Short downtown street could revert to its original name
A short street in a busy area downtown would revert under a city proposal to its original name honoring an 1800s merchant, local leader and Tejano soldier of the Texas Revolution.
The Historic and Design Review Commission supported the renaming of Savings Street, which runs east-west, is two blocks long and is just south of the Central Library.
If the action is approved by the Planning Commission and the City Council, the street will revert to its original name: Rodriguez Street.
The street is believed to have been named for merchant and rancher Ambrosio Rodríguez, a Canary Islands descendant and participant in the Battle of San Jacinto on April 21, 1836. That battle near Houston resulted in the capture of Mexican Gen. Antonio López de Santa Anna, securing independence for Texas.
A memo prepared by the city’s Office of Historic Preservation noted that Rodríguez, a city alderman and the leader of a prominent local family, had personal wealth that “included ownership of enslaved people.”
Rodríguez and his family owned “many properties in downtown San Antonio,” including several around the west end of Savings Street.
Historians say Rodríguez served under Capt. Juan Seguín, and was a close friend of Gen. Sam Houston. He and his wife had eight children before he died in 1848.
In 1965, at the request of the Travis Savings and Loan Association, the city changed the street name to Savings. The association opened its new headquarters at Savings and Main streets in 1967, but relocated in 1985 and was acquired by International Bank of
Commerce in 1991. The street runs from Flores to Soledad Street and intersects Main Avenue.
The city applied for the change to return the name to Rodriguez Street. Under a 2011 negotiated court settlement between the city and Conservation Society of San Antonio, involving a name change from Durango Boulevard to César E. Chávez Boulevard, the HDRC now reviews all street name changes within the area of San Antonio’s original city limits.
The commission also Wednesday approved plans to renovate a one-story limestone farmhouse at 4101 Swans Landing on the Northeast
Side, include window repairs, roof replacement and addition of a public restroom, sidewalks, drinking fountains and 27 parking spaces, under the city’s 2017-2022 bond program.
The farmhouse was built in 1871 by Alphonse Perrin, a New York native who became a local justice of the peace.
Although no specific plans for the house have been announced, the city intends to rehabilitate it for new use by the San Antonio Parks and Recreation Department, according to a report prepared for RVK Architects by the
UTSA Center for Cultural Sustainability. The planned Perrin Homestead Historic Center is located in District 10.
The Conservation Society of San Antonio, whose members recently toured the site with Councilman Clayton Perry, supports the project as a means of preserving a “rare and outstanding example of limestone farmhouse construction in San Antonio.”
“The plans for the rehabilitation and restoration of this landmark property are thoughtful and appropriate,” society President Patti Zaiontz wrote in a letter to the commission.
In other business, a proposal by the preservation office to give a historic landmark designation to a 1909 Queen Anne-style house at 214 Lotus St. was postponed until the Feb. 5 meeting of the HDRC.
The commission had unanimously supported a finding of historic significance in September for the house in the Lavaca neighborhood south of downtown, siding with preservationists over the property owner's arguments that it is not habitable and should be replaced with new housing units.
The city now is seeking a change in the zoning for the property to include a historic landmark overlay, making it eligible for tax incentives on substantial rehabilitation work.