Talks begin on purchase of bar for Alamo project
The city and Alamo Trust were scheduled to meet Wednesday with the owner of a downtown bar to discuss a potential sale of the property for a new Alamo museum and visitor center.
It’s the first negotiation session since the City Council voted 9-2 on Jan. 26 to pursue eminent domain if negotiations failed. Vince Cantu, the owner of Moses Rose’s Hideout, has asked for $17 million, but he has hinted he might settle for a lower amount.
In December, the Alamo Trust offered $3.5 million for the property — its third and latest purchase proposal — but Cantu declined. The trust then asked the city to consider using its eminent domain authority to acquire the property.
Neither side responded to requests for comment Wednesday afternoon.
The Alamo Trust has said it asked Cantu to share financial documents to demonstrate the loss of anticipated income at his business, but he declined.
A nonprofit, the trust runs the Alamo through an agreement with the Texas General Land Office.
It has said it needs Cantu’s property, located in a strategic spot outside the historic footprint of the mission fort, for utility and loading access. Without it, there would be less room on the visitor center’s first floor for a gift shop, civil rights exhibit and event space and inadequate square footage for a 4-D theater, a major revenue-generator needed to make the museum financially self-sustaining.
Kate Rogers, executive director of the trust, said Alamo officials are pleased that Cantu has agreed to discuss the acquisition of the property after three years of “appraisals, declined offers and failed attempts to negotiate the purchase” of the site at 516 E. Houston St.
“We are optimistic that we will reach an agreement on a reasonable purchase price, making the use of eminent domain by the city of San Antonio unnecessary,” Rogers said in a statement.
Cantu has been represented by eminent domain attorney Dan Eldrege in talks with the Alamo Trust.
The city is a partner with the trust and Land Office in a nearly $400 million makeover of the mission and battle site that includes a $150 million visitor center set to open in March 2026. Moses Rose’s is named after a mercenary at the Alamo who fled the mission-fort in 1836 and is sometimes called the “coward of the Alamo.”
The bar owner has won support from the League of United Latin American Citizens, which has asked Mayor Ron Nirenberg to hold off on pressing eminent domain. Nirenberg had said the prospect of eminent domain would accelerate efforts to reach a resolution after past negotiation efforts have failed.
Cantu has plenty of supporters who have criticized the city for attempting to take his property. But others have said he’s asking for far too much and should not be paid an excessive amount — in fairness to others whose homes and businesses were acquired at market value through eminent domain, for utility or transportation projects or the 1968 World’s Fair at Hemisfair.