Whereas present metropolis leaders look like all-in for a downtown redevelopment venture that features constructing a brand new Spurs area and conference heart resort, Bexar County Decide Peter Sakai stated Wednesday he desires to place county services first.
However he gained’t do it at the price of shedding the Spurs.
At an occasion hosted by the Metro San Antonio Chamber, the official now within the third yr of his first time period as county choose, answered a set of wide-ranging questions on the “state of the county,” together with financial improvement efforts, a management fashion primarily based on accountability and his cost to staffers to enhance customer support.
The proposed sports activities and leisure district broadly generally known as “Undertaking Marvel,” and what it might imply for the county-owned Frost Financial institution Heart, is the place Sakai centered a lot of the dialogue with Metro Chamber President and CEO Brett Finley.
Sakai stated his first precedence is enhancing and sustaining county services, he stated, together with the Spurs’ present dwelling, the Freeman Coliseum and coliseum grounds.
These venues want main upgrades until they’re to “sit there and decay” like Houston’s Astrodome, he stated.
Sakai stated he additionally desires to satisfy a dedication made to the East Facet when the sector was in-built 2002.
How these priorities will line up with a memorandum of understanding between the town and county will probably be as much as voters.
“As soon as the Spurs go away [the Frost Bank Center], we’ll have two arenas that can maybe be competing so we’ve obtained to have a marketing strategy so as to make it possible for these county services are upgraded,” he stated. “I need to be sure the group understands I’m defending the group first, and if I can, I’m going to do every little thing I can to maintain the Spurs on the town.”
In the meantime, he stated San Antonio Inventory Present and Rodeo leaders are growing a marketing strategy to make the most of county services year-round, and can quickly convey that plan and the group’s must the county.
Sakai desires to see the close by Willow Springs Golf Course additionally included in a redevelopment package deal, presumably by way of a public-private partnership. “That might be actually a recreation changer,” he stated.
However arising with the funds by way of a county venue tax for enhancements to county services — and having sufficient left over to assist construct a $1 billion Spurs area — goes to be as much as voters.
Spurs’ homeowners have been working with metropolis officers on an bold sports activities district plan for greater than a yr — and even pushed the county to ask voters for cash to fund the sector within the Could municipal election — with out disclosing the projected value and income sources.
In February, commissioners voted 4-1 to present Sakai permission to start out negotiating a possible deal for the Spurs area.
Lacking a statutory deadline for the Could elections, the county is now focusing on November. If the venue tax passes, it might present as much as $400 million for upgrades, in line with county estimates.
Commissioners will take up the matter within the coming weeks and Sakai stated he hopes the commissioners will vote unanimously to approve a measure that can in the end contribute to the town’s sports activities district plan. “I can not envision San Antonio with out the Spurs,” he stated.
He is aware of county residents are skeptical, nevertheless, as a result of onerous value figures and different numbers have but to be made public. Sakai promised that info is coming quickly.
“What I’m wanting the general public to know … is that what we’re attempting to do, we obtained to determine the right way to make this a win-win, and that’s one thing elementary about for me that comes from my courtroom expertise,” he stated.
