The oaks at Lions Foundation Park have hosted sculptors before, but not like this. Starting October 7, working crews will be back at the park carving stone in full view of anyone who wants to stop and watch, the same ritual Liberty Hill first staged in 1976 when 27 sculptors from six countries showed up, moved into residents' spare rooms, and spent two months turning raw Texas limestone into the monuments that still stand there today. This October marks the 50th anniversary of that symposium, and the city is treating it as a milestone rather than a routine. A new permanent sculpture by local artist Josh Slack will debut at the festival on October 10, joining works that have stood in that park for half a century.
Three miles down the road, a different kind of construction has been running on its own five-decade-adjacent timeline. Liberty Hill opened its first Costco in March, its retail corridor is filling with national chains at a pace the town has never seen, and by any surface reading, that's the bigger story. It isn't. The interesting fact is that both things are happening in the same year, in the same small town, without either one crowding out the other.
Fifty years of turning limestone into landmarks
The 1976 symposium wasn't a one-off arts grant. Local artist Mel Fowler organized the gathering after his own trips to Europe connected him with the international sculpting community, and what came out of it won Liberty Hill a Texas Arts Award in 1977. One of those original works, Ann Merck's "Western Vision," caught the Smithsonian's attention as early as 1987. Discussions about the museum acquiring it were revived in 2021 and are still ongoing, which means a small-town sculpture park has been in on-and-off talks with a national institution for nearly forty years.
The park itself moved to its current home near Louine Noble Elementary, where the Liberty Hill Development Foundation now maintains it alongside a 1,500-square-foot history museum at 355 Main Street. The foundation and the city have put $25,000 a year into the festival since 2022, and this year's 50th anniversary event runs October 7 through 10, with the public sculpting demonstrations open to walk up and watch each day before the full festival on Saturday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. City council member Diane Williams described the anniversary as a chance for the community "to come back together" around the event that first put the town on the map. A new mural by artist David Neeld, titled "Small Town, Big Heart," is also going up at Parkers Mercantile downtown this year, giving Main Street a second permanent piece of public art alongside Slack's new sculpture.
The other construction site, three miles away
While downtown was planning an anniversary, the corner of Highway 183 and Seward Junction Loop was finishing a $62.6 million warehouse. Costco opened its doors there on March 11, with lines forming as early as 5 a.m. and the store opening two hours ahead of its normal schedule to handle the crowd. At 160,000 square feet, it's the anchor of the Liberty Hill Crossing shopping center, and it's the reason the surrounding lots stopped sitting empty. Liberty Hill Mayor Crystal Mancilla called the opening a milestone for the city, and the timing matters: this is the first Costco Liberty Hill has ever had, which means residents who used to drive to Cedar Park for a membership run now do it in town.
Target filed plans for a 148,000-square-foot store at the same intersection, one of the chain's larger-format designs, targeting a June 2026 completion. T.J. Maxx registered its own project at Liberty Hill Crossing with a construction window running from March into August. None of these are speculative announcements. They're permitted, funded, and either finished or nearly there.
What's landing on the ground level of that boom
The national chains filling in around Costco tell you where the corridor's growth is actually concentrated. Chick-fil-A targeted a May 2026 completion for a 5,030-square-foot location with a drive-thru at Bar W Marketplace, the retail cluster built around the town's H-E-B. Panda Express was slated for a summer 2026 opening in the Heritage Ridge development on Highway 29, the first location of that chain Liberty Hill has ever had.
Waffle House is the newest addition to that list, and it's still in motion. The company's site permit was approved on September 8, clearing the way for a location at 11834 Highway 29, next door to McDonald's and Taco Bell and near a Take 5 Oil Change and Gerber Collision & Glass that are also under construction. State filings put the project at roughly 1,840 square feet and $300,000 in construction costs, with an estimated completion around December. A few miles away, QuesaLab, a modern quesadilla concept, filed to begin construction this October next to Pizza Hut on West Highway 29, with completion targeted for next spring. And after nearly four years of false starts, including a 2022 announcement that stalled out, La Tequila Jalisco is finally under construction on the old red barn site at 13800 West Highway 29, a $800,000 build that began this past summer and is expected to wrap by next March.
Main Street kept its openings smaller, and its own
Compare that list to what's opened downtown in the same stretch of time. Wish Kitchen + Bar launched in November, a father-and-sons project from Mike Farr, who has spent 37 years in the restaurant and bar business, and his sons Bradley and Dylan. Everything on the menu except baked goods is made in-house. A block over, Elenita's Taco Truck opened December 8, run by Elena Soto and her daughter Grace Salazar, who previously owned Elena's Mexican Restaurant before starting the new concept together. In January, Mercado Libertad opened as a Latino grocery carrying Mexican and Central American staples, with owner Samuel Velez describing the goal as bringing familiar foods closer to home for the community already living there.
None of these required a corporate site-selection team or a TDLR filing for a 5,000-square-foot drive-thru. They're family businesses, opened by people who already had a name in town. Blinded by the Light, a boutique combining interior design with retail, celebrated five years in business in November, run by owner Deb Lohman since 2021. Even the Chamber of Commerce stayed local when it moved its office in January, relocating across the street from its old space in the city-owned Stubblefield Building rather than leaving downtown altogether.
Why the split matters if you live here
The highway corridor is where Liberty Hill's population growth is landing in commercial form. Costco, Target, T.J. Maxx, Chick-fil-A, Panda Express, and Waffle House are all the kind of tenants that show up once a trade area hits a certain rooftop count, and they all require the square footage and drive-thru lanes that only work on a highway frontage. Main Street doesn't have that kind of land, and it isn't trying to compete for it. What it's doing instead is investing in things a chain can't replicate: a hand-carved limestone monument, a mural from a working artist, a taco truck run by a mother and daughter who've already built a following under a different name.
That's not a consolation prize for downtown. It's the reason the 50th Sculpture Festival is getting a genuine expansion this year, new sculpture, new mural, multi-day public demonstrations, rather than a scaled-back nod to a milestone. The highway corridor absorbing the chains means Main Street doesn't have to become one to stay relevant. Both are growing. They're just growing into different things.
The next few weeks on the ground
If you want to see both halves of town in the same weekend, this is a good one to do it. The sculptors will be working at Lions Foundation Park daily from October 7 through the festival on October 10, and the Sculpture Festival Fun Run kicks off that Saturday morning at 8 a.m. from 355 Main Street. Afterward, downtown still has its usual weekend rhythm: Hell or High Water Brewing for a beer in a restored historic building, the patio at Liberty Hill Beer Market if you've got a dog with you, or an underground tasting cellar visit at Thirsty Mule Winery & Schitz Creek Distillery. Fire Oak Distillery is a short walk away if spirits are more your speed.
Whichever direction you drive from there, whether toward the new Costco run or back to Main Street for a taco from Elenita's, you're seeing a town that's figured out how to do both at once instead of picking one.
If you're curious what any of this means for property values or timing on your side of town, Chappell Realty Group knows Liberty Hill block by block and is happy to talk through it, no pressure, just a straight answer.
