AUSTIN, Texas — Walking down South Congress Avenue in 2024 looks a little different than it did in 2004.
It’s no secret that as Austin’s population continues to grow, more and more large retailers are moving in.
Recently, more major luxury brands have started to call South Congress home. Hermès opened on in 2022 and French luxury brand Sézane – worn by British royalty – opened a pop-up store this month. Birkenstock and high-end bootmaker Lucchese are also set to join the list of the street's big retailers.
But all this change in the last several years has forced some classics out of their spots. On, a Swiss sportswear brand, pushed the eclectic costume store Lucy in Disguise out of South Congress last year. Just a few months ago, local boutique Maya Star also lost its place.
A born and raised Austinite and self-described “unicorn” who’s been in town since 1981, George Vance McGee said South Congress used to have a different feel in the past.
“It was a little more hokey and intimate and kind of small town-ish,” McGee said.
But McGee said he welcomes the new changes.
“As long as the independent businesses and the live music venues can keep afloat and prices don’t get too gnarly, you know, change is welcomed,” McGee said.
Further down South Congress, a letterpress design studio called Letterpress PLAY said this mix between locals and tourists is what first brought the company to the popular street.
“The whole street is so, it’s so Austin culture and Austin tourist,” Grace Lee, the assistant manager at Letterpress PLAY, said. “It was the perfect destination to start out.”
Lee, a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin, has lived in the city for the past several years and has also seen the evolution of the area.
“I've seen so much change in terms of not even just on the outside, just the amount of people I see walking the streets,” Lee said.
But the population growth has been a positive thing for Lee.
“You just get to meet so many new people with different backgrounds and stories now, even on a weekend that isn’t South By [Southwest],” Lee said.
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One of the first things Lee said she loved about Austin was how people and businesses embrace what makes them unique. So while she welcomes the change, she says people have to fight to keep the culture alive.
“If people start thinking, 'I’m just going to move out because it seems like the city is not my city anymore,' that’s when things start to break down,” Lee said. “As long as everyone is wanting to preserve a level of the culture, then it will be.”
That special culture is what McGee also feels that Austin is at its core.
"Austin is still its hippie core, you know, '70s, '60s self," Lee said.
Boomtown is KVUE's series covering the explosive growth in Central Texas. For more Boomtown stories, head to KVUE.com/Boomtown.