Developers, businesses, UTSA ‘embrace the creek’

Property around budding San Pedro Creek Culture Park snapped up

City and county leaders have long cherished a hope that their makeover of San Pedro Creek will have a Cinderella-like effect on west downtown, much as the Museum Reach stretch of the River Walk did for the neighborhood around the Pearl.

Only the first of a half-dozen segments has been completed to transform the drab ditch into the San Pedro Creek Culture Park, a waterway lined with walking paths, benches and murals. Yet the neighborhood is already drawing attention from builders and investors who might fulfill this fairy-tale vision.

In recent years, some of San Antonio’s most ambitious developers have purchased land along the creek or near it, including GrayStreet Partners and Weston Urban, which put the finishing touches in 2019 on the Frost Tower on its eastern bank.

“We always really believed that this would sort of become the body of the water in the (central business district) that is for locals,” said Weston Urban President Randy Smith. “We absolutely (made) a lot of our acquisitions along the creek knowing that completion would be a special thing.”

One of the world’s largest private equity firms also has taken notice. Blackstone bought two adjacent hotels, a Residence Inn and a Fairfield Inn & Suites, on about 6 acres of land along the future path of the park in the

summer of 2019, county deed records show. The New Yorkbased firm’s spokeswoman, Jillian Kary, declined to comment.

New apartments have already arrived: NRP Group, one of San Antonio’s most prolific apartment builders, is close to finishing construction of a 323-unit apartment complex, Acero, along the creek’s southern stretch, said Debra Guerrero, NRP’s senior vice president of strategic partnerships and government relations. About 12 percent of the apartments are leased and residents have started to move in, she said.

A local partnership led by Patrick Shearer bought a building at 233 W. Travis St. in 2018, with an eye toward the creek’s renovation and Weston Urban’s

development on the western edge of downtown.

They planned to renovate it for a food and beverage tenant before the coronavirus pandemic upended the restaurant industry. They hope the sector will bounce back this year, Shearer said, but they also are willing to sell the property if an operator wants to own the building.

“Long term, I believe in the area and I’m very excited about the changes,” he said.

Shearer also represents another group that has owned a building at 331 W. Commerce St. since the late 1990s. It could also be used as a restaurant, he said, or office space for technology firms.

“I see (the creek) as an amenity that people will want to be near and walk along and (that will) connect different parts of downtown in a beautiful, pedestrian-friendly (way),” he added. “As more residential is built around that area and as additional sections of the creek are (renovated), there will just be more and more people.”

H-E-B owns about 4.5 acres of land along the future path of the Culture Park, on the southern side of César E. Chávez Boulevard, near the company’s rapidly expanding Arsenal headquarters. Most of the land is now occupied by parking lots. The company didn’t comment on whether it had any plans for the land.

The first segment of the Culture Park, running from San

Saba Street to Houston Street, was completed in 2018. The next, going as far south as Nueva Street, is under construction and expected to open in April 2022, said Kerry Averyt, manager of engineering, design and construction for the San Antonio River Authority, which is managing the project.

Three more phases of construction will take the park past Cevallos Street in Southtown. SARA hopes to finish them all by spring 2023, Averyt said. When all is done, the park will be about 1.9 miles long.

In one of the sections, between César Chávez Boulevard and Guadalupe Street — where H-E-B’s land is and Blackstone purchased the hotels — the creek will remain in an underground culvert, while a surface trail continues above it, surrounded by green space, Averyt said. The project team had hoped to open

up the culvert but couldn’t because of cost restraints, he said.

A long list of public agencies and local institutions are teaming up in an effort to build a neighborhood around the Culture Park.

Their effort complements a long-running attempt by the city to foster a tech district around the Geekdom co-working space on East Houston Street, three blocks east of the creek.

The University of Texas at San Antonio plans to construct two educational buildings on either side of the creek between Dolorosa and Nueva streets, turning part of the Culture Park into a sort of mini-campus. A major part of the draw for the universi

ty is that students could get internships and jobs at nearby tech companies, said Corrina Green, the university’s director of major capital projects and real estate.

Construction is underway on a new federal courthouse at the southeast corner of Nueva and Santa Rosa streets, and on an administration building for the San Antonio Independent School District at the creek’s northern tip.

“We do hear more and more from developers who are looking at properties on the creek or near the creek,” said Veronica Garcia, an assistant director with the city’s Center City Development and Operations, or

CCDO, department. “They look at it as kind of what the Museum Reach and Mission Reach did, once that was all redeveloped. We can see that same kind of progression happening on San Pedro Creek.”

Last year, Texas Public Radio moved into its new headquarters behind the Alameda Theater, which is being restored as a multimedia performing arts and film center devoted to American Latino heritage. The Ruby City exhibition space, built by the Linda Pace Foundation as a showcase for the art collection of its namesake, opened in fall 2019 along the southern stretch of the creek.

With the area’s revitalization

beginning to unfold, the value of properties along the creek or within a few blocks of it is rising.

Data from the Bexar Appraisal District for 78 parcels shows that more than half saw values increase 40 percent or more over the past five years.

It’s jumped just over 29 percent for an auto repair shop on South Flores Street. The value of Penner’s, the iconic men’s clothing store at the corner of West Commerce and Camaron streets, has increased 41.6 percent.

For the Soap Factory apartments on West Martin Street — a rare lower-priced complex downtown where landlords have raised rents to help pay for renovations — the value of various clusters has ballooned between 53.6 and 79.3 percent.

Weston Urban

The firm bought several structures along Dolorosa Street in 2019. The next year, the City Council approved selling the historic Continental Hotel building and an adjacent parking lot to the developer for mixedincome housing.

The project must include at least 150 units, with at least half available to residents earning 80

Photos by William Luther / Staff photographer Weston Urban is in the process of acquiring the former Continental Hotel building on Commerce Street downtown.

Work continues on San Pedro Creek Cul

lture Park. The first segment of the park was completed in 2018. The next is expected to open in 2022.