The Bastrop Cultural Arts Master Plan

In 2010, the National Trust for Historic Preservation distinguished Bastrop as one of its national “distinctive destinations.” In 2012, The Texas Commission recognized Bastrop as one of the state’s emerging Cultural Arts Districts. Recognition of Bastrop as a uniquely creative and artistic place has been steadily growing in recent years among both local and distant audiences. They rightly view Bastrop as a diverse cultural destination characterized by unique history, nature, and a broad arts landscape. In short, Bastrop is becoming a cultural destination.

Strengthening that presence has been the focus of many conversations among arts organizations and City leaders for more than a decade. Translating these discussions into action has been the focus of several community initiatives and prompted the 2016 Bastrop Comprehensive Plan, which calls for the City to undertake collaborative development of a Cultural Arts Master Plan.

That call led us to begin this planning process. The goal of the plan is to lay out the policies, programs, and ideas that will enable the city to best harness its resources to grow and support the local arts and culture sector for residents and visitors alike.

In order to create this plan with strong public engagement that brings as many Bastrop residents to the table as possible, the City has teamed up with GO collaborative, a firm based in Austin that works at the intersection of design, art, and planning to find creative solutions for complex community design and development challenges. Currently, the team has been working to create a broad base of understanding about the history, trends, and groups in town that make up the current arts community.

What Do We Know Today?

This process has already led to a number of important insights. For instance, we know that economic growth from the Austin area will continue to have a strong impact on the City of Bastrop bringing both positive (growth in number of residents, growth in number of artists, growth in regional tourism), and negative economic forces (potential retail drop). Fortunately, Bastrop shows a strong foundation of employment for creative professionals, and a significant number of Bastrop residents work in creative industries. We have found that Bastrop County’s arts and culture sector earns nearly $17 million per year and employs 1,227 workers.

The team’s economic analysis has also shown that Bastrop has a number of key arts institutions and individuals who have worked for decades to establish the arts economy as a key component of the city. However, given the smaller size of the community, there is an opportunity (as well as some recognized challenges) for creating a larger strategy that can enable the arts to serve as an essential component of Bastrop’s larger economic development strategy.

What Do We Want to Know?