Centro San Antonio helps accommodate downtown's growing residential population, enhance its office and retail market, and position downtown as a premier convention and visitor destination through the efforts of the Public Improvement District.
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Feb 8, 2010
Express-News: Downtown might come alive
For at least 30 years, San Antonio has been vexed by a frustrating
problem: The river that runs through the heart of the city has
flourished with development, much of it aimed at tourists, while
efforts to attract retail spaces, housing and offices to the street
level have largely failed.
Consequently, the core of the city is split. At the river level, we look like Venice. On parts of Houston Street, it feels like downtown Beirut.
Suddenly, the stars may have aligned to heal that split.
Last week, the City Council passed an ordinance to eliminate city fees for projects. It also offers 10-year tax abatements for projects in the inner city and creates a land bank to facilitate desperately needed downtown projects. Wouldn't a grocery store be nice downtown?
Meanwhile, County Judge Nelson Wolff and Mayor Julián Castro are both pushing for a streetcar system.
There also is a little-understood element in the works that got a one-line mention in Castro's State of the City speech. It's called the Centro Partnership, a nonprofit development corporation that, as City Manager Sheryl Scully explained, will serve as a single point of contact to initiate and manage the redevelopment of downtown.
Sculley, who lives downtown, said cities such as Memphis, Tenn., Philadelphia and Phoenix have created public-private entities to boost and manage economic development in their inner cities.
The plan is for Downtown Alliance — an organization with more than 300 property owners in the inner city — to morph into Centro Partnership. The mayor, county judge, other elected leaders and business owners would serve on the nonprofit board, which presumably would safeguard against cronyism.
“This new organization would bring together the city, the county and the private sector to do projects that really focus existing and new resources on the inner city,” said Ben Brewer, president of Downtown Alliance. “This is the game changer we've needed for downtown.”
A housing study funded by the Downtown Alliance identified a strong market, helping the developers obtain financing for two projects: The Vistana, which is west of downtown, and Vidora, to the east.
At Vistana, which is 90 percent leased, 60 percent of the residents are new to downtown. Many are from the North Side.
That's the kind of thing the new organization would do.
Sculley said the city might transfer the management of downtown parking to Centro Partnership. “We need to consider parking as an economic development tool,” she said. “How we deal with parking will determine what kind of development we can attract downtown.”
No doubt there will be opposition to turning over city-owned garages and other public spaces to a nonprofit corporation comprising public and private board members. But this kind of collaboration is the wave of the future. Cities that have done it have seen a reversal in urban decay.
We need to make the streets of San Antonio as alive and vibrant as life alongside the river that runs beneath us.
jrussell@express-news.net
Consequently, the core of the city is split. At the river level, we look like Venice. On parts of Houston Street, it feels like downtown Beirut.
Suddenly, the stars may have aligned to heal that split.
Last week, the City Council passed an ordinance to eliminate city fees for projects. It also offers 10-year tax abatements for projects in the inner city and creates a land bank to facilitate desperately needed downtown projects. Wouldn't a grocery store be nice downtown?
Meanwhile, County Judge Nelson Wolff and Mayor Julián Castro are both pushing for a streetcar system.
There also is a little-understood element in the works that got a one-line mention in Castro's State of the City speech. It's called the Centro Partnership, a nonprofit development corporation that, as City Manager Sheryl Scully explained, will serve as a single point of contact to initiate and manage the redevelopment of downtown.
Sculley, who lives downtown, said cities such as Memphis, Tenn., Philadelphia and Phoenix have created public-private entities to boost and manage economic development in their inner cities.
The plan is for Downtown Alliance — an organization with more than 300 property owners in the inner city — to morph into Centro Partnership. The mayor, county judge, other elected leaders and business owners would serve on the nonprofit board, which presumably would safeguard against cronyism.
“This new organization would bring together the city, the county and the private sector to do projects that really focus existing and new resources on the inner city,” said Ben Brewer, president of Downtown Alliance. “This is the game changer we've needed for downtown.”
A housing study funded by the Downtown Alliance identified a strong market, helping the developers obtain financing for two projects: The Vistana, which is west of downtown, and Vidora, to the east.
At Vistana, which is 90 percent leased, 60 percent of the residents are new to downtown. Many are from the North Side.
That's the kind of thing the new organization would do.
Sculley said the city might transfer the management of downtown parking to Centro Partnership. “We need to consider parking as an economic development tool,” she said. “How we deal with parking will determine what kind of development we can attract downtown.”
No doubt there will be opposition to turning over city-owned garages and other public spaces to a nonprofit corporation comprising public and private board members. But this kind of collaboration is the wave of the future. Cities that have done it have seen a reversal in urban decay.
We need to make the streets of San Antonio as alive and vibrant as life alongside the river that runs beneath us.
jrussell@express-news.net