San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Newlife for building clothed in history
There are hints of what the Basila Frocks building used to be. Whimsical lettering adorns the facade with the name of the eponymous garment manufacturer. At street level are the gold and azure remnants of a former restaurant, with signs still trying to entice diners with lunch specials and fresh tortillas.
The 20,000-square-foot, two-story structure at the corner of Martin and Zarzamora streets on the West Side once housed an assortment of businesses — a grocery store, a boxing gym, a ballroom, a live music venue — but has sat empty for years.
Some of the windows are broken. Boards have been put up along the ground floor, and a “No Trespassing” sign is tacked to the front. A company sought to raze the structure and construct a Dollar General store in 2016, but preservationists blocked the effort.
The building’s owner, the Westside Development Corp., sees potential to turn it into a business and community hub once again.
The organization bought the building in 2018 in partnership with Dan Markson, a senior vice president of development at NRP Group who was interested in redeveloping it as a private investor. Markson envisioned a mixed-use site with a variety of businesses. But he died in May 2019, weeks before construction
was set to begin, and the project stalled.
That’s still the plan for the building, and now its renovation is moving forward. The WDC — a nonprofit funded by the city, financial institutions, private organizations and donors — put out a request for information this summer, seeking partners to redevelop the property
The organization recently announced it is discussing partnering with the DreamOn Group, a San Antonio firm.
“The Basila Frocks building represents so much more than just a structure,” WDC chief executive Ramiro Gonzales said. “The story of the building and its original owners tell the story of the West Side — a story of entrepreneurship, resiliency and stubborn determination.
“This legacy deserves a careful and intentional approach toward finding the right partner
to fill Dan Markson’s shoes. We wanted a partner that could see beyond the building itself and see a tight-knit community that can be positively impacted by it,” he added. “We couldn’t be happier to start working with (DreamOn) to give Basila the attention and investment it deserves.”
Julissa Carielo and Rene Garcia co-founded DreamOn
Group, which includes construction, development and property management subsidiaries, in 2019. Both have backgrounds in construction and development.
Carielo started Tejas Premier Building Contractor Inc. and helped launch the West Side’s Maestro Entrepreneur Center. Garcia spent more than 35 years working for Zachry in construction and development, including overseeing large real estate projects.
The Basila Frocks renovation
is “exactly the type of project we want to be doing,” Garcia said.
Carielo saw a need for projects focused on helping entrepreneurs in the community, Garcia said. The partners also own a construction company, which made them more comfortable with taking on the project.
Along with retail and space for small businesses, room for community meetings and events is also part of the plan. DreamOn Group is interested in partnering with educational institutions, Garcia said.
“It’s not just a building that is going to be leasing space for rent,” he said. “What we envision is ... integrated with the surrounding community.”
The WDC’s board recently approved a memorandum of understanding with DreamOn Group to move forward with discussions and analysis of the project’s feasibility. The numbers and estimates from the previous effort with Markson are several years old, and the coronavirus pandemic is upending the real estate sector, Gonzales said.
“Those are new factors in that decision-making that didn’t exist when this first went to financing through lenders before, so there’s certainly some things that need to be navigated here and revisited,” he said.
The Basila Frocks building sits within a designated “opportunity zone,” which provides tax breaks on capital gains to investors who put their money in long-term investments in the zones. Tax credits are also a possibility, Gonzales said, and the city previously approved a forgivable loan of roughly $200,000.
After a 90-day period, the next step would be to sign a partnership agreement with DreamOn Group.
The Basila Frocks building was once home to Basila Frocks Co., a garment manufacturing business founded by Nicholas and Marie Basila, a Syrian couple who immigrated to the U.S. from Canada in the early 1900s.
They moved the company into the Zarzamora building in 1929, when it was among more than 30 garment manufacturing plants in the area. The Basilas continued making clothing through the mid-1950s.
The building was also home to an array of other businesses. In the 1960s, Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 9186 hosted wrestling matches in the building and singers performed at Club Don Quixote. La Gloria Restaurant operated there from 1998 to 2011.