How Cedar Park Is Building Texas' Newest Downtown — with Arthur Jackson, Cedar Park EDC

Cedar Park is one of the fastest growing cities in central Texas. According to Arthur Jackson, Economic Development Director at Cedar Park EDC, that's no accident.

I sat down with Arthur to talk about what's driving Cedar Park's growth, what's coming next, and why a city of roughly 100,000 people is about to have something almost no city in America gets to have: a brand new downtown built from the ground up.

Stability as a competitive advantage

Arthur came to Cedar Park specifically because of its leadership stability. City Manager Brenda Evans has been with the city for 30 years, 24 of them as city manager. For Arthur, that kind of continuity signals something rare in municipal government: a city that knows where it's going and sticks to the plan.

Firefly Aerospace and the art of taking a bet

Cedar Park recruited Firefly Aerospace from Hawthorne, California in 2014, when the company had four or five employees. That bet has paid off. Firefly now has over 700 employees across four or five Cedar Park locations, recently went public, and has become one of the city's defining success stories. Arthur credits the city's willingness to be a long-term partner, including helping Firefly find rural land in Burnet County for rocket engine testing when that couldn't happen inside city limits.

The four ingredients of economic development

Arthur broke down how Cedar Park thinks about recruiting businesses. Four things have to be in place in order: site, workforce, incentives, and quality of life. Each one is worthless without the others. No site means nowhere to put a business. No workforce means nothing to offer employers. No incentives means losing deals to competing communities. And quality of life is what seals it.

A spaceport in central Texas

Cedar Park is working with Williamson County to establish the Central Texas Spaceport Development Corporation, positioning the region to compete for a Texas Space Commission SURF grant that would fund the first phase of a physical spaceport. Think testing facilities, higher education partnerships, and innovation infrastructure, not rocket launches from your backyard.

The Bell District — Cedar Park's first downtown

The most exciting project on the horizon is the Bell District. Cedar Park is 52 years old and has never had a traditional downtown. The city spent years quietly acquiring properties along Bell Boulevard to assemble enough acreage to build one from scratch. The result will be a walkable mixed-use development with housing, retail, restaurants, office space, an amphitheater, trails and the Texas Farmers Market, which stays. Arthur calls it America's newest downtown. It's hard to argue with that.

What makes Williamson County attractive to business

Two-week permitting turnarounds. Available land. Top-rated school districts. Safe communities. A business-friendly culture that stretches across Round Rock, Georgetown, Taylor, Leander, Liberty Hill, and Hutto. For site selectors and international companies, these aren't small details. They're dealmakers.

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