Downtown office market on the rise

N.W. Side faces competition as wish lists of companies, workers change

San Antonio’s office market still heavily favors the Northwest Side, figures show — but the center city is catching up.

Workers, particularly millennials, increasingly want to live in an urban, walkable environment with plenty of nearby stores, restaurants and gyms. That’s forcing area employers to consider office space downtown if they want to attract top-tier talent, real estate analysts and brokers say.

Those dynamics promise to bring downtown San Antonio into greater competition with the Northwest Side, historically the city’s hottest office market.

A decade ago, “you would sit down with a San Antonio corporate user and say, ‘OK, what submarket do you want to be in?’” said Christi Griggs, first vice president at commercial real estate services firm CBRE. “And there was usually a very specific answer. It was, ‘I want to be Northwest where middle-income housing is. I want to be North Central where the airport is’ or ‘I want to be (downtown) because the courthouse is there.’ That answer isn’t that simple anymore.”

Griggs added, “Now, when you sit down with office users and corporate users, the comment from them is, ‘We want to be where there’s a lot of activity, there’s a mixed-use vibe and where we can attract young professionals.’ And that’s occurring all over the city.”

The Northwest Side dominated

At least 600,000 square feet of office space is under construction downtown, including in the historic San Antonio Light building.Express-News file photo