125. The Man Behind Brooks: How Leo Gomez Reimagined the South Side

Bob Rivard [00:00:03]:
Welcome to Big City, Small Town, the weekly podcast all about San Antonio and the people who make it go and grow. I'm your host, Bob Rivard. Our guest this week is Leo Gomez, the president and CEO of the Brooks Development Authority, as well as Brooks Gives Back, a position he's held now since 2013. Leo has led the citywide and regional effort to convert the former Brooks Air Force Base to the Brooks campus, now home to major businesses, the University of Incarnate Words medical school, and a growing retail hub and residential community. Among the many community leaders I've come to know well over the decades, not many can match the diverse roles Leo has played in the private and nonprofit worlds in our community. Leo, welcome to Big City Small Town.

Leo Gomez [00:00:47]:
Thank you. It's a pleasure to join you here.

Bob Rivard [00:00:49]:
Well, let's start by you just sharing your story with our listeners and our audience on YouTube and where you're from and your education. And you have held an incredible streak of great jobs. And I don't know how you did it, but I want you to share all that with our our audience before we get into Brooks.

Leo Gomez [00:01:07]:
Well, I've been pretty blessed. You know, I moved here right out of graduate school. I was in Austin and I was recruited by Ricardo Romo, who was then at the time, president of the Tomas Rivera center, where on to be, of course, president of UTSA for a few years. But I worked with Ricardo and I moved to San Antonio, agreed to do it because I thought, you know what, it might be a good idea to work in San Antonio for about two, three years and then move on to a real big city somewhere on the east coast or the West Coast. And 35 plus years later, I'm still here.

Bob Rivard [00:01:39]:
Now that's interesting that you were taking aim at big cities because you're a Rio Grande Valley guy, aren't you?

Leo Gomez [00:01:44]:
I sure am. Rio Grande Valley and San Antonio was that big city to the north, the capital of South Texas as far as I was concerned.

Bob Rivard [00:01:52]:
And you went to Pan Am University in the day now called utrgv.

Leo Gomez [00:01:57]:
I did. I worked at a grocery store full time while I was in college. Got my political science degree there. Love the Rio Grande Valley. It's home. I always thought I would return someday, but I got the next best thing.

Bob Rivard [00:02:09]:
And you know you got your graduate degree at UT Austin, right, Leo? And to me, that's just a great story that we hear over and over again in San Antonio. Your mother was a hard working single mother, raised you and your two siblings cleaned houses and in the space of one generation. We have a community leader in the studio.

Leo Gomez [00:02:29]:
That's right. God bless Mom. You know, mom moved on to the wonderful world beyond about four years ago, and she is my blessing. She's my angel. She's our family's angel. She helped make sure that her kiddos were ready for the next move or the next generation and reminded us that then we had responsibility for our kiddos and their kiddos. And so it's a great story and we continue to do that. We had great conversation about that during my birthday celebration this last Saturday with family.

Leo Gomez [00:03:01]:
It was wonderful.

Bob Rivard [00:03:03]:
Well, I just think that as we endure a period of time where immigrants and people of color have been so denigrated in the national political divide that it's important to remember the people that sacrifice so much and how quickly that sacrifice pays off. What a great return on investment in human capital there is.

Leo Gomez [00:03:24]:
If you don't mind, I want to share that my grandpa and his big brother came over when they were 11 and 8 years old.

Bob Rivard [00:03:31]:
From where?

Leo Gomez [00:03:33]:
From a little town outside of Monterrey. As little boys, they walked all the way to the Rio Grande Valley, crossed the river illegally at the time, but quickly became ranch hands at ages 8 and 11. And look at everything now that's incred.

Bob Rivard [00:03:48]:
Amazing. Talk about some of your jobs before you got to Brooks Leo, because I was, as we were preparing for this show, remembering everything from your, your time at I, I think both the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and the Greater Chamber of Commerce. Right. As well as a couple of tours with the San Antonio Spurs.

Leo Gomez [00:04:08]:
Correct.

Bob Rivard [00:04:09]:
Give us the narrative from A to Z on that.

Leo Gomez [00:04:12]:
Well, you know, from the Tomas Rivera center, which was a policy think tank at Trinity University at the time, I got a call from the dean of the Public Policy School in Austin, the LBJ School of Public affairs, letting me know that a good friend of his, the president of the chamber then, Joe Cryer, was looking for a new vice president of government relations. Had lunch and then dinner with Joe at a. Got interviewed by a couple of folks that he asked to interview me and voila, I was vice president of the Greater San Antonio Chamber of Commerce. You know, you fast forward a couple of years while I was at the Greater Chamber. I built a great relationship with the Hispanic Chamber. I took that role on as an executive at the Greater Chamber. And before I knew it, I got recruited to be president to CEO of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. And so did that job for a few years and was really enjoying it.

Leo Gomez [00:05:05]:
It was the job of my dreams, really. As a young man in my 20s back then, just fantastic. And then I get a call from the CEO of the San Antonio spurs asking to come over and visit with me. He comes over, we visit. He's sharing with me some challenges that the spurs are facing and is looking for somebody to fill a role at the spurs that would help them navigate the community challenges to deal with those issues that they were facing. I remember very clearly beginning to suggest some names and he picked up his hands and said, nope, I'm here to hire you. They had determined that the Alamo Dome was not going to be their long term solution and a home for the Spurs. And they needed to figure out how they could work with the community and convince the community to build a true NBA arena.

Leo Gomez [00:05:52]:
That was the challenge. I didn't know anything about arenas, I didn't know anything about the NBA, but. But I knew this community, certainly knew the business community, but beyond the business community, I was successful within the business community because I made sure to have good relationships throughout the community. And that's why I believe they asked me to join them. And I did. And we began those conversations. It took a few years. We got what is now the Frostbank center as a result of years of work.

Leo Gomez [00:06:22]:
Then I'm sitting there after we've succeeded in getting the Frostbank what is now the Frostbank center. And the mayor at the time, Ed Garza, calls me and invites me to dinner with some Japanese executives from Toyota that were about to build a plant in San Antonio. I leave dinner and I'm the new GM of administration for the Toyota motor manufacturing plant. I don't even know how to change the oil on my vehicle. And if I had to change a flat, I'm sure I'd figure it out. But you know, I served as GM of administration and hired the first 2,000 people at the Toyota plant. I say I hired. I was the GM of Administration, our HR department, and everybody did that.

Leo Gomez [00:07:03]:
But that was quite an experience there. But you know, three years into the job, I met with somebody close to the leadership of the San Antonio Spurs. They shared with me that they were yet facing some issues again and invited me to come back. And voila, I was back at the spurs as their VP of Corporate Development and Public Affairs.

Bob Rivard [00:07:24]:
And.

Leo Gomez [00:07:25]:
And did that. We succeeded and worked with Nelson and Commissioner's Court on the second round of investments into that building. And then I'm driving along Southwest Military Drive, believe it or not, because I had built my very first home down on the south side at Brookside, the neighborhood right next to Brooks. And I knew that staying with the spurs wasn't going to be my long term career. And I knew I wanted to do something now that that really met my purpose in life. And I heard the announcement that the CEO then of Brooks had resigned. And I just knew it. That's mine.

Leo Gomez [00:08:04]:
I gotta go get it. And I did. And I've been here there for 12 years now.

Bob Rivard [00:08:09]:
You know, for many members of our audience who are not from San Antonio, leo, or were too young to experience the whole Base Realignment and Closure Commission that so dominated the news here in the late 1990s and early 2000s, let's talk about Brooks and what its historic mission was and its value to the Air Force and to NASA. It was certainly where Kennedy spent. John F. Kennedy spent his last good day on Earth before going to Dallas and being assassinated. People don't realize that, but astronaut training was a, was an essential component of the mission here in the day. And he was here to, to see that and some of the other science activities. But what happened at Brooks, of course we talk about Kelly Air Force Base, we know about that closure, but talk about Brooks and its transition from Brooks Air Force Base to what was Brooks City Base at the time and now Brooks.

Leo Gomez [00:09:04]:
Well, let's keep in mind that it was established well before the Air Force existed. So it started out as an army base. And the first flights of the United States army took place here in San Antonio, both in what is Fort Sam today and at Brooks. We had the second flight only by a couple of days, but the first, you know, it was one of the very first flights in that Jenny aircraft. 100 years of history there. The first person to jump from an airplane with a parachute was at Brooks.

Bob Rivard [00:09:35]:
I didn't know that.

Leo Gomez [00:09:35]:
Can you imagine that? Climbing on the top of a biplane and with a backpack and you're a young man and you're told everything's ready and it will work. You know, just have faith and jump off. That happened at Brooks. You know, fast forward to the research and development that President Kennedy dedicated the resources to when he came that fateful day. And, you know, you have things like, you know, your eye surgery to improve your eyesight is among the things that takes place there. Treating wounds through a hyperbolic chamber was all developed there and at Brooks, et cetera. So a lot of wonderful medical accomplishments and discoveries were made there by virtue of testing not only human beings, but monkeys and pigs in the efforts to make sure that, you know, a human being could survive in space and on a trip to the moon. And so that's been wonderful.

Leo Gomez [00:10:31]:
It served as the Air Force's research, science and technology park, along with a hospital for the astronauts when they would return from the moon.

Bob Rivard [00:10:39]:
And I know it was actually put on the BRAC list twice, if memory serves right. And the first time we sort of won a reprieve, but the second time we didn't. There were a number of years from the time it was announced it would close until it actually closed. So when did Brook City Base take root?

Leo Gomez [00:10:55]:
Well, Brook City Base was. It became officially a city base, first of its kind in 2002. And that was San Antonio being proactive in in preventing the base from being closed and losing its military missions. It realized in visiting with the leadership of the military that managing the infrastructure of the base and managing the base was really a burden on the military. And the city offered to step in to do that. And that's where the city base concept came from. So the city of San Antonio began managing the infrastructure, the streets, maintaining the streets, the utilities, the housing, etc. For the air Force so that the Air Force could concentrate on its military missions.

Leo Gomez [00:11:39]:
All that started in 2002. Unfortunately, the Air Force left completely in 2011.

Bob Rivard [00:11:47]:
I've had the opportunity to go around the country, particularly when I was the editor of the Express News, and see a number of other base closure sites because I was curious how other communities were doing it. I don't think any community that I know of had two base closures at the same time. And we had Kelly and we had Brooks, and I would say the transformation of both of those is sort of national caliber. And what happened with Kelly becoming Port San Antonio and Brooks becoming Brooks Air Force Base becoming Brooks, it's really pretty extraordinary.

Leo Gomez [00:12:17]:
Well, I'm certainly not going to disagree with you and I think Jim Pirschbach would agree with me. And I think we have two base redevelopments that are models for the rest of the country. Other places have done good jobs, don't get me wrong, but the numbers speak for themselves at the port and at Brooks. And it's community based leadership and direction and purpose is really what has helped them become what they are. Because there are two different types of properties, two different types of developments, and they're succeeding in their own right.

Bob Rivard [00:12:50]:
Well, correct me if I'm wrong about this, but in my memory, the original idea for Brook City Base was that it was going to be like a science and research center. And then when you came in, you completely turned things on their ear and decided, no, that's not going to be how we Develop and you took it in a completely different direction.

Leo Gomez [00:13:09]:
Well, that day that I realized that I wanted to be the CEO of Brooks City Base, I began my research and really. And I'd been a part of the discussions. I was at the Greater Chamber as an executive when the bad news came regarding Kelly and the so. So bad news regarding Brooks. So I was involved in the community discussions and understood what had happened to some degree. And I became convinced that the mission that we had ultimately come up with for city, for City Base, Brook City Base, at the time, to keep it as a research, science and technology park, a private version of what the Air Force had had, was the wrong thing to do. I mean, we'd been trying it for 10 years and it wasn't working. And I came to the conclusion that there's a reason the Air Force left.

Leo Gomez [00:14:03]:
These assets are no longer the assets that can support the technology and the research and science efforts that need to be taking place nowadays. And we had facilities that just were not needed anymore and infrastructure that had really become dilapidated. And so I'll tell you, in my interviewing process, it took months of interviews of literally hundreds of applicants for the job. And when I found myself as a finalist, I got to share with you all. I genuinely shared with the search committee that if they wanted to continue with the mission of developing a private research, science and technology park, I was not their guy. But I made a suggestion. I said, however, if you allow me to work with you to rethink our vision and rethink our purpose to one that's more community based and developing something that will not only redevelop this campus or this base, but do it in a way that brings opportunity around it, then no one's going to do a better job than me. They agreed, and again, here I am 12 years later.

Bob Rivard [00:15:08]:
I think it's also important for the same members of our audience that weren't here back then, Leo, to talk about the fact that in those early years, the south side rightfully felt like it was easily the most neglected sector of the city. There had been no significant investment or efforts to do very much down there. Of course, Brooks is on, I guess technically the southeast side, but it's very much part of that world. We didn't have Toyota, you know, until the early 2000s or 2008, I think, is when it started. We didn't have Texas A Mic, San Antonio down there. We didn't have the UNESCO World Heritage investment in the missions and the mission reach that we made. And we didn't have Brooks it was really a different world. And so that concept that you sold them on is kind of remarkable.

Bob Rivard [00:15:55]:
And when you look in the rear view mirror and go, they, they actually bought into the fact that you could create community there where, where it hadn't been any.

Leo Gomez [00:16:03]:
They did buy into it. You know, I, I lived in the community. My house was at Brookside, you know, the neighborhood right next to it. I knew what folks wanted, I knew what they had the ganas for, you know, and I knew that there was disposable income there. But the only place to spend it was somewhere other than the south side, because we have anywhere to spend it on the south side. You know, you have to drive to North Star Mall to spend money or other places. And the people who worked at the base, when it was a base, drove in from the north side and other parts of town every morning and at the end of the day took their paychecks with them and spent it somewhere else. And then without getting emotional about it, I invite people to just take a look at the numbers.

Leo Gomez [00:16:46]:
Look at bond packages and what they looked like before the last 15 years and where money was invested in our city. Look at the award of grants from the Metropolitan Planning Organization and look at the money that was awarded anywhere near south of Highway 90 and what is 151 today? And those numbers speak for themselves because they're pretty close to zeros, Bob. And that's begun to change in the last 10 years to 15 years. And that infrastructure investment specifically, I think has made a world of difference in what's beginning to happen not just at Brooks, but throughout the south side.

Bob Rivard [00:17:25]:
So was the first infusion of bond money there in 2012 or was it 17?

Leo Gomez [00:17:32]:
2017 was when we had the bond package. 2012 was more of a capital budget investment at Brooks. So it started with 17 and then the second bond package after that we included funds as well. But I've got to share with you, Brooks. I and the board had the confidence on what we could do, that we issued our own bonds, non rated, agency paid interest rates that are ridiculous. But we issued our own bonds back there for the initial infrastructure investments that needed to be made. And then the city stepped in with the bond package at significant investments and they've been, we've gotten a great return on it. I like to tell people, especially city council members, and certainly every time before I go before the city's economic development committee, I remind them that at Brooks, infrastructure equals jobs, and then jobs turns into everything else.

Leo Gomez [00:18:29]:
I really believe, we all believe at Brooks, that the best answer to poverty is a good job with a decent healthcare package. And infrastructure is what helped us get those.

Bob Rivard [00:18:39]:
And by that, you mean streets, sidewalks, drainage, lights.

Leo Gomez [00:18:43]:
Lights, water, transportation.

Bob Rivard [00:18:45]:
All of that together connected to the Howard Peak Greenway trails. Now, yes, that was a county initiative. That was a county initiative, but, you know, converting a military base. Military bases are not pretty. There's nothing pretty about nothing at all. They're important, but they're not pretty. And so turning that into a, you know, a destination that a company would want to put. Put an operation there, or a developer would want to build a, you know, a subdivision or a multifamily complex, that's.

Bob Rivard [00:19:15]:
That's where you need the bond money. And I assume you're going to come back and with a new mayor and council and. And compete for 20, 27 bond dollars to continue that.

Leo Gomez [00:19:26]:
We are, and we'll continue investing ourselves. And I need to share this, though. Before those bond requests and before we embarked on the new vision and mission, I dared to think that we could build something there that was as good as Miller in Austin, the former airport in Austin that now has 10,000 people living there and 10,000 people working there, just east of the highway, just north of the university. I also dare to think that we could be the future Woodlands on the south side of San Antonio. And so I and my team and board members, we began to study Miller and the Woodlands and then figured out that they had something in common. A planning firm, a land planning firm. And guess what? We engaged them. We engaged them and we got them to believe that what they did in Austin and what they did at the Woodlands just might be possible over the next 30 to 50 years on the south side of town.

Leo Gomez [00:20:24]:
And so they agreed. We went to work, we put together our plan and our vision, and we've been working on it for 12 years, and we're well on our way. Bob.

Bob Rivard [00:20:33]:
Well, speaking of the Woodlands, I'm really impressed how you've embraced, literally and figuratively, trees and tree canopy out there and talk a little bit about what you've planted on not only the former, you know, base footprint, but also, you know, the. How did we come around to the idea of an arboretum?

Leo Gomez [00:20:52]:
Well, you know, speaking for myself and I shared with the board and the staff. I mean, the time that we spent at the Woodlands was critical to that. As I visited with the team and did our research and understanding that the development of the Woodlands included a real investment in protecting nature and the environment, along with building responsible infrastructure that would have a Low impact on the community in that respect. And so I came back and asked our folks to count the trees, and we did. And we had about 1,000 trees, a few heritage trees that are well over 3, 400 years old. And I'm proud to say that today we have well over 3,500 trees. And most of them have been planted by the developers that have brought projects onto the Brooks campus. That, along with now purchasing the Old Republic golf Course with Brooks dollars and leasing it to the Arboretum of San Antonio, which is going to be a jewel not just on the south side, but for all of San Anton and South Texas.

Bob Rivard [00:21:49]:
And how far is the arboretum from Brooks?

Leo Gomez [00:21:53]:
It is literally a mile and a quarter from the Brooks barrier.

Bob Rivard [00:21:57]:
Really a neighbor.

Leo Gomez [00:21:58]:
It is. It really is. You know, as far as we're concerned, it's in the Brooks impact area. And that's why the board agreed to make that investment in it. We understood what an arboretum, a quality arboretum will do in terms of attracting business to that part of town. And, you know, after visiting Houston in particular and seeing what they did with their arboretum, now attracting over a million visitors a year, that's what we foresee there. And so that was a Brooks investment, not just because we like trees. It's a really.

Leo Gomez [00:22:32]:
Was a business investment. On behalf of Brooks, for southeast San Antonio and all of San Antonio, for.

Bob Rivard [00:22:38]:
People who have never been to. To Brooks and I, I made a few brief comments about your tenants. But what would they find out there? Who are your most important tenants? What's the, What's. What's the mix out there of. Of. Of all of the people that call Brooks Homes now?

Leo Gomez [00:22:54]:
Well, I think first, if you've not been to the area, upon arriving, you would be shocked at the amount of traffic and cars parked on parking lots to over 30 restaurants right on Military Drive. The dining options are just phenomenal. They're wonderful. And you'll find what you find in other major intersections of San Antonio are three grocery stores, Walmart, Target, HEB, you'll find Home Depot, you'll find Lowe's, etc. Big box stores, a Sam's Club, all in southeast San Antonio. And many folks in San Antonio don't realize that. And so that's the first thing they'd see.

Bob Rivard [00:23:32]:
Those were all the assets that used to have to go to the north side.

Leo Gomez [00:23:35]:
That's right. That's right. But we invested in the right infrastructure along Military Drive. We worked with the right developers, and we've shown everybody that there was indeed a demand for those restaurant facilities. And Retail facilities right there at Brooks, a research firm that actually did work for us or did work for me when I was an executive at the Spurs. I hired them early on in my tenure at Brooks, asked them to help me figure out what we needed to do to attract the rest of San Antonio. And they came back and in short told me you're looking the wrong direction. You need to look to Atascosa and Wilson counties and everybody else on the south side.

Leo Gomez [00:24:13]:
These are people that have for decades been traveling one hour commutes to work in places like USAA and other places in north San Antonio, doing their shopping at Northstar Mall. When the quarry opened up, they were delighted because it shortened their travel time to quality retail and restaurants. And now they're all making a left hand turn there at Military Drive and coming onto Bridge Brooks.

Bob Rivard [00:24:37]:
That's amazing. What about your tenants on campus, the jobs?

Leo Gomez [00:24:41]:
I'll tell you, among the first things that people will realize that we have a beautiful hospital, Mission Trails Baptist Hospital. And so they were really the very first project that Brooks secured from off campus onto the Brooks former base. And then you just as you today, as you drive towards the hospital or drive of the campus, you just, I think you'll be shocked by the number of apartment communities and the quality of those apartment communities, all market rate, all 95% plus occupied. The green space, the quality of the landscaping, etc. Is just beautiful. And then you drive to the section that is our manufacturing park and you see no chain link fences, you see no overhead utilities, you see concrete based roads, duct banks for it and everything else is underground. You see 10 foot meandering sidewalks in a manufacturing park. So now we've got 3,000, we'll soon have 5,000 people working in that manufacturing park every day.

Leo Gomez [00:25:54]:
And we've gotten to the point where we have six companies that are the result of foreign direct investment by companies in other places. We've got two companies from South Korea, we've got one from Japan, we got two from France, we got one from the Czech Republic, we got one from Japan. If I haven't said that already and working real hard at a third one from South Korea, we have something to show them. A place, a vibrant community and just 10 minutes of downtown San Antonio. That along with the incentives that we can provide. But more than anything, the community we can show them that they can be a part of, I think has attracted all those companies.

Bob Rivard [00:26:36]:
Leo, do you work with Greater SatX on that to identify potential targets for recruitment or people coming in that are saying we're we're out there looking at cities or how do you find tenants?

Leo Gomez [00:26:50]:
I'll tell you what I count on Greater satx. They are indeed our partner in this and we'd like to think we're their partner in attracting companies to San Antonio. Greater SatX has made it clear that place making is something important that San Antonio has to embark on throughout San Antonio. The San Antonio Tomorrow plan identified 13 major employment centers in San Antonio. And we can find a way to do place making in those 13 areas. It'll make the job for greater SATX all the easier to recruit companies to San Antonio. Brooks is among them. I'd like to think we're leading the way in it and we have something to show them.

Leo Gomez [00:27:28]:
And so, you know, I love it when prospects come in and tell me they've seen one or two other places and they decided to go ahead and add Brooks to their itinerary and take a look at it. And then before they leave, they've changed their mind and Brooks is the place they want to go. Go.

Bob Rivard [00:27:43]:
Well, I know friends of mine at the medical center have told me that they look at Brooks and they advocate for the day when people that work at the medical center can live at the medical center. Because there's a dearth of housing, certainly a dearth of multifamily housing out there right on the medical center footprint. And, and Brooks has been really, really successful at both building the job base, but also building the residential base.

Leo Gomez [00:28:09]:
It's incredible. You know, today we've got about 1500 units, mostly multifamily. We're going to double those literally in the next three years. Brooks is going to go from having a population of close to 3,000 people in the next three to five years. There will be 9,000 to 10,000 people living on those 1300 acres because we have six multifamily, six residential options today and we have six more literally under construction right now or under contract. And so that is coming and almost all of it is market rate. And housing is a conversation I'd love to have in terms of market rate versus affordable. We focused the first 10 years on developing market rate housing and proving it up.

Leo Gomez [00:28:54]:
Now we're the right community to include affordable housing on and what that does and will do for the families that live in those communities. We partnered up with SAM Ministries on permanent supportive housing. We're glad to do that and work with them to help the homeless transition from their situation into being, you know, productive citizens in our community. And then we also are doing our first Multifamily affordable community.

Bob Rivard [00:29:18]:
Give us the specifics on the permanent transition housing with sam. Is that on the drawing board or. It's already done.

Leo Gomez [00:29:25]:
It's literally under construction already a quarter mile north of the campus. I call it the campus. It's not a base anymore. Right. And so it's a quarter mile to the north. Years ago, we, Brooks also purchased 55 acres from the state hospital that was vacant land, excess land for the hospital, and we purchased it from them. It's been sitting there for a while. We've had a number of plans, we've worked with the community, and now we're moving forward with developing not only affordable housing, market rate housing, and hopefully bringing some retail onto those 55 acres on Presa as well.

Leo Gomez [00:30:00]:
Right across the street pretty much from Hot Wheels.

Bob Rivard [00:30:02]:
How many beds will there be for the SAM project?

Leo Gomez [00:30:06]:
I don't remember the specific number, Bob, but it's about 100.

Bob Rivard [00:30:10]:
It's less than 100, I would think. There's an enormous demand out there, Leo, for workforce development, workforce housing, you know, whether you call that affordable or not. But something that's below market rate for people that are earning a significant percentage of the median income, but they're not there and can't quite afford market rate. But there's got to be a lot of people on the south side that would come to Brooks if that housing was there.

Leo Gomez [00:30:36]:
Is if the average household in San Antonio makes, or the average person in San Antonio makes about 55, $58,000 a year, what can they afford? That's what we focus on. We want to provide housing that the people who get a decent job at Brooks can actually literally afford to lease. Hopefully someday, right around the corner, they'll also have options to purchase a home on the Brooks campus and around Brooks. Actually, we're seeing it already. It's really wonderful to see. But you know, our emphasis is to make sure that the people who get jobs at Brooks and around Brooks can afford a home at Brooks. I am delighted with the obvious fact that more and more people are not only working at Brooks, but living at and around Brooks versus those early days when people drove down, got off the highway onto the base and at the end of the day drove off and took their paychecks with them. They are keeping their paychecks in Brooks, at Brooks, around Brooks, the South side and spending it there.

Leo Gomez [00:31:42]:
That's why we're seeing what we're seeing on the south side of San Antonio.

Bob Rivard [00:31:45]:
Antonio, I think another example that you're setting for the city and I'M not sure they're paying enough attention. So I want to bring it up. You Talked about the 10 foot wide, meandering sidewalks. You can ride a bicycle and walk as a pedestrian safely on the campus. And I'm going to try my best to stop calling it a base, Leo. I'll call it a campus. But no, you've taken time to do complete streets. And okay, you have a.

Bob Rivard [00:32:08]:
You have a great canvas to work with because so much of it was empty or was being transformed. But how important was that to you? To make it more of a what I would call a livable community where you don't have to be in your car to go to a restaurant or.

Leo Gomez [00:32:23]:
Very important. I mean, it's one of the great takeaways of visiting Miller and visiting the Woodlands and visiting with the folks that plan those communities. By the way, I would add Lowry in Denver to that, which was a former base that had the similar philosophy in their land planning. They're about 10 years ahead of us, and it's a wonderful redevelopment of an Air Force base up there in Colorado. But, you know, walking, pedestrian biking, you know, the ability to walk to what you need, whether it's a coffee shop, a grocery store, whatever it is that you might want, is the way to build a community. And that's what we've included it in our development standards. And so you can't develop sidewalks that meet this minimum criteria. Not at Brooks.

Leo Gomez [00:33:13]:
It has to be something that meets those standards of ours. And if you think about it, Brooks is well situated between the San Antonio river and Salado Creek. Salado Creek's on the other side of the highway, between the highway and what is now the Arboretum of San Antonio. Working with Bexar county, we connected our investment in green space and trails on Brooks over to the San Antonio River. Now, working with the mpo, we've secured a grant to literally build our trail system under the highway and across to the east over to connect with Salado Creek. And eventually we'll connect with the Arboretum of San Antonio.

Bob Rivard [00:33:53]:
Oh, I didn't know that. What's the timeline on that?

Leo Gomez [00:33:56]:
Well, I wish it was yesterday, but it's not. We got the award this last year. We've got design and engineering to take place, partnerships to iron out with TxDOT and the city and Sarah, and that will take a couple of years. Hopefully by 28, 29, we'll be breaking ground on that project. So it'll be a while before you can get on it, Bob. But imagine you can literally bike, run, walk from Downtown, all the way to Brooks. And in a few years, you'll be able to cross over Brooks and over to Salado Creek and to the arboretum of San Antonio.

Bob Rivard [00:34:34]:
Well, you said you wish it were yesterday because it's refreshing how driven you are even after a dozen years. Leo, and the job. We're running out of time here, but give us some breaking news. You mentioned maybe another South Korea company is in the works. What's next over the next three to five years at Brooks? Let's, let's posit it that way.

Leo Gomez [00:34:55]:
I think you're going to see a surge of opportunity throughout the south side for major employers in manufacturing in particular. We, Brooks are looking for the appropriate role to play along with the community in helping make sure that happens. So we have the authority to not only redevelop the property that used to be the base, but to do it with property that's around the base. So we're going to begin, we're going to take the initiative to work with community leaders to help define around the base and leverage what Brooks can bring to the table to help bring parcels around the south site up to standard, get them shoveled ready and have them ready for those major manufacturers that come knocking the door. Knocking on the door here in San Antonio.

Bob Rivard [00:35:40]:
I should have asked you at the outset how many acres the campus is. See, I said campus. And how much of that is still available for you to offer potential tenants for development.

Leo Gomez [00:35:53]:
The original Air Force base boundaries were 1,308 acres. We have just under 300 acres left. We've only got two parcels that are close to 50 acres of contiguous property. So we don't have a lot of big parcels anymore. The balance of that is going to be for infill development. We need to bring small business onto the Brooks campus and that's going to be the focus of that acreage, minus the two parcels where we hope to bring still some sizable employers. But now again, we're starting to look beyond our boundaries at 250 acres, three 500 acre parcels that we might have a hand in and working with the city and the county, greater satx, cps, saws and via to get shovel ready for the next employer that wants to call San Antonio home.

Bob Rivard [00:36:40]:
Well, Leo Gomez, you've had this amazing career in San Antonio since making the city home. But what you've done at Brooks is truly transformative and you ought to be proud of it. And we appreciate you coming on to big city, small town.

Leo Gomez [00:36:54]:
Well, thank you. And as you might imagine, I'm very proud of the board and board members that I've been able to work with, and I am incredibly proud of the staff and the team that has made up Brooks for the last 12 years. They not only love their job, they believe in our vision and our mission. And they do it every day. And I thank God for them.

Bob Rivard [00:37:18]:
Please share this episode with friends and colleagues and do sign up for our new newsletter. Monday Musings Big City, Small Town is brought to you by Western Urban Building, the city our children want to call home, and Geekdom, where startups are born and smart ideas become businesses. Our producer is Corey Ames. Video by Erica Rempel Sound engineering by Alfie de la Garza of Sound Crane Audio. We will see you next week.