The person who introduced downtown San Antonio’s SoFlo District to life died late final month on the age of 80.
Charlie Acuña performed a central position within the improvement that cascades down Flores Road and into the Southtown space over the previous 30 years, turning dilapidated buildings into the combination of housing and industrial property that exists at this time.
His household stated he had a present for seeing potential.
“The place others noticed run-down warehouses, my dad noticed alternatives,” stated Christa Acuña, his daughter.
Together with Nora Acuña, his spouse and enterprise associate, the pair labored to construct the Cevallos Lofts, now known as Trove Southtown, in addition to places of work and lofts within the space.
“At first levels of the revitalization of the SoFlo space, folks would nonetheless flip their noses up on the considered dwelling in that space,” Christa Acuña stated. “Their angle didn’t diminish my dad’s imaginative and prescient, although. It solely fueled it.”
State Sen. José Menéndez (D-26), who was serving on San Antonio Metropolis Council on the time, stated he was one of many first folks to see the chances within the space.
“It was a catalyst for extra funding locally,” Menéndez stated. “He was a developer, certain, however he was a developer with a imaginative and prescient and a coronary heart for serving to revitalize the group.”
Charlie Acuña was born in a Mexican American household in El Paso in 1944, in the course of the segregation period.
He and his household confronted discrimination and he struggled at school, however his daughter says he didn’t let these challenges maintain him again. He labored in clothes manufacturing for firms like Levi Strauss and Farah Manufacturing.
He then went on to open his personal manufacturing plant in El Paso doing work for Farah, Calvin Klein and different clothes manufacturers. That’s the place Charlie and Nora first met.
The couple moved to San Antonio to develop their enterprise within the Nineteen Eighties. Charlie Acuña liked town, his spouse stated. And he was “gifted with the whole lot manufacturing.”
However when the North American Free Commerce Settlement (NAFTA) went into impact in 1994, it pressured the Acuñas to shut their manufacturing enterprise. That’s after they pivoted, Nora stated, discovering a brand new future for the warehouses they owned.
“This led him to mobilize his inventive thoughts and repurpose the properties,” she stated. “He coined the title SoFlo District, as we owned a number of properties on South Flores, and started the brand new stage of our enterprise. He created stunning areas.”
Menéndez stated Charlie Acuña introduced a private contact to improvement, tackling design himself to create livable areas that folks hadn’t considered.
“He may take an outdated constructing that had been discarded,” Menéndez stated. “And rehab it so folks would wish to be there.”
That signaled to different traders that South Flores was a spot to be.
It wasn’t simply what he did, although, however how he did it. Debra Guerrero is one other former Metropolis Council member, who now works within the housing improvement sector. She labored with Charlie Acuña for 20 years.
“He was at all times targeted on, how do I make the communities which have seen much less funding higher?” Guerrero stated “How do I reinvest in these communities that, actually, the personal market appears to disregard?”
He created group areas, she stated, and introduced group members and neighbors out to openings. His developments included inexpensive housing, she stated, creating mixed-income residence and loft complexes.
“San Antonio mattered to my dad as a result of it was dwelling. It was the place his household lived, and it was our group,” stated Christa Acuña. “He needed San Antonio to flourish—not just for us, however for individuals who won’t have been given an opportunity in any other case.”
