Developer plan draws fire from preservationists
It served as headquarters of the Texian Army headquarters during the Texas Revolution. It’s believed to have stood at its current spot for more than 200 years, making it one of downtown San Antonio’s oldest residential buildings.
Now, a developer wants to move the De La Garza House. Not very far — in fact, just 42 feet south and 4 feet east.
Still, the very notion of uprooting such a venerable stone structure has some preservationists worried.
Weston Urban wants to relocate the historic home as part of a redevelopment of the area around the downtown campus of the University of Texas at San Antonio.
But the developer hasn’t said why it’s necessary to move the house such a short distance rather than simply build around it.
By a 7-1 vote Wednesday, the city’s Historic and Design Review Commission approved a procedural first step in Weston Urban’s plan. But final approval is by no means assured.
Two commission members said they would have to be persuaded to vote for the plan if Weston Urban follows through with an application for a relocation permit.
“I am not in support of moving it unless there’s a really compelling reason,” said commission vice chairman Scott Carpenter, an architect.
Weston Urban plans to turn a
downtown block into a mixed-use development geared to UTSA students. The project, which includes construction of a 432-space parking garage, is scheduled to be finished in late 2023.
The city’s Office of Historic Preservation has weighed in on one key aspect. It said moving the De La Garza House to the south-southeast within the same lot, while keeping it facing in the same direction and set back from the street, would not jeopardize its status as a contributing structure in the Main and Military Plaza Historic District.
An adverse finding on that issue would have interfered with the developer’s plan to take advantage of historic tax credits.
But Patti Zaiontz, president of the Conservation Society of San Antonio, said Weston Urban needs to provide more details about the project, including planned construction on an adjacent lot, before the HDRC can make a final decision.
“A decision should take into account the development not only (on) the lot ... but also the adjacent lot, for which we do not have any proposed plan,” Zaiontz said.
Zaiontz said society leaders met this week with representatives of the developer and were shown images of a “ghostly” tall building behind the house. Weston Urban declined to say what kind of structure was proposed, she said.
The De La Garza House is named for Melchor De la Garza, one of its early occupants. It is located at 102 S. Laredo St., near the Spanish Governor’s Palace and Casa Navarro State Historic Site.
The one-story, calicheblock building embodies a regional variation of Spanish colonial architecture that was common in San Antonio until the late 1800s. It has whitewashed walls, stout wooden doors and a sloped, shingled roof that overhangs a front porch.
It currently sits in an asphalt-covered lot used for parking for the Arana Building and the O. Henry House Museum. The block includes the former Continental Hotel at 322 W. Commerce St.
Weston Urban owns the Arana Building and the De La Garza House and is negotiating with the city to close on a $4.7 million purchase of the hotel and an adjacent vacant lot. The developer plans to construct a new building on the vacant lot.
West Urban has crafted a conceptual plan to place the historic house in a landscaped courtyard, with outdoor seating and dining tables, trees and shade structures.
It would be moved closer to the O. Henry House, built in 1855. That house was briefly occupied in the mid-1890s by William Sidney Porter, known nationally as the short story writer O. Henry.
Anthony Delgado, a descendant of one of the city’s early Spanish colonial families, said he was worried that moving the house would damage the structure and dilute its historical context.
“We did not move Casa Navarro, nor did we move the Governor’s Palace. We made improvements around it,” Delgado said.
Local resident Don Mathis said the house, one of the last remaining structures in a neighborhood west of San Pedro Creek once known as Laredito, must stay in place.
“Hotels and offices can be built anywhere,” Mathis said. “Make another plan. It shouldn’t be hard. But don’t move Casa De La Garza, not one yard.”
Ann Mcglone, a preservation consultant assisting Weston Urban on the project, said the building’s heritage would be honored at the new location.
“I think this building’s precious, too,” Mcglone said. “I know it’s on an important site.”
HDRC Commissioner Gabriel Velasquez voted against issuing a letter to the
state in support of the opinion that the house, even if relocated, would retain its status as a contributing structure in the Main and Military
Plaza Historic District.
He called the De La Garza House “the real deal” — a historic icon on its original site. “Sometimes, the little
things are the things worth fighting for,” Velasquez said.