Published: San Antonio Business Journal
By: W. Scott Bailey
Date: January 21, 2011

Redevelopment expected to propel housing, business

San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro says he is convinced that HemisFair Park, site of the 1968 World’s Fair, will finally become something more than a monument to a bygone era.

Downtown stakeholders say the redevelopment of that 80-acre site is critical if San Antonio hopes to lure more businesses and a broader mix of residents to the center city.

“I think it is the most significant public space in San Antonio and one of the biggest tools for downtown revitalization,” says Castro about HemisFair. “It can help define the future of this city.”

HemisFair spawned a wave of downtown development that would reshape the center city and help propel what has since become a multibillion-dollar hospitality industry.

The redevelopment of that same site more than 40 years later could spur a new urban renaissance, Castro contends.

Local leaders have tried for many years to develop a plan that would make better use of the former fair site. But Castro says there is some new momentum now. He attributes that, in part, to the fact that there is a dedicated organization helping to drive this latest effort, and the potential to tap into some funding opportunities that didn’t exist before.

City Council voted in August 2009 to create the HemisFair Park Area Redevelopment Corp., which has the authority to assist the city in acquiring property, planning, developing, constructing, managing, maintaining and financing projects at and adjacent to the site of the 1968 fair.

Former City Councilwoman Debra Guerrero, a member of the HPARC board, says local leaders will continue to solicit public input and the stakeholders may have a better idea in a matter of months about the scope and timing of proposed redevelopment.

“We hope by this summer to have a clear understanding on what our next steps will be,” she says.

Castro is convinced that the redevelopment of HemisFair will attract more residents to the core of the city.

“It will make downtown living that much more appealing to a broader section of San Antonio and create a greater demand for housing across the board — from high end to middle class,” he says.

That middle-class component could be crucial. Castro says it is needed to “drive the commercial development” downtown.

“The (redevelopment) master plan will provide structure and purpose to the HemisFair site, and residential development will be one of the development components,” says Ben Brewer, president of Downtown Alliance San Antonio. “More downtown housing, specifically at that site, will stimulate even more development. Residents will create a demand for more supporting retail.”

A number of San Antonio’s most important companies and largest employers have elected to base their operations far from downtown.

Castro says the redevelopment of HemisFair could lure more companies to the center city.

“Companies think about their employees when they think about where they are going to locate,” he says. “They want their employees to be in the right environment. This will make more of them think twice about overlooking downtown.”

Brewer agrees. He says workers want shorter commutes and an increasing number of companies around the country are reacting accordingly.

“That is why so many companies have followed the rooftops, locating closer to where their employees live,” he says.

Great space

U.S. Rep Charlie Gonzalez, D-Texas, son of the late Henry B. Gonzalez, who was among those instrumental in bringing the World’s Fair to San Antonio, says HemisFair was a demarcation point.

“It was a place in time that we could identify when this city matured and entered an entirely different phase of its existence,” he says. “People became aware of San Antonio.”

Guerrero says the redevelopment of HemisFair could be another game-changer for San Antonio.

“It will create a greater density of people and businesses downtown,” she says.

Guerrero believes that local leaders now have a golden opportunity to move HemisFair redevelopment from the drawing board to dirt-turning.

But that will require more than momentum, consensus and good ideas.

“We need to think about how we finance all of these ideas,” she says. “We don’t want this to be just another plan. We need implementation.”

Brewer says San Antonio has an opportunity, with HemisFair, to create sustainable development downtown and to slow the pace of continued urban sprawl.

“The winds are blowing the right direction now for more concentrated development in the center city,” he says.

Castro says if local leaders can sell the community on the merits of a HemisFair makeover, then he expects some city bond money will be available in 2012 that would help jump-start the redevelopment.

“Part of the challenge of years past has been a lack of resources dedicated to this, and the lack of a comprehensive plan,” Castro explains.

He is convinced that there is enough support now to leap both of those hurdles.

“When people think about great downtowns, this (HemisFair redevelopment) is going to help us get there,” Castro insists. “I’m confident that this will help accelerate downtown housing development, commercial development and serve as a magnet for people to move into and invest in downtown.

“If we do it right,” he adds, “this could be a grand space for San Antonio.”