Megan Navarro
DRIPPING SPRINGS — A multi-year fight against a proposed 5,000-seat outdoor concert venue off Fitzhugh Road in Dripping Springs is coming to a close after the developer and local organizations have come to an agreement.
It was announced Nov. 19 that Fitzhugh Ridge, LLC — an entity established by the Shield-Ayres Foundation — has entered into a contract with California-based developer Blizexas, LLC, to purchase the property where the venue was slated to be built.
“The Shield-Ayres Foundation was established by my grandparents, Robert Ayres and Patricia Shield Ayres, in 1977 and it's a family foundation that gives grants to nonprofits in Central Texas with three funding areas: conservation/environment, education and the arts and human services,” explained Marshall Bowen, vice president and general counsel for Shield Ranch. “[The] entity that was established by the foundation owning this property is entirely consistent with the foundation's purpose of conserving land and water in our region, so the foundation's values will sort of guide the stewardship of this piece of property.”
Community members started a broader coalition to stop the venue — which was going to be called the Rockingwall Ranch Event Center — more than three years ago, when they discovered that it was going to border Shield Ranch, Bowen explained. The ranch dates back 80-plus years with the Shield/Ayres/Bowen family as the stewards, when Fred and Vera Shield of San Antonio purchased 5,300 acres on Barton Creek and, since then, subsequent purchases increased the ranch to the current 6,400 acres.
Shield Ranch is also home to a nature immersion summer camp, wildlife habitats, open spaces and cultural resources, according to its website. Because of the threat that the venue would have placed on the environment, along with traffic concerns on the "already-dangerous" Fitzhugh Road and the planned on-site treatment and disposal of wastewater, the community stepped up to fight the project.
“It was this long journey of sort of continuing the messaging about our concerns and then, the engagement in the actual targeting and regulatory process that brought us to a position to … approach the developer about a possible acquisition and ultimately led us to an agreement that everybody was satisfied with,” Bowen said.
He added that when faced with something, like a new development in an environmentally-sensitive area, while adding in community concerns, all options get put on the table. Purchasing the property, Bowen explained, was a product of examining the different ways that the situation could come to an end sooner than later that would solve the problem. Knowing that it was not a one-person job of getting this milestone off the ground, Bowen shared his gratitude to everyone who has helped over the years.
“I just want to express tremendous gratitude to the individuals, our neighbors in the area, to the partner organizations that have worked with us to share this message with all of the folks that showed up to the [Texas Commission on Environmental Quality] public meetings and to the county meetings about this. I think this is really a testament to a strong conservation ethic in this part of the Hill Country about the need for protecting open spaces and being mindful of the kinds of development that the community wants to rally around,” he stated. “I think this is a testament to a lot of people's hard work, time and resources over the last three and a half years that really allowed this transaction to ultimately come to be.”
The parties have been negotiating the terms of the contract for the last couple of months, Bowen said, however, the first time that they broached the idea was more than a year and a half ago.
The transaction will close Jan. 6, 2026, and, at that point, the developer will withdraw the permit application with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality as a result of the transfer of the property to Fitzhugh Ridge, LLC.
Currently, there are no concrete plans on what the property will be used for, as the parties just went under contract, but Bowen emphasized: “This concert venue will not be built on this property.
