As soon as a bustling navy base in San Antonio, Brooks has reworked below the management of Leo Gomez right into a group the place residents can work, dwell and store with out having to depart the South Facet.
Gomez, the CEO at Brooks, drew inspiration for the previous base’s redevelopment from suburban developments like The Woodlands — an environmentally aware neighborhood — in Houston and Mueller — a combined earnings and combined use group — in Austin, going so far as utilizing the identical planning agency.
“We engaged them. We engaged them and we obtained them to consider that what they did in Austin and what they did on the Woodlands simply may be attainable over the subsequent 30 to 50 years on the South Facet of San Antonio,” Gomez mentioned.
On this week’s episode of “bigcitysmalltown,” host Bob Rivard interviews Gomez, whose enterprise management in San Antonio consists of roles with totally different chambers of commerce, Toyota and the San Antonio Spurs, on his imaginative and prescient for the Brooks group.
Slightly than lean into Brooks’ historical past as a science and analysis base when he obtained the CEO gig 12 years in the past, Gomez mentioned he opted into community-based growth for part of city that the had metropolis traditionally uncared for when it got here to infrastructure and bond initiatives.
By initially leveraging capital investments, and later being a part of a metropolis bond bundle, Brooks attracted dozens of big-name retailers and grocery shops, over 30 eating places, the Mission Trails Baptist Hospital, inexperienced areas and diverse housing choices.
The world can also be largely walkable, as a result of development of 10-foot-wide “meandering” sidewalks all through the Brooks campus.
Gomez additionally prioritized creating jobs whereas appearing environmentally aware in his redevelopment plan for Brooks.
Six overseas corporations have manufacturing corporations positioned within the space, and Gomez expects the variety of jobs to go from 3,000 to five,000. Whereas on the helm, the variety of timber within the space has additionally elevated, going from 1,000 to greater than 3,500 below Gomez’ management.
Brooks additionally invested within the growth of an arboretum on the Southeast Facet of San Antonio that’s anticipated to be partly open to the general public by 2028 and partnered with SAMMinistries to construct about 100 inexpensive housing models 1 / 4 mile north of its campus, at present below development.
“Our emphasis is to ensure that the individuals who get jobs at Brooks and round Brooks can afford a house at Brooks,” Gomez mentioned. “I’m delighted with the apparent incontrovertible fact that increasingly persons are not solely working at Brooks, however dwelling at and round Brooks versus these early days when individuals drove down, obtained off the freeway onto the [military] base, and on the finish of the day, drove off and took their paychecks with them.”
