San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
WEST SIDE BATTLE
Skyline: Preservationists score some wins in fight to save West Side history.
Preservationists fighting to save historic buildings on the West Side from demolition most recently protected the Whitt Printing Co. building in Cattleman Square.
Another structure they kept from being razed for a dollar store several years ago, the Basila Frocks building at Martin and Zarzamora streets, is now on its way to being rehabilitated.
“I’d really like to see restoration of that building happening,” said Susana Segura, a project development coordinator with the Esperanza Peace & Justice Center. “It’s such a major crossroads for the historic West Side.”
Prosper West, formerly known as the Westside Development Corp., owns the roughly 20,000square-foot building still adorned with whimsical lettering for Basila Frocks Co., which set up shop there around 1929.
The nonprofit is partnering with local developer DreamOn Group, which plans to renovate the vacant building for Prosper West’s headquarters, business offices and space for community organizations to use. The parking lot will be used for events.
DreamOn co-founder Rene Garcia recently told the Westside Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone, or TIRZ, board that he envisions as many as 20 businesses operating at the building.
“Not only does the building have great bones, but it’s in a great community,” Garcia said.
The company got the green
light from the Westside TIRZ for a Chapter 380 economic development loan for $945,000 to buy and renovate the building, a $3.7 million undertaking.
Garcia co-founded DreamOn Group with Julissa Carielo, also a member of the TIRZ board. She was not at the meeting.
The building is outside the TIRZ boundary but is eligible because funds can be used for projects with a community-gathering component, said Ramiro Gonzales, CEO of Prosper West.
They hope to finalize financing by August, start design and construction before the end of the year and complete the project by late next summer, Garcia said.
Outgoing Councilwoman Shirley Gonzales, who represents District 5, said the intersection is a concern because of accidents and traffic there and the building’s proximity to the road.
The developers will have to create alcoves at entrances so people can access the building safely, Garcia said.
Gonzales supports the plans and mentioned former Mayor Henry Cisneros’ renovation of his family’s print shop nearby.
“It’s important that we have a couple of signature projects in the district,” she said.
West Side residents and people outside the area have expressed interest in moving in, as have banks without a presence in the community, Gonzales of Prosper West said.
But the project has its challenges. A slide presentation for the meeting listed some: a “largely unproven business market,” “perception as an unsafe area,” “homelessness, frequent property damage, crime” and empty properties nearby.
Jason Mata, one of the directors
of the Prospect Hill Neighborhood Association, said in an interview that residents welcome the building’s redevelopment.
He wants accidents at the intersection and criminal activity addressed. He was part of a petition drive for a police substation in the area several years ago, and he said this project is an opportunity to revisit that possibility.
“I believe the potential is there,” Mata said. “I believe people will open their businesses here, but the safety concerns have to be addressed.”
Jaime Macias, a TIRZ board member, said at the meeting he, too, is pleased, but he is worried about occupants’ safety and the project’s sustainability.
“I support the project,” Macias said. “I just want to make sure that we have the resources to keep it sustainable, because I don’t believe the economics from the immediate community is there to support it.”
The Basila Frocks Co. was founded by Nicholas and Marie Basila, a Syrian couple who came to San Antonio in the early 1900s and started a business making women’s clothing. The company moved into the building around 1929 and was part of a flourishing garment-manufacturing industry in the area. Basila Frocks and other companies were major employers of women.
“The garment industry was a diverse workforce ethically speaking, though the cultural value to Latinas is extremely high,” according to a city report.
Over the years, the building was occupied by an assortment of businesses, including a Chinese grocery, several Mexican American businesses and a Veterans of Foreign Wars Post that held wrestling matches.
A company sought to raze the structure and construct a Dollar General store in 2016, but preservationists stopped the effort.
Prosper West bought the building in 2018 with Dan Markson, a senior vice president at NRP Group who was interested in renovating it as a private investor. But he died in May 2019, weeks before construction was to begin, and the project came to a halt.
Prosper West — funded by the city, financial institutions, private organizations and donors — put out a request for information last summer to find a partner to redevelop the building. It received five responses and opted for DreamOn Group.
“It really takes the right developer, the right people to come in and want to partner on a difficult project like this and make it possible,” said Gonzales of Prosper West.