San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
An admiral in his own right
Robinson Jr.’s mission to build on city’s diversity aims to steer young people to success here
In fall of 2019, David Robinson Jr. and his father, NBA Hall of Famer David Robinson Sr., paired up for a series of podcasts called “The Fundamentals.”
Their conversations showcase both men’s wide-ranging intellectual interests as they discuss faith, integrity, American history, slavery, sports, family, San Antonio, George Washington Carver, education, racism, redlining, their work transforming neglected neighborhoods through impact investing, and the Idea Carver Academy, which David Sr. and wife Valerie built on San Antonio’s East Side.
During a discussion on faith and investing, David Sr. asks his son, “Are you OK with doing this work and, maybe, your children or your grandchildren will reap the rewards but you, in your lifetime, you will not, at the end of the day, achieve that social status that everyone today seems to desire?”
David Jr. answers, “That’s probably not a fair question because you could also say, for me … well, who cares? He doesn’t need the money. It’s not my situation.”
The answer reveals a young man’s awareness and appreciation he’s been blessed with rare advantages and privileges. In that same conversation, he says working anywhere else wouldn’t be as meaningful as channeling his passions for education, technology, social investment and urban planning toward helping transform San Antonio. He sees a city where growth and prosperity are inclusive and intentional in offering opportunities to those who have historically been neglected.
In October 2020, Robinson Jr. became the director of placemaking for Weston Urban, the real estate company investing in San Antonio’s city center, whose motto is “Our mission is to help build the city our kids want to call home.”
When San Antonians say that San Antonio is a big city with a small-town feel, it’s spoken as positive acknowledgment of the intimacy and sense of community unusual for a city this size.
Not spoken as often is how many sons and daughters of the city have chafed and felt constrained by that smalltown feel and left San Antonio for opportunities elsewhere.
David Robinson Jr. was one of them. He loved his hometown but, “I didn’t see a lot of exciting opportunities for young people.”
Ten years after he left San Antonio for college, with no intention of returning to make his home here, the 28-yearold entrepreneur, investor, and lecturer in urban planning is home and helping to build a city other young people will call home.
On a Tuesday in October, late afternoon shadows rolled across Legacy Park on W. Houston Street as Robinson sat on the rising slope at the edge of the park’s lawn. He manages the 1.2-acre park, built and owned by Weston Urban, and which he calls his office.
Behind him, across the street, the glass exterior of the 22-story Frost Tower, catches the reflections of sky and clouds as he reflected that those most eager to leave San Antonio, the young and people of color, are the city’s greatest resources. He wants them to stay and believes a new generation of business, community and political leaders are working to make that happen.
“What is the identity of the city? What are we putting resources behind? I think the narrative beforehand was that we needed to be more like Austin or Dallas or how to be something we’re not, and we’ve been fighting a losing battle there,” Robinson said. “There’s been a lot of momentum of ‘let’s embrace our diversity’, ‘let’s embrace who we are.’ We’re a community of color, and that’s a beautiful thing. There’s so much talent and potential. The potential is evenly distributed, but the opportunities aren’t.”
He cites Atlanta as a model for San Antonio.
“They decided, ‘we’re going to be the best place for young Black talent to come,’ and they did that,” he said. “It became a hub and helped whites, Hispanics, everyone. What city is the best city for young Hispanics and Mexican Americans?”
Robinson then asked: “Why couldn’t we (San Antonio)? We can organically be the best place in the country for Hispanic talent and not to the detriment of any other race.”
Robinson speaks fluently in the language of finance, real estate, global markets and systemic inequities. And he
will casually illustrate his points with references to SA Tomorrow, the city’s 25-year guide to growth and development, “The Decline and
Fall of the Roman Empire,” journalist Jane Jacobs or Will Smith’s “Going to Miami.”
“He’s his own man, and he’s having a significant impact in this community,” said Mary Ullmann Japhet, owner and founder of Japhet Media. “He’s a great role model for other young men and women, other young entrepreneurs, he knows his stuff. It seems like every time I turn around, whatever the event is around entrepreneurship in the startup ecosystem in San Antonio, he’s there and he’s not just there as a spectator, he’s there as a participant, a supporter.”
Whether talking to people at the many events held at Legacy Park; telling the students in his college course, “I hope you become system thinkers. You don’t solve issues. You solve systems.”; promoting local business growth in boardrooms; serving as a regional board member for IDEA Public Schools; zooming with high school students about the digital divide; or advocating for investing in startups founded by people of color and women at San Antonio Startup Week, Robinson may be one of the city’s best ambassadors and active participants in its transformation.
Tall and casually welldressed, he has an engaging and friendly ubiquitous presence downtown.
“It’s clear in every interaction, that he loves San Antonio and wants to work at making this an even better place to live,” said Erica Hurtak, chief marketing and strategy officer at Greater: SATX.
Robinson teaches an introduction to urban and regional planning course at the University of Texas at San Antonio’s downtown campus. One evening, he invited a scientist to speak about urban heat islands. Before class, the scientist, who was about 6 feet, 4 inches tall, approached Robinson to introduce himself and, surprised that he was taller than the 6-foot-2-inch Robinson, raised his arm in the air indicating he expected him to be taller.
Robinson’s comfortable with who he is, wearing — without pretension or entitlement —the mantle and legacy of his name. But he also reminds people that, like his two younger brothers, he’s as much the son of his mother, Valerie, as he is of his father.
“My mom’s amazing,” he said. “Such a great woman and has been a good example for all of us. A lot of what people know as my father is my mom and dad.”
David Jr. graduated from San Antonio Christian in 2011 and went to the University of Texas in Austin where he earned a bachelor’s degree in human relations, communication and media studies.
“I didn’t really know what I was going to do, what I wanted to do,” he said. He knew he wanted to leave San Antonio for good.
While in school, he fell in love with the tech sector and began working for an education technology startup.
After graduating in 2015, Robinson stayed in Austin for another year before moving to New York City, working for almost two years for LeagueApps, an operating system that provides technological support for youth sports leagues. While in New York he “caught a bug” for real estate.
His father had co-founded a New York-based real estate and private equity firm, Admiral Capital Group, or ACG, that focuses on positive social impacts in the cities and neighborhoods where it makes investments, particularly in low-income communities.
When David Jr. went to work for ACG in 2017, his education into the intricacies of impact investing coincided with federal legislation creating opportunity zones that encouraged investing in lowincome communities through tax breaks.
In 2018, he helped launch Blueprint Local, whose mission was investing in opportunity zones in Texas. That brought him back home to
San Antonio.
“It would have been easier for me to move back to Austin, starting Blueprint,” Robinson said. “San Antonio is uniquely in an opportunity to grow and do things right, and that’s why I want to be here.”
When he joined Weston Urban last fall, Robinson was also in graduate school at UTSA. Last May, he earned a master’s degree in urban and region planning and a graduate certificate in real estate finance and development.
In his master’s thesis, an analysis of professional sports stadium development in San Antonio, he writes that the Alamodome’s potential to be a catalyst for economic development was muted by its inability to attract an NFL team. He also writes that while the AT&T Center has a strong tenant in the San Antonio Spurs, its location and design, with no connectivity to the rest of the city, choked its potential economic impact.
Through his work, Robinson’s trying to be a catalyst for economic development and make the future brighter for more of San Antonio’s native sons and daughters.
Asked what he’d say to a Sam Houston High School senior who asked him how his work will help her and make her want to stay in San Antonio, Robinson is as impassioned, as always.
“We’re trying to create a citywide narrative where there is a place for her, not just a quota for diversity, but because we’re excited to have you. You’re the person we want. … Change the narrative and say as a Black female graduating from high school, you’re our greatest asset. You have a place here because you have a lot to offer.”
That last sentence isn’t a message young San Antonians always hear. But now that he’s home, David Robinson Jr. is delivering that message every day.