be visible at all, if the firm’s depictions are accurate.

The building will include 4,000 square feet of ground floor retail space, a 3,250-square-foot community center and 344 bedrooms spread between 95 units. Construction is expected to start this spring and be completed by late summer 2015.