“At the end of 2006 and in 2007, it just hit,” said Denice Doss, Rockdale Chamber of Commerce president. “Of course there is more and more traffic, just everything. We talked to Wal-Mart and their sales have doubled.”
Chamber and city officials say Rockdale is gaining popularity from two stimuli: construction of Luminance Energy’s $890 million, 581-megawatt Sandow 5 Steam Electric Station; and city dwellers looking for homes in a small town within the proximity of Austin jobs in hopes of exiting the urban surfeit of Travis and Williamson counties.
“What’s funny to me is that Round Rock has been rural for so long, but now the people in Round Rock are trying to get out so they are coming to Rockdale,” Mrs. Doss said. “We are getting closer to Austin all the time, and the roads are good so that helps. It’s coming this way, you can tell by how much more traffic we’ve got.”
The Texas Department of Transportation has counted 14,500 vehicles driving through Rockdale during a 24-hour span.
This year the city of about 5,643 residents has issued more than $6.5 million in building permits, including the $1.7 million, 40-unit apartment complex at 200 Meadow Drive, the $1.6 million El Camino Inn at 702 W. U.S. Highway 79, and the $750,000 General Store, a farm and ranch supply emporium.
Amid the flurry of construction is the forthcoming $30 million Rockdale school building and renovation project. An antique emporium is coming to downtown Rockdale, the Kay Theater historical restoration project is under way, and the Rockdale Depot and Museum is nearing completion, Mrs. Doss said.
Building permits have jumped from $4.1 million in 2005 to $5.6 million in 2006. Sales tax magnified from $560,535 in 2005 to $589,700 in 2006 and totaled $625,323 by October, according to city officials. Little River Health Care System noted a marked increase in its patient load, from 53,198 in 2005 and 62,231 last year, to 68,565 in the eight months of 2007.
“We are just in the infancy of starting to grow,” Mayor John Shoemake said. “We are seeing some of those indicators that show us we are growing.”
Estimates indicate the city’s population has grown about 600 since the 2000 census, Shoemake said.
In 2004, to prepare for anticipated growth, the Rockdale City Council adopted a 20-year capital improvement plan, which has funded $187,500 for water main replacements, added a 500,000-gallon elevated storage tank, and outlines comprehensive upgrades to the water and wastewater system in the near future. The city switched on a $5.2 million wastewater treatment plant this year.
“I see some things that are probably driving some people, maybe just getting out into the small town life,” Shoemake said. “I think we are getting retirees coming in here because we have the good medical facilities.”
Rockdale started to see considerably more people last summer when preparation for construction of Sandow 5 Steam Electric Station began at the Alcoa plant site. Motels, RV parks and rental properties have prospered since then, Mrs. Doss said.
“We are still getting a real big influx from the power plant construction,” Mrs. Doss said.
Sandow 5 construction has poured an estimated $65.5 million into the Milam County economy from salaries, with $83.5 million expected to be paid to workers next year, said Robert C. Donnelly, site manager for TXU/Luminant’s Sandow 5 contractor, Bechtel Power Corp.
At 20 percent complete, the construction site is buzzing with 550 people on the job, and the need for about 50 additional pipe fitters, welders and ironworkers, Donnelly said.
The power plant at 196-feet high will stand in the shadow of 335-feet tall stacks.
“The big push is coming,” Donnelly said. “ We will probably be at our peak manpower within five months. Sometime in April we will be at the peak of over 1,500 people.”
Lodging this many construction workers means renting what is available in Rockdale, finding housing in nearby towns, or in some cases living out of a travel trailer during the week and going home on weekends, Donnelly said.
Shoemake said, “Our big need, of course, is housing. We are short on housing right now as far as median range, available houses. Hopefully, we will see some development come along those lines, and we are working on some things.”
Aside from an intense interest in developing the former H.E.B. and Wal-Mart stores, a new strip mall is being discussed on land near the Wal-Mart Super Center, Mrs. Doss said.
“We’ve even been contacted by another party about building more apartments,” Mrs. Doss added.
Rockdale emerged in 1874 when the International & Great Northern Railroad moved westward. The town’s population nearly tripled from 2,300 in 1954 to 6,300 in 1958 after Alcoa built an aluminum smelter and electrical generating plant south of the city. The number of businesses increased from 60 to 122, according to the Handbook of Texas.
Growth this time is much more orderly, Mrs. Doss said.
“It’s not the magnitude of the Alcoa plant,” she said. “We’re not going to get thousands to stay, but with the different new businesses, that’s going to make a difference.”
One asset is the town’s propinquity to Apache Pass, a new resort of historical significance on the San Gabriel River near the 18th-Century Roman Catholic missions and the El Camino Real de los Tejas, or the King’s Highway. Additionally, the town has its own collection of historic sites to promote tourism.
“Tourism is really increasing as a whole and tourism is as big an economic development factor as anything,” Mrs. Doss said.
Shoemake said he is “favorably impressed” with Rockdale’s potential and imminent growth.
“I will be shocked if we don’t get there,” Shoemake said. “We consider ourselves to be sort of the end of the 79-corridor that started over in Round Rock. You can see what happened to Hutto. They grew so quickly they struggled with it. Taylor has absorbed a lot of growth. We feel like we are probably next and we are trying our best to get ready for it.”
jwilliams@temple-telegram.com
