In 2019, a San Antonio restaurateur had massive plans for one of many metropolis’s oldest buildings, a vacant three-story construction going through San Fernando Cathedral that she acquired 4 years earlier than.
Lisa Wong’s imaginative and prescient included a retail area on the road degree and fashionable flats with a terrace overlooking Predominant Plaza.
In late 2024, she put it again in the marketplace.
The 7,500-square-foot constructing at 114 E. Predominant Plaza is on the market, listed by Kuper Sotheby’s world actual property advisors Alan Valadez and Binkan Cinaroglu.
Valadez wouldn’t disclose the itemizing value. The property is assessed at $1.3 million, in accordance with county tax data.
He’s heard from loads of potential patrons, he mentioned, with their curiosity piqued not simply by the situation within the coronary heart of downtown and on the River Stroll, but in addition by its deep historical past.
Initially in-built 1742 on Plaza de las Islas Canarias, now referred to as Predominant Plaza, the construction was known as Casa Reales and served because the seat of presidency. It housed the courthouse, jail and municipal places of work within the 1800s. The constructing was rebuilt in 1876-77.
That makes it one of many metropolis’s most traditionally important properties, states the itemizing.
From 1953 to 2009, it housed the Pauline Books & Media Heart operated by the Daughters of St. Paul, nicknamed “The Media Nuns,” earlier than Wong bought the constructing in 2013.
The constructing has a basement, most important ground and terrace degree, and is zoned for business and residential use within the River Enchancment Overlay 3, which regulates improvement to guard the San Antonio River.
Additionally it is situated in a historic district and listed as a person historic landmark.
Valadez mentioned Wong purchased the constructing in anticipation of Predominant Plaza present process renovations in 2019, a challenge postponed because of the COVID pandemic. She had deliberate a $4 million restoration of the constructing.
In 2020, Wong secured $1.1 million from the Houston Avenue Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone (TIRZ) for the challenge and $1.5 million in historic tax credit. The event settlement states that TIRZ funding will be transferred to a brand new proprietor provided that authorized by the TIRZ Board and Metropolis Council.
Despite the fact that the plaza redevelopment challenge is now about to get underway, Wong, who owns Rosario’s and is a companion in one other restaurant and the River Stroll barge enterprise, not has the time to redevelop the Predominant Plaza constructing, he mentioned.
Predominant Plaza Conservancy, a nonprofit that companions with the Metropolis of San Antonio as caretakers of the plaza, are planning to enhance the plaza’s accessibility and produce consideration to its necessary historical past.
Conservancy leaders have mentioned they need the plaza to be a extra accessible and cozy place for residents and guests, in addition to the rising variety of college students and school from UTSA’s downtown services.
The final main improve to the plaza was in 2008, a $12 million effort that realigned the streets across the plaza.
Lately, there’s been renewed curiosity within the plaza that has led to new residential and hospitality initiatives, together with the towering Floodgate condo constructing, the AC Lodge San Antonio Riverwalk and a brand new Marriott resort underneath development on the nook of Predominant Avenue and East Commerce Avenue.
