As native officers rally for a brand new downtown enviornment for the San Antonio Spurs and a revamped leisure district they are saying will enhance the native economic system, a long-forgotten plan that made the identical guarantees on the town’s East Aspect greater than 20 years in the past gathers mud.
A finalized 2003 group plan surrounding the brand-new, 18,418-seat SBC Heart, later the AT&T Heart and now the Frost Financial institution Heart, drew up a imaginative and prescient for $250 million in initiatives throughout 7.9 sq. miles of the town’s East Aspect. The plan would relocate the Spurs from downtown to East Houston Road, construct out an enviornment district, full with linked parks and a brand new city middle that might have included mixed-use growth.
Regardless of being dreamed up by the Metropolis of San Antonio, Bexar County, the Spurs and a gaggle of group companions, it by no means got here to fruition.
In current months, extra particulars have emerged about “Mission Marvel,” an bold imaginative and prescient for a sports activities and leisure district in downtown San Antonio. The town-shaping challenge has turn out to be a key concern within the 2025 San Antonio mayor’s race, and group response to date has been combined.
Earlier this month, the town, county and NBA crew signed an preliminary settlement to work collectively to make a brand new sports activities and leisure district occur, they usually plan to rent an govt program supervisor to supervise its coordination.
Nonetheless, Eastside residents who bear in mind guarantees made through the 1999 marketing campaign for a brand new tax to fund the development of the now-called Frost Financial institution Heart see their window of alternative for an financial renaissance closing.
“We have been instructed there might be jobs for the communities, resorts, eating places, shops — empty guarantees,” stated Darīus Lemelle, a frontrunner with St. Paul United Methodist Church-COPS/Metro throughout a group stakeholders assembly in January. “That we see leaders proceed to permit these builders to take our tax {dollars} for personal funding, I say: ‘No extra.’”
That assembly drew 200 attendees, who spent three hours discussing what would occur to the Frost Financial institution Heart and Freeman Coliseum — to not point out the neighborhoods round them — if the Spurs depart.
However many of the dialog seemed again, not ahead.
“[At the time], we have been excited to know that right here comes a brand new alternative for growth and the Spurs discovering a brand new residence,” stated Rev. James Amerson, a pastor on the St. Paul Sq. church that was based in 1866, seeing the town via years of racially biased housing practices referred to as redlining and the expansion of a Black group on the East Aspect.
“So there have been plenty of conversations about, ‘Wow, that is going to be nice for the East Aspect,’” Amerson stated, including that the relocation introduced hope to the traditionally underserved group.
When requested to mirror on the Spurs’ departure from the Alamodome, a couple of half-dozen metropolis and county leaders couldn’t recall particular guarantees that have been made, however all agreed it was broadly believed that vital growth would observe the sector’s transfer east.
No contractual guarantees of East Aspect funding are clear within the authentic paperwork signed by the county, Spurs and San Antonio Rodeo surrounding the transfer.
Nonetheless, the town, county and Spurs labored with a nonprofit financial growth group referred to as the Neighborhood Financial Revitalization Company (CERA) to fund and create the 156-page Enviornment District Neighborhood Improvement Plan — which later grew to become referred to as the Enviornment District/Eastside Neighborhood Plan.
Few of its suggestions ever grew to become a actuality, and it seems it has progressively been forgotten over time.
A heated historical past
When discussions began in 1999 about the place to construct a brand new enviornment, a sizzling contest broke out between the town and county to see who might woo the Spurs into supporting their most well-liked location and methods of paying for it.
Whereas the town, beneath the late Mayor Howard Peak, needed to construct the brand new enviornment downtown subsequent to the Alamodome using a gross sales tax initiative, then-Bexar County Choose Cyndi Krier needed to put the sector subsequent to the Freeman Coliseum on the East Aspect utilizing funds from customer taxes, growing the county’s lodge occupancy tax and motorized vehicle tax, which applies to rental automobiles.
Krier didn’t reply to a number of requests for an interview for this story.
Her successor, Choose Nelson Wolff, wrote in a memoir titled “Reworking San Antonio” that Krier recalled one of many commitments she made when she first ran for county decide in 1992 was to enhance the services for the rodeo, and he or she noticed the brand new enviornment as an opportunity to make good on that promise.
Peak, alternatively, instructed Wolff he was pulling for a location subsequent to the Alamodome to assist make sure the then-still-new stadium didn’t go to waste. Peak repeatedly turned down provides for the town and county to work along with the Spurs, Wolff wrote.
“Peak was not within the temper for compromise,” Wolff wrote. “[He felt] the town and county ought to proceed to work on their very own plans … and as soon as the Spurs determined which plan to simply accept, the town and county ought to work collectively in unison to see how each can assist the opposite.”
Finally, the county beat out the town by promising the Spurs operational management of the brand new enviornment, Wolff stated within the memoir.
With the help of the Spurs and the San Antonio Rodeo, Bexar County was capable of persuade voters to approve the customer tax will increase. The brand new enviornment was constructed beneath a public-private partnership, using $175 million raised by the county via these taxes.
They did the convincing with an election-year marketing campaign in 1999 — within the months after the crew was using excessive from its first nationwide championship — dubbed “the Saddle and Spurs marketing campaign.”
David Robinson and Tim Duncan led the Spurs to victory in June, and voters gave their approval to the sector funding in November.
“Of 599 voting precincts, solely 45 went in opposition to the sector,” Wolff wrote in his memoir.
Following their transfer to the East Aspect, the crew noticed unimaginable success beneath Coach Gregg Popovich and the crew’s “Large Three,” Duncan, Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker, who helped the franchise wrangle a further 4 championships in 2003, 2005, 2007 and 2014.
However whereas the crew drew 1000’s of followers to the East Aspect — averaging about 18,000 in residence recreation attendance in good years — the bulk acquired proper again on the freeway after the ultimate buzzer.
“What we see in the present day is, visitors comes into the Frost Financial institution Heart with tons of individuals getting off of I-35 or I-10, after which they’re funneled proper again out,” Amerson stated. “So there’s been no financial growth, and definitely between downtown and the middle there hasn’t been any enchancment in residential infrastructure.”
The forgotten plan
The San Antonio Report reviewed copies of the contracts written up between the county, Spurs, Rodeo and the Coliseum Advisory Board for the development and operation of a brand new enviornment.
No point out of {dollars} particularly going into the East Aspect is made within the authorized paperwork, although the paperwork do contractually maintain the Spurs to paying the county again over 25 years, and to additionally giving the county 20% of its earnings per fiscal 12 months over 20 years.
Some residents say they imagine these {dollars} have been meant to be reinvested into the East Aspect, although the paperwork don’t specify how the county would use them.
In a telephone interview earlier this month, Wolff stated the Spurs have by no means given Bexar County any of their earnings for the reason that contract was drawn up and signed. Spurs Sports activities and Leisure didn’t reply to a request for remark.
“You know the way a lot the county has acquired? Zero,” he stated. “So both it (the Frost Financial institution Heart) doesn’t earn cash, or one thing’s mistaken.”
Throughout negotiations to finalize the contracts in 2000, then-County Commissioner Tommy Adkisson (Pct. 4) proposed that the Commissioners Courtroom collaborate with the town and different entities to safe funding for an Eastside neighborhood plan, which would come with the redevelopment of the Freeman Coliseum.
Two years later, county commissioners licensed spending $50,000, with the identical quantity contributed by the Metropolis of San Antonio, the San Antonio Spurs and CERA to create the plan by “searching for skilled steerage and concepts to additional promote the constructive growth of the Freeman Coliseum, coliseum grounds and the Eastside communities.”
In whole, $200,000 was spent to create the Enviornment District Neighborhood Improvement Plan.
It took a couple of 12 months to develop and finalize, and included enter from 15 Eastside neighborhoods and group teams, 16 “group stakeholders,” and an 18-member steering committee that included representatives from the county, metropolis, Spurs, and native neighborhood associations.
Representatives on the plan’s steering committee included Adkisson; former Councilman John H. Sanders (D2); Raul Ramos of the Coliseum Advisory Board; Leo Gomez, who labored for the Spurs on the time, and 6 neighborhood affiliation leaders.
From there, the entities subcontracted with the Economics Analysis Associates, SWA Group and Laura Thompson Associates to writer the report.
They held three group conferences on the East Aspect with 218 whole attendees, representing 654 hours of citizen participation, in line with the finalized plan. It was printed for the general public in December 2003 and was adopted as a part of the Metropolis’s Complete Grasp Plan.
The plan included 4 components: an actual property market analysis; recommendations for land use and group services; transportation and infrastructure; and proposals for plan implementation.
Beneath actual property, the plan set targets for building of between 25 and 50 new properties annually for 10 to fifteen years, 600,000 sq. ft of latest industrial house by 2018, and 200,000 sq. ft of latest retail house by 2018.
It additionally referred to as for added inexperienced house, extra sidewalks, extra shaded bus stops and resurfaced streets.
Most notably, the plan referred to as for the creation of a brand new city middle — a central, business space of a city, serving as a hub for the group. This city middle was alleged to create a brand new mixed-use house that included retail makes use of similar to a grocery retailer and retailers, but in addition extra community-oriented services similar to a financial institution, medical facility, and/or library.
“All these makes use of can co-exist in a well-planned growth that could be a mixture of two to three-story buildings interspersed with open areas and plazas and accessed by pedestrian-friendly streets,” the finalized plan reads.
It compares city facilities similar to Southlake City Sq. and Highland Park Village within the Dallas-Fort Price space for inspiration.
Nonetheless, its implementation stalled.
The plan referred to as for the creation of a centralized growth “authority” to “pull collectively the monetary sources to quickly generate the extent of funding that might be required to maneuver this system ahead.”
Whereas CERA had largely taken the lead in pursuing Eastside revitalization efforts as much as that time, the group’s nonprofit standing positioned a “clear constraint on its monetary capacities,” the report stated.
Even the report’s authors acknowledged that prioritizing these suggestions could be a problem.
“The Metropolis of San Antonio and Bexar County have quite a few financial growth initiatives which can be ongoing, and should have issue (in and of themselves) in prioritizing the Eastside as compared with different initiatives, similar to the brand new Toyota plant now deliberate for the south facet of Bexar County,” the plan states.
Nonetheless, its authors argued that the Spurs’ transfer east gave the plan a uncommon likelihood to succeed.
“Given the extent of reinvestment that the Eastside requires … income alternatives created by an Enviornment District authority have to be critically evaluated,” it states. “That is a right away precedence; [Economics Research Associates] expects Bexar County officers and the Spurs to take the lead in pursuing this ingredient. ERA understands that all the above ‘entity’ choices have challenges.
“At minimal, the county and Spurs ought to critically contemplate pursuit of further taxes on enviornment / coliseum parking and / or occasion attendees, and goal this revenue fully to Eastside revitalization,” the report stated.
It’s unclear if a central Enviornment District authority was ever formally shaped. In 2008, CERA was renamed and re-aligned to turn out to be the San Antonio for Development on the Eastside (SAGE), which nonetheless works to advertise financial growth in underserved areas.
Even with the creation of a federal “Promise Zone” in 2014 that got here with $366 million in federal grants and different investments, in line with SAGE, lots of the targets within the Enviornment District/Eastside Neighborhood Plan stay unfulfilled in the present day.
The Promise Zone designation expired in 2024.
Tips on how to win over voters
Of the previous metropolis and county officers the San Antonio Report spoke to for this text, none of them recalled any form of particular guarantees made to the East Aspect or its residents.
Wolff stated it’s possible that there have been guarantees made to the residents to achieve help behind the tax marketing campaign, though he added he was on the periphery of the preliminary push as a result of he was not but county decide on the time.
One other such marketing campaign will possible need to be run to achieve voter help for Mission Marvel.
Ed Garza, who grew to become mayor after Peak, stated he couldn’t consider something particularly promised to the residents.
“I don’t suppose there was something particular by way of — I can’t recall the county promising something at any public conferences … different than simply the oblique profit of getting a stadium within the space,” Garza stated.
Garza added that these lingering emotions of the East Aspect being ignored in enviornment plans possible return to the Alamodome days within the early-Nineteen Nineties. Some Eastside group members have outright fought in opposition to growth there, he famous, because of worries it could value longtime residents out of their properties.
“You would argue over time there was some growth, and it has spilled into the East Aspect — however then once more, some would say, ‘Nicely, that’s gentrification,’ after which you might have that complete argument of if these initiatives convey gentrification,” Garza stated.
New makes use of proposed in current weeks by County Commissioner Tommy Calvert (Pct. 4), who was initially shut out of Mission Marvel discussions, embody a brand new golf course, a year-round rodeo or a multi-use growth that features a new lodge, eating places and places of work.
Former Housing and City Improvement Secretary and longtime San Antonio politician Henry Cisneros, who championed the development of the Alamodome, stated he additionally doesn’t recall any particular guarantees, however added that trying ahead, the Frost Financial institution Heart might nonetheless doubtlessly contribute to the East Aspect.
“I believe it’s nonetheless attainable to do one thing substantial for the East Aspect. Even when the Spurs should not within the Frost Financial institution Heart, different makes use of for the sector might nonetheless show affluent,” he stated this month.
“If I have been an Eastside activist, I wouldn’t quit,” he stated. “I’d preserve preventing for a mixture of makes use of.”
Reporter Shari Biediger contributed to this report.
