"It's going to give our community and visitors a place where we can localize and centralize," Mayor Bill Foulds said at the Stephenson Building groundbreaking on Oct. 23, 2025, according to Community Impact. Foulds said at the time the renovation should take about a year. The city's construction schedule puts substantial completion on Oct. 20, 2026. That is two days after the Dripping Springs Songwriters Festival packs up its stages on Mercer Street.
City documents filed this fall show the downtown projects moving at different speeds. Downtown's new civic room is almost done. The pedestrian paseo designed to connect it to the street is not. City staff split that walkway into three phases after construction quotes came back at more than double its budget, and the last phase has no date yet. So this October and the months after it, downtown Dripping Springs will have a finished building in the middle of an open work zone.
Three Days, Seven Stages, Mostly Outdoors
The festival runs Oct. 16 through 18 along Mercer Street and Old Fitzhugh Road. Destination Dripping Springs lists seven stages, 70 shows and more than 40 songwriters, many of them playing Nashville-style song swaps in the round. All downtown shows are free.
Day | Date | Posted hours |
|---|---|---|
Friday | Oct. 16 | 1:30 to 8 p.m. |
Saturday | Oct. 17 | Noon to 8 p.m. |
Sunday | Oct. 18 | 1 to 5 p.m. |
The name stages or list performers can be found HERE. The festival's undated FAQ page names past host venues, including The Barber Shop Bar, Mazama Coffee Co., Dog 'N' Bone, Haus of Jayne, Sidecar Tasting Room, Acopon Brewing and Hudson's on Mercer Street. It also describes golf-car rides out to the Old Fitzhugh Road stages and links to a parking map. Treat that list as a guide to how the festival has used downtown in past years, since the page does not say which venues are confirmed for 2026.
Every one of those rooms belongs to a private business. A songwriters festival that fills seven stages has, until now, had no city-owned indoor room downtown to use. The Stephenson Building is meant to fill that gap.
The Schoolhouse Behind the Stages
The Works Progress Administration built the Stephenson Building in 1939 as a high-school addition. It first served Dripping Springs Academy and became Allen Stephenson High School, named for a former student. A new school opened in 1949. After that the building was used for community gatherings, school functions, government offices and a veterans post, as the Hays Free Press has recounted.
The current renovation came after a decade of planning. City Council approved the $4.89 million contract with QA Construction on Oct. 7, 2025. The scope covers:
- Removing hazardous materials and replacing the roof
- Restoring or replacing the windows
- Restoring the ceiling and wood floors
- Installing an acoustical ceiling
- Adding ADA accessibility
- Extending the building and more than doubling the parking lot
The city added to the sound and stage budget as work went on. In February 2026, council approved a $189,681 change order for audio-visual components. The original contract carried $447,200 in contingency. By Sept. 1, a staff report described the Stephenson and downtown parking lot as nearing completion. Parks, IT, administration and communications staff had started planning the handoff from construction site to working city facility.
Substantial completion is not the finish line. The same schedule follows it with an owner punch list through Nov. 17, closeout documents through Dec. 22 and project closure on Jan. 20, 2027. The city's published schedule does not include a public opening date.
What the City Expects the Room to Do
The best evidence of how the Stephenson will be used is the city's proposed FY2027 operating budget, presented at a June 30 workshop. It projects $75,500 in revenue for the building's first full fiscal year.
- Transfer from the landscaping fund: $15,000
- Sponsorships and donations: $5,000
- Building rentals: $22,500
- Pilot Moon Films events: $18,000, based on 12 events a year at 100 people and $75 a ticket, with the city taking 20 percent of ticket sales
- Contract instructor programs: $10,000
- Recreation programs: $5,000
The events supply line in the same budget names Founders Day and the Songwriters Festival among the events the building is expected to support. In 2024, the city's project manager told the Hays Free Press that songwriters had expressed interest in using the space. The budget is a proposal, though, not a booking calendar.
Read together, the numbers describe a modest, steady schedule. A monthly film night, classes and private rentals would make the Stephenson a regular weeknight destination downtown. The city's plan does not depend on large ticketed shows.
The Walkway That Got Cut Into Thirds
The Mercer Street Paseo was meant to arrive alongside the Stephenson. It runs between Vintage Soul and the downtown restrooms, and the plan calls for lighting, an ADA-compliant sidewalk connecting to the Stephenson, native shade trees and plantings, and drainage. Community Impact's April timeline projected completion this month, at the same time as the Stephenson Building and parking expansion.
In July, staff tried to fold the whole paseo into the Stephenson construction contract. The change-order quotes came back at more than double the $200,000 budget. Staff then divided the project into three phases so it would stay within that budget, according to an Oct. 6 staff report from City Engineer Chad Gilpin.
- Phase 1, $49,995. Added to the Stephenson contract in July. It covers a dumpster enclosure, paving for trash-truck turns, and tying the Stephenson site's curbs and sidewalks into the street.
- Phase 2, $85,400. The work under the walkway and the sidewalk itself, including electrical conduit, light pole foundations, water service sleeving, a wastewater extension, storm drains, tree wells and storm curbs. Four contractors were invited to bid and two submitted bids. The schedule in the report shows notice to proceed on Oct. 19 and completion in early December.
- Phase 3, $64,605. Plantings, crushed granite, benches, paver step stones, light poles and wire pulls. The report says the city will do this phase at a later date, using its own crews together with a landscape contractor hired directly.
That sequence explains what downtown will look like through the end of the year. If council approves the Phase 2 award, the trenching and sidewalk work starts the day before the Stephenson's substantial-completion date and runs into December. The trees, benches and lights, which are the parts of a paseo people actually notice, come after that on an open-ended timeline. The building may open before the walkway beside it looks finished.
Old Fitzhugh Road Runs on a Longer Schedule
The festival's second corridor has a much longer project ahead of it. In April, Community Impact reported that the rehabilitation of Old Fitzhugh Road between Mercer Street and RR 12 would affect about 46 residences and businesses. In July, the outlet reported that the city had selected Lone Star Sitework, with construction set to begin in September 2026 and completion projected for July 2028. The road was on the TIRZ board's Sept. 14 and Oct. 5 agendas for updates. The published agendas do not confirm whether crews have started.
All three projects come up for updates before the city's TIRZ board. Dripping Springs established two Tax Increment Reinvestment Zones in 2016 and updated them in 2022, with a focus on the "vitality, community character and viability of the heart of Downtown Dripping Springs." This is the first year all three projects are under way at once.
Planning a Festival Saturday Around the Work
The festival's own hours give the day its shape. Saturday's stages run from noon to 8 p.m., and a few nearby stops make a fuller afternoon:
- Southern Roots Boutique opened June 5 at 330 W. Mercer St., Suite 7, and sells clothing and accessories in the middle of the festival footprint.
- Beerburg Beer Garden opened May 28 at 13476 Fitzhugh Road. Its reported weekend hours of 2 to 8 p.m. line up closely with the festival's Saturday schedule.
- Wimberley Arts Fest takes place the same weekend, Oct. 17 and 18, with 75 artists just off the Wimberley Square, according to Visit Wimberley. An arts fair in the morning and song swaps in the afternoon both fit in one day.
After the festival, the next things to watch on Mercer Street are the Oct. 20 milestone at the Stephenson, the Phase 2 crews arriving at the paseo, and an announcement of when the old schoolhouse opens to the public.
If you own property near Mercer Street, or are watching how Dripping Springs' historic core changes, Susan Barringer can help you understand what these projects mean for your plans. Work With Susan.
