Drive down McCown Street in downtown Montgomery this summer and you'll notice something that wasn't there a year ago: you can only go one way. Traffic cones mark where angled parking is being carved into the east side of the block. New sidewalk forms sit stacked against the curb. If you've lived here a while, the change is disorienting in a small, specific way, the kind that makes you double back once before your muscle memory catches up.
That one street tells a bigger story about what's happening in Montgomery right now. A splash park opened on the lake this spring. A grocery store that residents have been asking about for years is finally coming out of the ground. And the building that used to be Jim's Hardware is about to become part of city hall. None of this is coincidence, and none of it is random. Montgomery is spending money it didn't have five years ago, and it's spending that money in a specific order that says something about how the city plans to grow.
The Street That Only Goes One Way Now
On March 10, 2026, Montgomery City Council approved a one-way northbound traffic design for McCown Street as part of the downtown improvement project. The current phase covers the stretch from Caroline Street North to College Street and includes angled parking on the east side, added sidewalks, landscaping, pedestrian lighting, overhead lighting, and intersection upgrades. City staff were careful to note that the March vote settled the street's direction, not the full design package, so expect more specifics as the project moves toward competitive bidding.
The project carries a price tag of $2.3 million, and it isn't coming out of the city's general fund. It's funded through the Montgomery Economic Development Corporation, a distinction that matters if you've been wondering whether your property tax bill is quietly absorbing the cost of new sidewalks downtown. It isn't.
City Administrator Brent Walker put the goal plainly when he described the project's aim as improving how people move through downtown:
"Downtown is historic and highly visible. Careful design, public input and disciplined sequencing are necessary to ensure infrastructure improvements support growth without overwhelming the community's identity."
If you've struggled to find parking in the historic district on a busy Saturday, that's the problem this redesign is meant to address. Council members raised the same concern during the March meeting, since parking availability has been a long-running frustration downtown.
The Building Behind the Hardware Store Sign
A few blocks over, the former Jim's Hardware building is becoming part of a new municipal complex. Architectural and engineering work is underway, and the city's request for qualifications for a construction manager closed at the end of March 2026. Planning around the adjacent Montgomery Community Center grounds is also part of the scope, aimed at making the area safer and more functional during busy events like the ones that already fill downtown on weekends.
It's a smaller story than the street redesign, but it points to the same pattern: the city is investing in the buildings and infrastructure it already owns before it adds anything new.
Why It's All Happening in the Same Year
Here's the part that explains the timing. Montgomery's sales tax revenue climbed 153.59 percent between 2020 and 2025, according to the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts. That kind of jump gives a small city room to fund projects like the McCown Street redesign without leaning on existing homeowners to cover the cost.
The bigger structural decision came in September 2025, when Montgomery City Council approved roughly a 17 percent increase to the city's water and wastewater impact fees. Those fees are charged to new development, not to households already living here, and they're designed to make growth pay for the infrastructure growth requires. Mayor Sara Countryman described the broader philosophy behind that choice:
"We still have a long way to go, but we get to be picky. We're in a good position."
She's also pointed out that Montgomery is only about 43 percent built out within its five square miles, which means the city is still early in a growth curve that most of Northwest Houston passed through years ago. The ordinance updates she's pushing, the ones aimed at modernizing decades-old downtown rules, are meant to manage that growth rather than react to it after the fact.
Put together, the picture is less "the city is spending your money" and more "the city is spending the money new development is bringing in, on projects that mostly benefit the people already here." Whether that holds up over the next few years is worth watching, but it's the stated plan and the funding sources back it up so far.
The Lake Beat the Grocery Store to the Finish Line
Not everything new in Montgomery required a council vote. Lake Conroe Splash Zone, an inflatable water obstacle course, held its grand opening on April 18, 2026, inside Lake Conroe Beach Park at 14968 TX-105. Founded by Carter Drab, the park runs more than ten obstacles supervised by lifeguards, open daily from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m., and it's built for guests ages six and up.
It sits inside a park many residents already know well. Lake Conroe Beach Park spans roughly 13 acres and is the largest beach on the lake, with fishing piers, a swimming area, barbecue pits, and picnic tables that have been there for years. The splash park didn't create a new destination so much as it gave an old one a reason to fill up faster on a Saturday afternoon.
If you're planning a visit:
- Address: 14968 TX-105, Montgomery, TX 77356, inside Lake Conroe Beach Park
- Hours: daily, 9 a.m. to 7 p.m.
- Ages: six and up, with some obstacles restricted for safety
What's Still Coming
The project residents have been asking about longest is the grocery store. An H-E-B is under construction on a 32.42-acre tract at the southeast corner of Highway 105 and FM 2854, with 16.75 acres set aside for the store itself. Mayor Countryman confirmed in reporting from March 2026 that the project remains on track for completion in the fourth quarter of 2026. The development is projected to generate about $45,600 annually in tax revenue against roughly $140,000 in public infrastructure costs, a detail that gives some sense of how the city is weighing the trade-offs on projects like this one.
Countryman has also said other businesses are eyeing Montgomery or have already reached agreements with the city, though nothing beyond H-E-B has been made public. For a city this size, one grocery store anchor tends to pull others in behind it, so it's worth watching what gets announced over the next few months.
What This Means If You Live Here
None of this changes what your house is worth today, and that's not really the point of any of it. What it changes is the texture of living in Montgomery: which streets you drive downtown, where you take the kids on a hot Saturday, how far you have to go for groceries by the end of the year. The city is choosing to fund that change through new development and sales tax growth rather than through your property tax bill, which is a detail most residents wouldn't otherwise have reason to know.
If you're trying to make sense of how any of this might affect your own plans, whether that's timing a move, understanding what a property near downtown might be worth once the McCown Street work wraps up, or just figuring out where a lake property fits into all this growth, Jenny Hill Real Estate knows this market from the ground up. Schedule a consultation and get a straight answer from someone who's watching these projects as closely as you are.
