San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Confidence in South Side pays off
Homes, retail cropping up on land investor bought decades ago
Jack Walker began buying land at the intersection of Roosevelt Avenue and Loop 410 on the South Side in 2003.
He gradually amassed about 120 acres, most of which was vacant, save for a junkyard. Nearly 20 years later, much of it has been bought by single-family and multifamily builders or developed as retail.
“After all this time, I’ll finally see this coming to fruition,” said Walker, who lives in Colorado. “Having seen a greenfield site finally become a fully developed area is exciting.”
He started with 30 acres at the intersection, and spent the next seven years acquiring the rest of the acreage and putting about $2 million into sewer and water infrastructure.
“The cars in the driveways of the houses around the area were nice cars. … The houses look trim,” Walker said. “I said to myself: People talk about the South Side as if it were of no significance, and yet I look around here and what I see is money.”
Affordable homes, infrastructure investments and economic factors are behind the area’s growth.
A flurry of subdivisions are in the works. Texas A&M University-San Antonio has expanded, the Eagle Ford Shale took off in 2009, and the Mission Reach section of the River Walk was completed in 2013.
Toyota Motor Manufacturing Texas Inc. announced plans in 2003 to build a pickup plant, which started producing Tundras in 2006, and recently finished a $400 million expansion of the facility. In March, commercial truck and bus manufacturer Navistar International opened a plant.
The city established the Mission Drive-In Tax Increment Reinvestment
Zone, a mechanism by which increases in property tax revenue from land within the zone are used to reimburse developers for public improvements. The San Antonio Water System completed a 32-mile sewer pipeline in 2014.
Brooks, the former Air Force base, has been turned into a mix of businesses, new housing, restaurants, stores and hotels.
“That’s all part of what made this area, I think, come alive,” Walker said.
He sold a slice of land to a gas station operator and built a 14,000-square-foot strip center that he also later sold. It’s occupied by Subway and Cricket Wireless locations, a Chinese restaurant, a dry-cleaning business and a pawn shop.
Walker said he used the Mission Drive-In TIRZ to sell another chunk in 2016 to KB Home for Loma Mesa, a community of about 136 homes. The City Council approved a $1.3 million agreement through the TIRZ in 2017.
KB Home plans to build an adjacent subdivision, called The Granary, with about 486 homes on land it bought from Harlandale Independent School District.
Affordability, proximity to downtown, revitalization along Roosevelt Avenue and Harlandale ISD made the location appealing, San Antonio Division President Rob Wasyliw said.
“We think it’s going to be a growth area for all of San Antonio,” he said of the South Side.
H-E-B bought about 24 acres from Walker in 2017, although spokesperson Dya Campos said the company does not have plans or a timeline for a store there at this point.
Another swath of land is set to be turned into a multifamily project spearheaded by local developer Steve Poppoon, which is expected to include about 640 rental units, Walker said.
An urgent care facility and car wash, along with Burger King, Taco Bell and Kentucky Fried Chicken locations, are also in the works. Everest Rehabilitation Hospitals LLC is building a rehabilitation facility.
Walker sold another 24 acres to Bitterblue Inc., a local company that is developing about 138 single-family lots. Homes will likely be priced from about $240,000 to the low $300,000s, President Scott Teeter said.
“There hadn’t really been a bunch of new housing in this immediate area in a long, long time,” he said.
Bitterblue is set to receive $4.3 million through the Mission Drive-In TIRZ for infrastructure improvements for its project, called Roosevelt Heights. It would not have been feasible without that funding, Teeter said.
As prices soar and inventory remains tight, there’s ample demand for affordable homes.
The site is near employers such as Toyota, Texas A&M-San Antonio and companies at Brooks, and it’s not a far drive to Joint Base
San Antonio-Lackland and JBSARandolph, Teeter said.
Residents are also eager for more stores and services.
“This whole complexion of this particular corner is going to change,” Teeter said. “There hadn’t been significant development along Roosevelt Avenue or even really 410 there in quite some time, so all these new businesses going up are going to be just great for the whole look and feel of the area.”
Single- and multifamily
housing, retail and a rehabilitation facility are
planned at Loop 410 and
Roosevelt Avenue on the
South Side.