Target Plans 145,000-Square-Foot Store in Dripping Springs, Texas by 2027

For anyone in western Hays County who makes the 15-mile drive to the nearest Target, the answer to "should I apply?" is straightforward once the timing makes sense. A 145,000-square-foot store is coming to 13550 W. U.S. Highway 290 in Dripping Springs, with construction scheduled to begin in May 2027 and wrap by November 2027. That puts a likely store opening in early 2028 and a hiring window roughly 60 to 90 days before the doors open.

The store, Target's first ever in Dripping Springs, will anchor a new development called The Village at Dripping Springs, a 26.45-acre commercial complex that already includes H-E-B, Chick-fil-A, Torchy's Tacos, OrangeTheory, and Dunkin. Target purchased 10.5 acres at the site in January from a shell company linked to Houston-based developer Property Commerce, which has built more than 80 shopping centers, 43 or more of them anchored by a Target store. The construction cost is listed at $7.5 million in filings with the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation.

For internal candidates, timing and positioning are the levers. Target's new-store hiring process typically fills Executive Team Leader and Team Lead roles first, giving existing team members with a strong performance record the best access to leadership slots before stores open to external applicants. Those postings appear on Target's new-store careers page and in Workday for current team members; based on the November 2027 construction completion, expect postings to surface in late summer or early fall of that year. Team members in the three existing Hays County stores, all of which sit along or near Interstate 35, have the most direct case for a transfer: a store due west of the corridor creates new leadership geography, not just more headcount.

On the question of whether this opening creates real advancement opportunity or simply stretches current teams thinner, the store size offers a clue. A 145,000-square-foot format sits above Target's chain average of roughly 125,000 square feet, and comparable stores support around 130 to 150 team members. That headcount generates multiple simultaneous Team Lead openings across Inbound, Style, Food and Beverage, Fulfillment, and Guest Experience, along with new Executive Team Leader slots. Unlike backfilling a position in an existing store, a new-store opening creates all of those at once.

Pay in Austin-area Target stores falls within the company's frontline range of $15 to $24 per hour, depending on role and market, with a national average of $17.23 per hour in 2026. That range clears both Texas' $7.25 minimum wage and the general retail floor in a county where rapid growth has pushed cost-of-living sharply higher. Dripping Springs' population has roughly doubled to 40,000 residents over five years and grew 16.9 percent year over year in 2024, ranking it among the fastest-growing cities in Texas.

The more immediate opportunity for team members ready to move now is in Liberty Hill, about 30 miles north of Austin, where a separate Target location broke ground in July 2025 and is expected to open around June 2026. At approximately 148,000 square feet and a $22 million construction cost, that store is projected to be the largest Target in the world. Dripping Springs follows a longer timeline, but in a market where Hill Country Alliance program director Cliff Kaplan has noted that "communities are grappling with change," the retail infrastructure is catching up fast to the growth — and so is the job market that comes with it.