{"id":774705,"date":"2026-05-05T10:44:27","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T10:44:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/774705\/"},"modified":"2026-05-05T10:44:27","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T10:44:27","slug":"uiw-blends-modern-with-historic-preservation-in-founders-hall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/774705\/","title":{"rendered":"UIW blends modern with historic preservation in Founders Hall"},"content":{"rendered":"

A floor to ceiling metal screen built in the 1950s by a local artisan was brought back to life and will soon greet faculty and staff at the ground entrance of the University of the Incarnate Word\u2019s newly restored Founders Hall.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The relic came as an unexpected find that had been buried in the walls of what was once the headquarters of telecommunications giants Southwestern Bell and AT&T.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s from the 1955 building, Theodore Voss built those and we thought they were lost,\u201d said architect Ryan Yaden pointing at the second portion of the metal structure that now sits atop a stairwell in the new events hall. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen they were doing the demolition of the building, they were found buried in one of the walls,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"\"A student community space located on the ground floor of the newly renovated Founders Hall at UIW. The metal grate wall on the left is an original structure from building that was unearthed during renovations for the new student facility. Credit: Amber Esparza \/ San Antonio Report<\/p>\n

Yaden and his team at Lake Flato, an architecture design firm based out of San Antonio, Austin and Portland, Oregon, led the design and restoration project of Founders Hall, a historic building that will expand by 20% an otherwise landlocked University of the Incarnate Word main campus\u2019 footprint along Broadway and Hildebrand.<\/p>\n

UIW purchased the nine-story, 380,000 square-foot building with an attached 500-space parking garage in the spring of 2019, and AT&T remained a tenant of the building until the end of that year, according to Bexar County records.<\/p>\n

The building sits on 10 acres of land and is located right across the street from the main campus at 4119 Broadway. It was the answer to the university\u2019s otherwise inability to add classroom, office and parking space to its main campus, said UIW President Thomas Evans.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The university has expanded some of its programs outside of its main campus with the School of Osteopathic Medicine located in South San Antonio and the Schools of Rehabilitation Sciences and Optometry located on the Northwest Side.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s great to have all that territory covered all over San Antonio, but the reason we have [these schools] elsewhere instead of our campus is there was no room,\u201d Evans said. \u201cSo this was really a generational opportunity for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

University officials have not disclosed how much it\u2019s spent on the purchase of the building and renovation of the first four floors. But Evans says this is a \u201cmulti-million dollar project\u201d and since 2019, the private university has announced a handful of large gifts for the project.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe gifts that we received to make this happen, it was I think a testament to the work that we\u2019re doing and the momentum that we\u2019ve built and where we\u2019re going,\u201d Evans said. \u201cAnd it\u2019s what others hope to see for San Antonio. It is for the UIW learning community for certain, but it\u2019s also much bigger than that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Starting this fall, the first four floors of Founders Hall<\/a> will house the School of Media and Design, the School of Math, Science and Engineering, the International Affairs Department, the Liza and Jack Lewis Center of the Americas, the University Police Department and the Student Health Center.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"The grand stairway seen from the ground floor of the Founders Hall at UIW. Credit: Amber Esparza \/ San Antonio Report<\/p>\n

Yaden and his team were tasked with turning a traditional office space into more than 50 classrooms and labs, over a dozen specialty rooms such as film, television and audio recording studios, conference rooms and gathering spaces including the main events hall and an auditorium.<\/p>\n

Each floor is connected by a grand staircase, and at each level the stairwell is surrounded by sitting and study areas where students, faculty and staff can both work and be around people.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s this idea we call it the \u2018irresistible stair\u2019 where everyone comes together, people who are on the third floor or the second floor or the first floor that might not normally interact, get to interact there,\u201d Yaden said. \u201cSo we wanted to put a lot of energy into that space and make sure everyone is kind of rubbing shoulders in that space.\u201d<\/p>\n

Preserving history<\/p>\n

The university also had to adhere to the requirements of the Texas Historic Commission when renovating the building, which is among San Antonio\u2019s registered historic buildings.<\/p>\n

The mid-century modern building was originally built in 1956 and designed by architect Atlee Ayres<\/a> as the headquarters for USAA. It later housed Southwestern Bell, before multiple consolidations that led to the telecommunications giant AT&T taking over the building.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The building was known for having a bank of escalators that ran across the full length of the building. These could not be renovated to be used by students, Yaden said, but some of the structure will eventually be featured in the not-yet renovated upper levels.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a long conversation with the Texas Historic Commission,\u201d Yaden said. \u201cThey ended up being great partners in this and collaborating and trying to work with us to determine what were those items that were historically significant and how we could preserve them. We did actually preserve some of the escalators.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"A tile detail of the University of the Incarnate Word logo was installed during renovation of the building at the Broadway-facing entrance of the Founders Hall. Credit: Amber Esparza \/ San Antonio Report<\/p>\n

Founders Hall\u2019s name and design also pays homage to the history of UIW and its mission. The building is named after the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word, who founded the university in the late 1800s after arriving to San Antonio from France in 1869 with a mission to care for people during a cholera epidemic and to establish the city\u2019s first hospital, the Santa Rosa Infirmary.<\/p>\n

With this history in mind, the main entrance to Founders Hall is flanked by the offices of International Affairs, the Liza and Jack Lewis Center of the Americas, and Student Health Services.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word have always been international and they were rooted in health professions,\u201d Evans said. \u201cSo that first floor as you walk in to the right, you have our health clinic, which serves everyone. And then on the other side you have international [affairs]\u2026 because every program has an opportunity to do something internationally.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"UIW\u2019s new Founders Hall features additions like an auditorium, new classrooms and studios and plenty of offices. Credit: Amber Esparza \/ San Antonio Report<\/p>\n

The Lewis Center for the Americas was the first program announced to be headquartered at Founders Hall. In Dec. 2019, the university received an anonymous contribution of $5 million to establish the center, as well as a separate $1 million anonymous donation to support the acquisition and restoration of the former AT&T building.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The third seven-figure gift came in October 2024, when the Elma Dill Russell Spencer Foundation, managed by the family of UIW\u2019s former board chair Jack Lewis III, pledged $5 million to support the work at Founders Hall.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In 2025 Gary Joeris, CEO of Joeris General Contractors, also donated $500,000 to the project. His company had already been contracted to work on the project, starting with the pre-construction and demolition, Joeris said, a process he described as a big undertaking upfront versus projects where you start construction from scratch.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAll that up front work took about a year,\u201d Joeris said. \u201cAll the planning, all the demolition, prepping it to take on the new construction project, evaluating all the old mechanical and electrical equipment, seeing what could be used, what couldn\u2019t be used.\u201d<\/p>\n

To bring the building up to code, many of its walls had to be stripped down and most of these mechanical and electrical components had to be replaced, Yaden said. And every step of the way, they had to consider what aspects of the building should remain to preserve the historical architecture.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That process led to keeping the building\u2019s original precast terrazzo flooring at its main entrance and a diamond seal that once read USAA and was modified to read UIW. In the main events room, which is now named the Col. Charles E. Cheever Legacy Event Center, they preserved a tiered, 3D, ceiling structure that is now lined with soft lighting.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"A new aluminum art structure from Ted Voss and Lake Flato hangs near the grand stairway of UIW\u2019s newly renovated Founders Hall. Credit: Amber Esparza \/ San Antonio Report<\/p>\n

The architects not only worked to restore these aspects of the building, but to also highlight them. That\u2019s how the once buried metal screen found two new homes, one at the ground-level entrance and another at the top of the event center\u2019s staircase.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe got Ted Voss to come out, take his grandfather\u2019s screens apart, strip them down, repaint them, and then reinstall them,\u201d Yaden said. \u201cTed is a third-generation San Antonio craftsperson. And we then worked with Ted to do a new updated metal screen.\u201d<\/p>\n

This new metal screen is the focal point of the grand staircase connecting each level of the building. And soon they will also add murals at each level and a sitting area, intended to be a meditative space that will feature a glass installation.\u00a0<\/p>\n

While there was a lot of change happening on the inside of this building, officials said the outside of the structure was in good enough condition to keep with minimal changes, other than the UIW sign that went up in December 2020.<\/p>\n

The San Antonio Report partners with Open Campus on higher education coverage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A floor to ceiling metal screen built in the 1950s by a local artisan was brought back to…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":774706,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5133],"tags":[5229,216883,317506,216886,166617,71942,7202,7203,317507,358,317508,317509,284233,7453,3187,7593,67,586,132,5230,120071,68,2969,7594],"class_list":["post-774705","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-america","tag-att-building-san-antonio","tag-atlee-ayres","tag-founders-hall","tag-lake-flato","tag-liza-and-jack-lewis-center-of-the-americas","tag-san-antonio","tag-sanantonio","tag-sisters-of-charity-of-the-incarnate-word","tag-texas","tag-texas-historic-commission","tag-theodore-voss","tag-thomas-evans","tag-top-story","tag-tx","tag-typefeature","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-university-of-the-incarnate-word","tag-us","tag-usa","tag-wc-1000-1500"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116521565272940196","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/774705","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=774705"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/774705\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/774706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=774705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=774705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=774705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}