Adjacent to the Meadows Center, walkable paths will lead to an academic center, dedicated to honoring and preserving Native American heritage.
Backed by Hays County and Texas State, a new Indigenous Cultures Center is still in its design phases but is expected to break ground after the new year. The center will be located on a 10-acre tract near Spring Lake, a site of deep cultural significance to Native Americans, as the location of the Coahuiltecan creation story and one of four sacred springs the Coahuiltecan people are committed to stewarding.
Bobbie Garza-Hernandez, community pilām for the Indigenous Cultures Institute (ICI), said the new building is part of Texas State’s 2025-35 campus master plan, which includes restoration and preservation of the natural area around Spring Lake. According to Garza-Hernandez, the center’s location is not coincidental, and she believes the ancestors guided them on this journey.
“The landscape has changed tremendously with all the development around us,” Garza-Hernandez said. “Trails and pathways they once traveled are no longer there or are covered in concrete. I feel strongly that [our ancestors] found their way back and guided us to the place where we will construct the [ICI]. There is no more perfect place than the sacred springs with their significance to Coahuiltecans.”
Ruben Arellano, professor of history at Southern Methodist University and ICI’s repatriation coordinator, believes the new center will be a vital resource for Texas. He said while other urban centers support Native Americans in Texas, none focus on education, research and cultural preservation in the way ICI’s new facility will.
“The ICI’s center is going to be interpretive and informative, and being affiliated with Texas State University, I hope will allow the center to also develop a thriving research wing to complement the cultural and educational aspects,” Arellano said.
In line with ICI’s mission since its inception in 2006, Garza-Hernandez looks forward to the impact the center will have on the community. There are three components: programs, classrooms, an art facility and a teaching kitchen; a performative space and community gathering space; and the administrative offices and archiving area. Garza-Hernandez said the first component is the most important since ICI currently has to find space in the community to conduct its programs.
“With educating our kids and the generations that are coming, it’s going to really bring some power back to the Indigenous communities of this area,” Garza-Hernandez said. “It will be quite meaningful, I believe, not just for the Central Texas area but for the whole state.”
Planning for the acquisition of an Indigenous Cultures Center building began in 2021, when ICI initially applied for Parks and Open Space Bond funding to build a facility. At the time, the center was proposed to be built in a primarily Hispanic neighborhood, near the Centro Cultural Hispano de San Marcos and Cuauhtemoc Hall.
However, when Hays County approved the bond, Garza-Hernandez said San Marcos’ city manager shared a proposal for the center with Texas State’s Chief Financial Officer Eric Algoe. ICI partnered with the director of facilities planning, design and construction to form a robust planning team of architects and engineers.
“When we were approached by the ICI regarding the creation of a new facility that they would build, the idea of working with them to create a university-level research center to bring together faculty from across the full range of disciplines who already work in this area felt like it might make sense,” Algoe wrote in an email to The Star.
Garza-Hernandez said the importance of constructing a center that reflects Coahuiltecan history and association with Spring Lake for the last 13,500 years is a point the architectural team understands. A central figure in the project is Chris Cornelius, an indigenous architect and citizen of the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin, who is leading the building’s design.
In a lecture held at the University of Texas’ School of Architecture, where ICI staff first heard Cornelius present his work, he critiqued architectural designs that apply Indigenous iconography without reflecting Indigenous values or practices. Countering this approach, he shared core values central to his work with architectural designs that reflect human connection to the earth, plants, animals and the cosmos as “relatives.” This ethos of connection will guide the conceptual design for the new center.
“One of the cultural values of indignity that is a big part of my work is the idea of relationality,” Cornelius said. “We think of things as if we’re related to them.”
Despite being a traveling professor and chair of the Department of Architecture at the University of New Mexico, Cornelius’ commitment to help is driven by the mistreatment of the Miakan-Garza Band of the Coahuiltecan tribe.
“Something you all said to me when Dr. [Mario] Garza talked about repatriation and the way that the state of Texas treats y’all with regards to ancestral remains … This is a really important project, and I want to help you,” Cornelius said in a Zoom meeting with ICI founders.
ICI estimates the center at $10 million to complete. A $5 million grant from Hays County partially funds it, but raising the other half will require support from Texas State and the San Marcos community. Due to limited opportunities to obtain federal funding, the center plans to finish the project in two phases, with the first phase expected to be completed by summer 2027.
