Monday Musings #36: This is No Time to Quit San Antonio's Downtown Transformation

San Antonio and Bexar County voters: This is no time to stop. Don’t do all the hard work to run a marathon and drop out halfway after hearing lies about how hard it will be to finish. Let’s push through to the finish line and celebration.

I am talking, of course, not about the city’s annual marathon. I’m talking about the remarkable transformation of downtown San Antonio. “Finishing” means keeping at it for at least 35 years from the start to completion. We are 25 years into that timeline now. This is no time to stop or even slow down.

When you go to the polls on Oct. 20-31, or on Election Day, Nov. 4, your “Yes” vote on propositions A & B is a consequential vote. It is a vote for a major Bexar County investment in the Eastside and the San Antonio Stock Show & Rodeo. It’s a critical vote for enlivening Hemisfair’s mostly inactive southern flank with a new Spurs arena and entertainment zone, and guaranteeing that the five-time world champion Spurs remain one of San Antonio’s most important unifying forces.

It’s also a vote for all we have accomplished in recent decades and are poised to accomplish in the future.

Let’s remind ourselves of what we are really voting for in the coming weeks. San Antonio’s transformation touches all four of the compass points of the urban core. It starts at the Pearl and River North and courses south along the river to downtown. It takes us in multiple directions from there.

One line takes us along the San Antonio River, through downtown and into Southtown, the city’s most walkable district.

Another takes us past the $500 million Alamo and Alamo Plaza project, and into Hemisfair, where a new Spurs arena and entertainment zone will join Yanaguana Park, Civic Park, the ‘68 residential tower, and the new Monarch Hotel – not to mention all the retail that has sprouted there. Don’t forget the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center, which underwent a $325 million expansion in the 2017 bond.

Hemisfair remains a partially painted canvas. The park’s full potential will only be realized when its perimeter along Cesar Chavez Boulevard to the south and Market Street to the north is fully redeveloped. Only then will Hemisfair connect seamlessly with Southtown and the Alamo Plaza. Right now, vacancy to the north and a wall created by the partially disassembled Institute of Texan Cultures and the nearly vacant federal buildings to the south inhibit Hemisfair’s full potential.

A proposed land bridge spanning Interstate-37 will create a new gateway to the near-Eastside and Alamodome, as well as the Dignowity Hill and Denver Heights neighborhoods.

Yet another path takes us to the western edge of downtown and the start of the $300 million San Pedro Creek Culture Park, with its miles of beckoning footpaths, flowing waters and a parade of public art. The view south is dominated by the gleaming Frost Tower and the 300 Main residential tower, downtown’s most distinctive high-rises in a city that went four decades without a new downtown office or residential tower. At least 1,000 new residential units in what some are calling West Downtown are taking the place of surface parking lots, urban blight, and neglected historic buildings.

A new ballpark for the San Antonio Missions and new mixed-use development surrounding it promise to return one of the city’s most historic districts to a livable, thriving downtown neighborhood.

UT-San Antonio’s Southwest School of Art on the river is only blocks away. Farther south, San Pedro I and San Pedro II house the university’s data science, cybersecurity, AI, and other tech-driven degree programs. 

A colleague recently became the first person I know to move into the former Continental Hotel. The historic building now sports its own residential tower while West Commerce Street leads to the heart of the Zona Cultural, gateway to the Westside.

Much of this is visible from my office windows in the historic Rand building. I enjoy wandering the streets at lunchtime and taking a sandwich to Legacy Park. My window neighbors are city workers in the revitalized City Tower.   

None of this progress would have been possible without the public-private partnership shaped by Weston Urban with the City of San Antonio and Frost Bank more than a decade ago. It has taken vision, creativity, commitment to a multiyear plan of quality design and construction, and a people-first approach to street-level development.

Nothing has stopped it, though the pandemic slowed things.

A public-private partnership is exactly what is being proposed now for Hemisfair. It includes a $2.1 billion investment by the Spurs, a major financial commitment from City Council and Bexar County. A Yes vote sets everything in motion.

Not one penny of these new developments comes out of your pockets. Visitor/tourist taxes and state tax policies intended to specifically spark investments that attract visitors make all of the above possible. Local property and sales taxes remain unchanged. No funds come out of the city or county operating budgets. Hundreds of new construction jobs will be created, with more employment opportunities to follow once everything is built.

Do you want an effective anti-poverty program in San Antonio? Then vote for continuing economic development downtown, which will create higher-wage jobs in the short and long run. It will expand downtown urban core housing and make the city a more attractive place to live and work for young professionals and others moving to Texas.

Ask yourself: Why would we invest so deeply for so many years in all of these downtown improvements, only to stop when we are on the cusp of a major leap forward?

I date the beginning of the transformation of San Antonio’s downtown to the last year or two of Mayor Phil Hardberger’s second and last term in office, when he proposed redevelopment of the long-neglected Hemisfair Park. Hardberger lacked the time in office to undertake a redevelopment project that would require decades.

Mayor Julian Castro took up the banner with his SA2020 initiative, which ushered in a decade of significant progress. Yes, the pandemic slowed us, but Mayor Ron Nirenberg and Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff showed real leadership in guiding the city through that two-year period. Downtown has some catching up to do, but the trends are all good.

Mayor Gina Jones should build on the momentum created by her predecessors. She should join the many civic and business leaders calling for the Yes vote.

Much is at stake with this vote, as I wrote last week. My message today is different: a huge opportunity is on the ballot. Let’s seize that opportunity, just as we have been doing for years now with so much success.

See you at the early voting polls next week.

Author's Note:

Monika has made it an especially productive year, publishing not one, but two books this past year, including The Monarch Butterfly Migration, Its Rise and Fall (University of Oklahoma Press), a natural history of the monarch migration, and Plants with Purpose: 25 Ecosystem Multitaskers (Texas A&M University Press), her guide to choosing plants for your landscapes that do more than just look good. I’m doing my best to keep up with Monika. This month, Texas A&M University Press published  Megaregion: Opportunity and Challenge in the Lone Star State, which I wrote with lead author Henry Cisneros and fellow San Antonio Express-News journalist David Hendricks. Hope you’ll join us Thursday, 5 p.m., Oct. 23 at the Central Library for the official book launch. The book will be available for purchase there, and is now available at the Twig Bookshop at the Pearl and Nowhere Books in Alamo Heights.