Christmas on Mercer Has to Work Around the Building Meant to Host It

"It's going to give our community and visitors a place where we can localize and centralize," Mayor Bill Foulds said at the groundbreaking for the Stephenson Building renovation on Oct. 23, 2025, as Community Impact reported. He said the work should take about a year.

A year later, the city is drawing the street plan for the 2026 Christmas on Mercer on Saturday, Dec. 5, around that same construction site. The project is meant to give downtown a place for gatherings like this one. For a second straight December, the gathering is planned around the work zone instead.

A 1939 Schoolhouse Becomes Downtown's Event Space

The Stephenson Building opened in 1939 and served as a high school until 1949. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2013. Living New Deal records that the school was named for Allen J. Stephenson, a student there. The city acquired the building from the school district around 2009, according to the Hays Free Press. The city owns the building at 311 Old Fitzhugh Road, and city event planners call the adjacent parcel at 101 Old Fitzhugh Road the "Stephenson lot."

City Council approved the construction contract on Oct. 7, 2025. QA Construction won it with a net bid of $4,447,200, and a 10% contingency brought the approved total to $4.89 million. The finished building is planned for community meetings, performances and some civic offices. The work list includes:

• Hazardous material removal
• A new roof
• Window restoration and replacement
• Restored ceilings and wood floors
• An acoustical ceiling
• ADA accessibility upgrades

The building also gets an extension, and its parking lot will be more than twice its old size. Community Impact's report on the contract explains the larger lot's purpose. It adds downtown parking and gives the city room "to host community events and markets." Christmas on Mercer is exactly that kind of event, and it's the one now planning around the work.

The Finish Line That Moved

The contract called for 365 calendar days of work once executed, with a notice to proceed expected Oct. 20, 2025. That timeline ran into a city plan that assumed it would hold.

The Oct. 6 staff report, filed by Community Events Coordinator Johnna Krantz, states the expectation plainly. The city expected the project to be finished "by the start of the 2026 COM event." Because of the delays, staff drew two traffic-control maps. One repeats the 2024 plan with no extra barricades. The other is the 2025 plan with barricades around the Stephenson site. The city will choose between them based on the site's condition on Dec. 5.

Where the Streets Close on December 5

The Lions Club hasn't changed its planned layout for 2026. The closures begin at 5 a.m. on festival day and cover these streets:

• Mercer Street, from Bluff Street up to and including Wells Fargo Bank
• San Marcos Street, from Mercer Street to Wallace Street
• College Street, from the rear parking lot entrance of Mazama Coffee to Mercer Street
• Old Fitzhugh Road, closed to through traffic at Ranch Road 12 and fully closed to event traffic from the Stephenson lot at 101 Old Fitzhugh Road to Mercer Street

On the Old Fitzhugh Road segment, the construction site and the festival meet. The open question for Dec. 5 is whether that stretch has the 2025 barricades or the 2024 layout. If your Saturday errands usually take you through the RR 12 and Old Fitzhugh corner, plan to go another way before dawn that morning.

The Festival Inside the Barricades

The street plan is the new part this year. The festival itself has a long run. A Mercer Street shop owner started Christmas on Mercer in 2005, and the Dripping Springs Lions Club has run it, in partnership with the city, since the second year. The city calendar lists the 2026 start time as 10 a.m.

The Hays Free Press preview of the 2024 festival, the event's 20th year, gives a sense of its scale. That year it ran from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and expected 3,000 to 5,000 visitors, depending on the weather. About 170 vendors took part, with booths run by local businesses, churches and organizations. Church and school choirs performed alongside dancers, musicians and other entertainers. Santa opened the day and then took photos at Hudson's on Mercer until 3 p.m. In that article, Lions Club President Sharon Goss described the crowd: "This is a place where everybody's probably going to know somebody."

Last year's program followed the same pattern. The Dripping with Kids 2025 holiday guide listed Dec. 6, 2025, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., with live music all day, a trackless train, pony rides, games and giveaways, letters to Santa, and free Santa photos at Hudson's. The full 2026 program hasn't been posted yet, so treat those details as what the festival usually offers.

Spending at the festival also stays local. Event funds go back into the community, and the Lions Club supports about 30 nonprofits. The club meets at 6:30 p.m. on the third Monday of each month at Dripping Springs Ranch Park and welcomes volunteers and new members.

The Saturday Before Starts It

In 2024, the season opened the weekend before the festival with the community tree lighting at the Triangle, where US 290, Ranch Road 12 and Mercer Street meet. This year the city's Tree Lighting & Holiday Movie listing puts it at Veterans Memorial Park, also called the Triangle, at 160 Mercer Street. It's free and starts at 5 p.m. Thanksgiving weekend. The listing gives two different dates, so check it again before you head out with chairs and blankets.

Here's how the season lines up:

1. Thanksgiving weekend, 5 p.m.: Tree lighting and holiday movie at Veterans Memorial Park, 160 Mercer Street
2. Saturday, Dec. 5, 5 a.m.: Downtown street closures begin
3. Saturday, Dec. 5, 10 a.m.: Christmas on Mercer opens

If you liked the way the Songwriters Festival used every storefront on Mercer Street as a stage, this is the same few downtown blocks set up for December.

What the Finished Lot Is For

The Stephenson plan gives downtown events a home base. It calls for a parking lot more than twice its former size, with room for community events and markets, next to a restored 1939 schoolhouse with an acoustical ceiling and a performance hall. Funding comes from $4,695,163 in 2025 debt issuance plus $200,000 in landscape funds, and the building sits in the city's downtown tax increment reinvestment zone. The stated goal of that zone is to maintain the vitality and community character of downtown.

Until the work is done, the Stephenson lot is the one corner of the Christmas on Mercer footprint the city can't plan in advance. City staff will pick the Dec. 5 traffic-control map, with or without the extra barricades used in 2025, based on the status of the Stephenson construction area at event time.

I love it when downtown Dripping Springs fills up like this, and I'll be keeping an eye on the Stephenson Building as it moves toward opening. If you have questions about how the projects around Mercer Street affect your corner of town, or you just want to talk about what's coming to downtown, reach out to Johnny Ronca. Let's Connect, and maybe I'll see you at Hudson's on Mercer on Dec. 5.