New plan revives Alamo Plaza upgrades
Cenotaph won’t be relocated; Fiesta access maintained
After it was stuck in limbo for months — some even declared it dead — the plan to renovate Alamo Plaza has new life with proposed changes that defuse the biggest controversies: the Cenotaph will be repaired but keep its location; the Woolworth building would be spared the wrecking ball; and Alamo Street would remain open for Fiesta parades.
Those are among key elements of the latest iteration of the $450 million plan designed to celebrate the courage displayed in the 1836 Battle of the Alamo, while providing a textured portrayal of 300 years of history.
“I like the plan. I like what I see,” said Sharon Skrobarcek, a member of the Alamo Citizen Advisory Committee since it was formed in 2014. “Y’all have done a great job.”
Developed fairly quickly under the guidance of Councilwoman Rebecca Viagran, the newly appointed chair of the Alamo Management Committee, and Assistant City Manager Lori Houston, who has been working on the redevelopment plan for seven years, the new plan unveiled at Monday’s management committee meeting also calls for marking the location of the historic missionfort with surface pavers and landscaping.
That latter decision would be considerably less intrusive than an earlier plan, which called for excavating a large part of the plaza to lower its elevation by up to 2 feet in places and surround it with handrails to mark the Alamo’s original location.
Preservationists were concerned that lowering the plaza elevation would be an irreversible change to a historic site, while Indigenous groups were concerned the excavations could disturb long-buried ancestral remains. And the 42-inch handrails had been sharply criticized as hindering pedestrian access in one of the busiest civic spaces downtown.
The updated plan showcases features of the 1836 battle, including a partial representation of the Alamo’s north wall; wooden palisades by the Alamo church; the fort’s south main gate; and a replica of the “18-pounder” cannon station and Losoya House that’s set for an April 16 public grand opening.
The advisory committee, composed of 26 appointed members and four technical advisers, is set to vote Wednesday on the proposed changes to the public-private Alamo Plaza makeover that’s
been in discussion since 2014. Viagran is one of the three tri-chairs of that committee.
The project ground to a halt last year when the Texas Historical Commission denied a permit to relocate the Cenotaph, a memorial to the Alamo defenders, a few hundred feet south of its current location in front of the Alamo chapel. In September, after the commission’s decision, Councilman Roberto Treviño said it “spells the end of the project.”
The City Council is expected to take action on the new plan April 15. If it’s approved, the project’s design team would work from May to October to develop a new design to present to the city Historic and Design Review Commission as early as November.
Construction could then begin in 2022. Wednesday’s meeting of the citizen panel, set for 5:30 p.m., will be streamed live on the city’s Facebookpage.
Houston said the distinctive surface pavers and landscaping beds would mark the area once enclosed by outer walls of the Mission San Antonio de Valero, which was the city’s first permanent Spanish-indgenenous mission, and later the fort known as the Alamo.
“These (areas) are going to be completely open during the daytime and nighttime hours, and you’re going to be able to walk through like you can in the plaza,” Houston said.
Tribal concerns
The city also is working to soothe discord between the Tap Pilam Coahuiltecan Nation that has clashed with the Texas General Land Office and nonprofit Alamo Trust over interpretation of burial sites in and around the plaza.
The local Indigenous group has a pending federal lawsuit, now in the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, alleging that the trust and Land Office violated the group’s constitutional rights by denying access to the Alamo church for an annual remembrance ceremony and excluding the group from deciding how to handle human remains found at the site.
Houston said Viagran asked the city staff to address Tap Pilam’s concerns in the plaza, based on comments raised by the advisory panel.
“That was probably one of the most dominant conversations in the sessions” of the citizen panel, Houston said. “And so (Viagran) came back to (City Attorney) Andy Segovia and I and said ‘You all need to resolve this. Because if we don’t, we’re not going to be able to get the citizen advisory committee on board.’ ”
The city will initiate an archival investigation, using past archaeological reports, newspaper accounts and other documentation, to determine the locations of burials in the plaza, to inform an interpretive site plan.
A separate human remains protocol will be developed and there will be an archaeological advisory group for the plaza. The advisory panel will include Tap Pilam and other groups that have provided feedback on culturally sensitive areas in San Antonio, Houston said.
The citizen panel will work this summer to provide guidance on the interpretive plan and an inventory of events and traditions in the plaza that are important to the site, she said.
Street traffic
As for streets, the city may close part of Alamo Street, between Houston and Crockett streets, on June 1. But it intends to keep the portion of Alamo open between Commerce and Crockett, at least initially.
Davis Phillips, a plaza business owner and member of the citizen panel, said it’s important to keep that section of Alamo Street open on the south end of the plaza for tour buses, horse carriages and service vehicles.
Although the updated plan would allow parades to continue moving south through the plaza, there would be no grandstands in the Alamo footprint. Marching bands and musical entertainers would have to reduce their volume levels “in and around the footprint area,” to maintain reverence, Viagran said.
“So bleachers would not be part of the footprint, and it would be a quiet zone if and when the parade ceremony goes through there,” she said.
An earlier version of plan would have re-routed the parades to Bonham Street, east of the plaza, to pass between the Alamo church and the Menger Hotel.
Save Woolworth
A world-class museum and visitor center on the west side of the plaza remains part of the plan.
While the six-member Alamo Management Committee has not formally committed to incorporating the state-owned Crockett, Palace and Woolworth buildings into the museum design, Houston said the updated plan seeks to preserve those structures, and to include a civil rights exhibit in the Woolworth Building, which housed one of seven local lunch counters that peacefully desegregated in 1960.
Kate Rogers, who last week began working for the Alamo Trust as the new Alamo executive director, said she’s hopeful the Legislature will provide seed money for a private fundraising effort for a museum.
Although the trust had initially spoken of raising up to $200 million for a 130,000-square-foot museum, a museum design has not been publicly released.
“We don’t have a price tag just yet of the money that’s needed, but there’s also been really positive and promising conversation between (Land Commissioner George P.) Bush and the lieutenant governor about a potential appropriation from the session, which would obviously give us a good start on the fund-raising. And we’ll be moving in earnest after that to work on the private side as well,” Rogers told reporters.
Members of the citizen committee spoke in support of the changes Monday night.
Walter Serna, president of the Fiesta San Antonio Commission and an adviser on the panel, said inclusion of the customs of Fiesta, which began in the plaza with the original Battle of Flowers, an 1891 horse-carriage procession, will maintain the heritage of the site.
“I’m excited that y’all are taking into account the rich tradition that Fiesta adds to the Alamo,” including the investiture of King Antonio, Serna said.
The city also is looking at allowing veterans’ parades and other events that have cultural connections to the plaza, Houston said.