‘Innovation center’ for tech companies
Building at old base in S.A. to include 24-hour e-gaming stadium; it also aims to connect people from different fields
SAN ANTONIO — A $60 million “innovation center” is being planned to help reinvent Port San Antonio as a magnet for up-andcoming cybersecurity and tech companies.
The port’s board of directors approved the funding last week for the 130,000-square-foot facility, which will include an aroundthe-clock e-gaming stadium and a 2,500-seat arena.
“It connects people with opportunities, whether it’s employment opportunities or entrepreneurial opportunities,” said Jim Perschbach, the port’s president and CEO. “And most important, it will showcase San Antonio for what it is — which is a leading place of really advanced technologies that are helping launch the world into the next century.”
The 1,900-acre Port San Antonio is home to more than 80 companies, nonprofits and military agencies with a combined workforce of 14,000. Governed by a City Council-appointed board, the port’s mission has been to redevelop the decommissioned Kelly Air Force Base.
Between World War II and the end of the Cold War, the airfield was an employment powerhouse credited with propelling thousands of families into San Antonio’s middle class. The base closed in 2001.
Aerospace and military contracts remain a major source of revenue for the port’s tenants, with more than 10,000 employees doing the work as of June.
The yet-to-be-named center is slated for completion in early 2022. The facility will house the San Antonio Museum of Science and Technology, exhibit space, classrooms, meeting rooms, a research and development lab, a commons area and a food hall.
Mayor Ron Nirenberg said in a statement that “the upcoming facility will strengthen our community’s ability to collaborate even further in our shared vision to continue raising San Antonio’s global profile as a home for tech innovation.”
The idea behind the innovation center, Perschbach said, is to get people to “stop thinking in the old ‘platform mindset’ and start thinking in the new ‘systems mindset’” — connecting people and cutting across disciplines.
“We have on this (Port San Antonio) campus people doing military cyber, civilian cyber, robotics, aviation, education, artificial intelligence, what have you,” Perschbach said. “And if you create a place that becomes a gathering point where these people start getting to know each other, you can start to develop solutions that can be that eureka moment.”
The facility also is intended to draw thousands of visitors for esports competitions, entertainment and cultural events, seminars and tech showcases. It will have “integrated virtual technology throughout the facility,” officials said, that will give it global reach through advanced teleconferencing systems and broadcasting capabilities.
Perschbach introduced the concept for the center at a San Antonio Chamber of Commerce event in 2018.
“This is a big win for the San Antonio business community and our community in general,” said Dave Petersen, the chamber’s executive vice president.. “The innovation center will be the hub of innovation, connecting people, industries and businesses and facilitating innovation that will allow our region to complete globally.”
To pay for the facility’s construction, port officials will take out a commercial loan, to be repaid with revenue from the center’s entertainment events, conferences and industry partnerships. Any profits, officials said, “will support technology-focused K-12, college-level and professional development programs.”
Port San Antonio worked with American Triple-I Partners, an infrastructure investment fund cofounded and chaired by former Mayor Henry Cisneros, for nearly two years — first on a feasibility analysis and then on a business plan and design for the center.
“We’re very excited about it,” Triple-I CEO and co-chief investment officer David Cibrian said. “We’re involved in projects nationwide, and we very much agree that this is the first (technology innovation center) of its kind.”
“We’ll be closing on the funding of this in mid- to late September,” he said.
San Antonio-based RVK Architects designed the center, and Sundt Construction will head up its construction.
ASM Global, a Los Angelesbased company that manages stadiums, convention centers and theaters, will operate the center when it opens.