USAA might get city street as it expands downtown
Move would clear way for 6-story parking garage
would normally have to pay $1.2 million to buy a small street from the city to expand a parking garage, but the city wouldn’t charge anything under a deal City Council will consider Thursday.
Locally based USAA wants to build a six-story, 192-space parking garage addition on the site of Hagner Arc, a street roughly as long as a football field that runs next to two office towers owned by the company’s real estate arm, USAA Real Estate Co. The extra parking would help USAA accommodate the 2,000 jobs it will bring to its downtown offices under a $6 million incentive deal reached with the city in December.
The city would waive 75 percent of USAA’s $1.2 million fee under its Inner City ReinUSAA vestment and Infill Policy, which is intended to encourage growth in underdeveloped parts of the urban core.
Any development project within ICRIP’s boundaries that will result in at least $50 million worth of investment qualifies for that reduction. USAA plans to spend about $70 million on its downtown properties, including the new parking garage and renovations to office space and common areas, said Samira Bitar, the executive director of marketing for USAA Real Estate, in an email.
USAA would have to pay $300,768 after the ICRIP reduction, but the city will relinquish the rest because the company plans to spend $570,085 on public improvements such as moving storm drains and gas lines, rebuilding sidewalks and installing
street lights, Bitar said.
City Council has considered several deals recently in which the city would sell alleyways to downtown developers at deep discounts.
Last week, it approved the sale of an alley to developer James Lifshutz at a discount of nearly $300,000. He is expected to later sell the land to a city nonprofit to make way for an apartment complex. Two similar deals are also up for consideration at Thursday’s council meeting.
Local leaders negotiated a $6 million incentive package for USAA last year to create 1,500 new jobs in San Antonio and bring 2,000 employees downtown. The company owns the 18-story One Riverwalk Place and 28-story Bank of America Plaza office towers near the Tobin Center for the Performing Arts.
The incentives include a $4 million loan to build the new parking garage next to One Riverwalk Place, that will be forgiven if the company creates 1,000 new jobs with base salaries of at least $50,000. The company is also receiving a property tax abatement worth up to $2 million.
“The funding is to support the construction of the parking garage expansion necessary for their downtown growth,” said Veronica Garcia, interim assistant director of the city’s Center City Development Office, in an email. “The parking garage will be available to the public on weeknights on the weekends.”
USAA’s planned relocation of the storm drain will benefit the city of San Antonio, because the existing drain has a crack along the top and the city would otherwise have to buy an easement from USAA to fix it, Garcia said in the email.
The city’s Historic and Design Review Commission will consider the parking garage’s design at its meeting on Wednesday.
Council will also vote Thursday on whether to sell an alley at the northern corner of Broadway and Brooklyn Avenue to a partnership between local developer Hixon Properties and the Cavender auto family, which plan to build a six-story office building there.
The city is offering the partnership a 75 percent discount — $50,625, instead of $202,500 — because the development is expected to “leverage” more than $50 million worth of investment in the area, according to the council agenda.
John Beauchamp, Hixon’s vice president for acquisitions and development, said in an email that the six-story office building will act as a “catalyst” for the entire block between Broadway and Avenue B, Brooklyn Avenue and 8th Street.
“We are not yet publicizing plans for the entire block, but the office is the catalyst,” he said. “We are trying to break ground on it as early as next week.”
He declined to share the cost of the office building. Hixon hopes to break ground next week, he said.
“I can tell you that our investment in the office and the overall block (as well as the rest of the Cavender project) will be substantial,” Beauchamp said in the email. “To that end, the vacation of the alley is important.”
In another item on the council agenda, the city would sell a .28-acre section of Burnet and Live Oak streets on the near East Side to make room for a mobile food truck park. The property owner, StrEat Parks LLC, would pay a fee of $81,706 instead of the normal $262,000 after getting discounts under ICRIP and for partnering with the nonprofit Healy Murphy Center, according to the council agenda.
The deal that council approved last week will offer developer James Lifshutz a 75 percent discount under ICRIP for the closure of the .2-acre alley at the corner of Broadway and Jones Avenue. The fee would usually be $390,000, but the city is charging him $97,518.
A city nonprofit, the San Antonio Housing Trust Public Facility Corp., is expected to buy that land and adjacent properties owned by Lifshutz for $4.5 million in order to build an apartment complex there with national developer NRP Group.