Today I happened to notice on Ben Olivo’s Downtown Blog an entry with a video of the construction of The Vistana, a time lapse series of photos taken by the webcam perched on the roof of the Christus Santa Rosa Hospital. It’s a great view of how this building that has been lauded as a new start of urban core development came to be, sitting on a half block of property across from Milam Park. At this point the building is at about 96% occupancy and is growing into its own community of urban dwellers, a collection of doctors, lawyers, government employees, military personnel, downtown business owners, and just plain old folks looking to take advantage of living in the urban core. But it’s also a vision of what could be downtown.
Downtown living is something I decided to try out after seeing some of the movements downtown by some developers who are trying to rebuild the urban core. San Antonio’s downtown urban core is probably the last downtown of major Texas cities to embark on this revitalization. It’s already taken part in Dallas, Houston, and now Austin is beginning to experience a downtown growth.
What has been a challenge with San Antonio’s downtown growth has been the difference in demographics of our downtown to other major Texas cities. San Antonio’s downtown is more about tourism than it is business. With the Alamo and the Riverwalk as cornerstones of the eastern section of downtown, it has quite a few hotels and businesses located in the area I tend to call “tourist downtown” catering to a thriving tourism and convention business. That economic environment has been a challenge to developers who are faced with either building to the economy of downtown or building for residents. The former usually wins.
Hopefully that environment is beginning to change with some help from city council. Recently council passed a new Inner City Reinvestment/Infill Policy that “will waive development fees and create abatements and incentives for projects in the city center and nearby areas,” as reported in an editorial by the Express-News. It’s an effort to help provide developers with some economic incentive when evaluating whether to build another hotel or take the risk of building a residential structure which often takes longer to recover costs.
Downtown San Antonio presents another challenge to developers when considering development. With a downtown that is rich in historical value developers often must go before a gauntlet of boards and commissions when erecting a structure in the urban core, one being the Historic and Design Review Commission when a property falls within their scope of oversight. The commission is critical to help maintain the historic heritage of San Antonio but it’s critical that the commission balance growth with historic preservation. The two can go together provided parties representing both goals understand that compromise is sometimes key.
Recently the Express-News reported on the possible demise of the River North Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone No. 27. The zone was created to help fund infrastructure development in River North, a new area of the urban core slated for revitalization. The area is being rezoned to follow a form based codes approach, which provides more flexibility for developers when building within the zone. It’s also designed to reflect and take advantage of the recently completed Museum Reach of the San Antonio River, now one year old.
However, after four years of existence the TIRZ has not had any success in helping with revitalization and city officials are contemplating alternative approaches to help move the area forward. One example is the recent changes that were made to accommodate developer Ed Cross who is trying to revive development in the structure located at 1221 Broadway.
The challenge with the 1221 situation is that for Cross to get HUD funding he has to show progress towards upgrading the infrastructure surrounding the building. After 10 years of neglect HUD wants to make sure Cross is not putting a gem in the middle of a quagmire of inadequate streets and drainage. That should have been the job of the TIRZ but apparently the TIRZ board failed to act on the matter and left Cross seeking alternative options, ultimately leading to the city funding the upgrades with payback from Cross in the form of property taxes over ten years and exempting 1221 from the TIRZ.
Now people are looking back at the situation and wondering if this was the right move since it removed an early funding source from the TIRZ. Hopefully it will help create the catalyst for future projects in River North to help fund the TIRZ if it survives. Personally I agree with the decision by the city as a means to get something going in River North. But, once again, it demonstrates the frustrations developers have with trying to develop downtown in areas where infrastructure needs upgrading.
Hopefully the 1221 situation will help surface more of these problems and force people to evaluate the approaches to see if they are effective. Maybe it will require some big picture planning to help pull parties together to work towards a common goal for San Antonio. Mayor Castro is preparing a new initiative called San Antonio 2020 which will help build a master plan for the city. That may be where the issues of downtown development get worked. More to com on that in another entry.