Georgetown's Square Lights Up While Downtown Is Still Mid-Makeover. Here's How the Holidays Work This Year.

"Our downtown is 52 blocks, but most people only think about the nine blocks of the square," Downtown and Tourism Director Kim McAuliffe told Community Impact in late October.

She was describing the 2024 Downtown Master Plan. Its priority list includes Austin Avenue gateways, a redeveloped Rock Street, better bike and pedestrian connections, a Ninth Street art walk and changes around the historic square. The city has started work on more than half of those projects. The timing matters for anyone heading downtown between now and New Year's. The busiest stretch of Georgetown's calendar, from the Lighting of the Square on Nov. 27 through the Christmas Stroll on Dec. 4–6, is the first time those changes will meet a full holiday crowd. Several of them will be only partly finished when it does.

The new signs are going up just ahead of the crowds

The wayfinding signs drivers and walkers use downtown went in around 2004. Their replacements started appearing in October. The new ones use the city's poppy motif in its blue and red branding colors, and they come in three kinds:

• Signs that send drivers to the free public lots, the current parking garage and future garage sites
• Pedestrian-level signs pointing to the Williamson Museum, the Georgetown Palace Theatre and public restrooms
• Interactive kiosks with downtown directory maps, business listings, annual event calendars, and historic photos and stories

The city expected installation to start in late October and the last signs to be up by mid-to-late November. That puts the finish line within days of Lighting night. Small gateway signs already mark the Light and Waterworks District and the South Main Arts District. The 25-foot gateway signs planned for Austin Avenue at Hwy. 29 and near the Austin Avenue bridges will go in over the next several years.

"Hopefully with this new refresh look and it being really eye-catching, people will notice them and be like, 'Oh my gosh, now I know where to go park,'" McAuliffe told Community Impact. Parking is the problem the whole plan keeps coming back to, and the holidays are when it gets hardest.

A block off the Square, there are new places to stop

Signs only help if there is somewhere worth walking to. This fall, two blocks just outside the courthouse grid got new ones.

On Rock Street, which is one of the master plan's named redevelopment priorities, Rose & Dagger Coffee Co. opened a brick-and-mortar shop at 1005 S. Rock St. on Sept. 5 after running as a coffee truck. Churros ATX moved to the same address on Aug. 1 and now operates behind the coffee shop. The pairing gives Rock Street a coffee-and-churros stop that wasn't there a year ago, and it sits just off the closed blocks on Lighting night.

On Austin Avenue, Monument Cafe at 500 S. Austin Ave. opened two additions on Oct. 8, a beer garden with craft beer on tap and a market for grab-and-go items and pickup orders from the full menu. The beer garden is a return. According to Community Impact, the cafe's location came with one when it moved there in 2008. Co-owner Cristy Schuler closed it in 2012 and spent the past two years working to bring it back. This will be the first holiday season in 14 years with outdoor beer service at that address.

For a fuller look at the chef-owned spots holding the Square itself, see our earlier post on what's new around the Georgetown Square.

Street patios are still waiting on council

The change most likely to alter what the Square looks like on a busy night is also the one least likely to be in place for the holidays.

The city has a two-year street patio and sidewalk cafe pilot that would let businesses in and around the downtown square build enclosed seating outside their storefronts. Sidewalk cafes would use the public sidewalk. Street patios would take over parking spaces. The program builds on the temporary outdoor seating allowed under COVID-19 emergency orders. Businesses can already submit applications for internal review, so construction can start once the pilot gets final approval.

The ordinance was scheduled for its first reading at the Oct. 27 council meeting, and final adoption was targeted for a November consent agenda. Even if it passes on that schedule, applications still have to be reviewed and patios still have to be built. Expect the Christmas Stroll to look a lot like past years, with the pilot showing up gradually over the following two years.

The northern approach is still one lane each way

All of this is happening while the main road into downtown from the north is under construction.

The Austin Avenue bridges over the San Gabriel River are part of a $12.7 million rehabilitation funded by the 2021 voter-approved mobility bond. Construction began in October 2024. The original completion date was April 15, 2026. In May the city directed that defective concrete work be removed and rebuilt. Under the schedule the city published in early June, southbound deck demolition was to start in June and finish in August. Work would then move to the northbound decks, with a traffic switch planned for November and full reopening in April 2027, as reported by the Williamson County Sun and Community Impact.

If that schedule holds, the lanes will shift in the same weeks the Square fills up. The city's own Lighting of the Square event page says the bridges north of the courthouse are down to one lane in each direction and suggests that attendees consider alternate routes. If you're coming from north of the river, plan your drive around the bridges first and pick your parking second.

The season, date by date

Mayor Pro Tem Kevin Pitts and Williamson County Court Judge Steven Snell will turn on the lights. The city encourages toy donations to the Georgetown Police Department's Blue Santa and to Williamson County Brown Santa.

Coffee & Cocoa Crawl tickets cost $25 and include a keepsake mug and samples. Only 500 are sold. The first 300 shoppers at the 10 a.m. kickoff, held at the Downtown Development & Special Event Offices, get a free canvas tote. The city's event listing names these Shop Small Saturday participants:

• Hogaboom Road, Inc.
• Urban Cottage Boutique
• The Exchange
• Therapie Boutique
• Red Horn Coffee House & Tap Room
• Blue Corn Harvest
• Handcrafts Unlimited
• Divine Treasures

The Christmas Stroll is free and organized by the Downtown Georgetown Association.

Parking for Lighting night

On Nov. 27, Austin Avenue between Sixth and Ninth streets closes from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. Main Street between Sixth and Ninth, plus Seventh and Eighth streets between Austin and Church, close from 6 a.m. to about 10 p.m. Rock, Church and Ninth streets stay open. Free parking is listed at these locations:

1. Seventh and Rock streets
2. Austin Avenue and Fifth Street
3. Martin Luther King Jr. Street at Seventh and Eighth streets
4. The garage at Sixth and Main streets
5. The garage at Fourth and Rock streets

Visit Georgetown lists the same lots and garages for the Christmas Stroll. Rock Street stays open on Lighting night, and the Fourth and Rock garage and the Seventh and Rock lot both sit on it, a few blocks north of Rose & Dagger and Churros ATX at 1005 S. Rock St.

A second garage is planned at Ninth and Main streets. It will have 450 spaces and ground-level retail and dining, and it is a partnership with the Texas Municipal League Intergovernmental Risk Pool, which is moving its headquarters to the former Wesleyan Building downtown. About 200 spaces will be reserved for TML staff during weekday business hours, and the whole garage will be open to the public on evenings and weekends. Construction is scheduled to begin in 2027, with opening expected in early 2029. Until then, the two existing garages and the surface lots above handle the holiday crowds.

Sarah McAloon follows how downtown changes like these affect Georgetown's day-to-day life, from the bridges to the blocks off the Square. If you'd like to talk through what's coming to your part of Georgetown, Sarah McAloon is glad to help. Schedule Your Personal Consultation.