Lisa Nungesser rarely leaves downtown San Antonio.<\/p>\n
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She walks up to five miles a day with her dog Scout, starting out from her condominium above the Dick\u2019s Last Resort bar on the River Walk and following the walkways along the San Antonio River.<\/p>\n
Nungesser, 69, greets police officers patrolling on bicycles, chats with a barista at the Grand Hyatt hotel and tells confused tourists how to find the Alamo.<\/p>\n
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She said her 16-year-old Honda CR-V only has about 74,000 miles on it. She\u2019s racked up some of that mileage driving to grocery stores outside of downtown when\u00a0H-E-B\u2019s small South Flores Market store doesn\u2019t have what she\u2019s looking for.<\/p>\n
She goes with friends to shows at the Tobin Center for the Performing Arts and Majestic Theatre and meanders through Civic Park at Hemisfair. Most nights, she enjoys the mariachi music that wafts up from the River Walk as she\u2019s going to sleep.<\/p>\n
She said she hasn\u2019t experienced any crime since moving to the center city in 2019.<\/p>\n
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\u201cIt\u2019s the perfect place,\u201d Nungesser said. \u201cI can\u2019t imagine living in the suburbs. I would cry every day.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Downtown San Antonio resident Lisa Nungesser often walks with her dog, Scout, through\u00a0Hemisfair. Nungesser is on the board of directors of the Hemisfair Conservancy.<\/p>\n
Sam Owens\/San Antonio Express-News<\/p>\n
Nungesser is something of an anomaly in San Antonio, where many residents are down on the inner city. They see it as a tourist trap where parking is hard to come by and too expensive, horse-drawn carriages clog narrow streets and homeless people mill around, making passersby nervous.<\/p>\n
As of 2020, U.S. Census estimates that 3,800 people lived downtown, an area bordered by C\u00e9sar E. Ch\u00e1vez Boulevard to the south to Brooklyn Avenue to the north, between highways to the east and west. That was up from nearly 3,400 in 2010.<\/p>\n
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The current population is almost certainly higher than it was six years ago, given the number of apartments built since then.<\/p>\n
Government officials, real estate developers and University of Texas at San Antonio leaders want to drive up the number of people living downtown. They\u2019re pouring billions \u2014 in both tax dollars and private capital \u2014 into trying to transform the area into an appealing place for locals to spend their time and money, and to make their homestead.<\/p>\n
For a city\u2019s downtown to boom, it needs amenities, such as parks, museums and concert halls, that attract both locals and out-of-towners; big employers with armies of office workers who fill shops and restaurants on their lunch hours; and residents who help keep the area humming after hours.<\/p>\n
The chance to turn San Antonio\u2019s downtown into a hot spot is a big reason the city and Bexar County are\u00a0steering tax dollars to the construction of a Spurs arena at Hemisfair, the linchpin of the sports and entertainment district known as Project Marvel, and a Missions baseball stadium near Fox Tech High School.<\/p>\n
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But the urban core continues struggling on the corporate front, with no relief in sight. It\u2019s got no Fortune 500 headquarters or major satellite offices to brag about, and its aspirations of creating a web of technology and cybersecurity companies haven\u2019t panned out. And the pandemic set off an exodus from office buildings, resulting in far fewer white-collar workers.<\/p>\n
Economic development leaders say a lively downtown could help them attract companies whose employees want to live in walkable, urban neighborhoods.<\/p>\n
Are boosters convincing more\u00a0urbanites like Nungesser to move downtown?<\/p>\n
They\u2019re not stampeding down Houston Street, but there are signs that in the years ahead many will call the area home.<\/p>\n
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UTSA leaders are planning to move thousands of students, faculty and researchers to their downtown campus. They built a pair of buildings for AI and\u00a0cybersecurity programs and moved colleges into an office building they acquired from Affinius Capital.<\/p>\n
Their goal is to enroll 10,000 students at the campus by 2028<\/a>. Some 4,178 students were attending classes there as of last fall.<\/p>\n As the university brings more people downtown, the thinking goes, some portion of them will want to live\u00a0in the area.<\/p>\n Theirs aren\u2019t the only public funds at play.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n The still-under-construction University of Texas at San Antonio School of Data Science and National Security Collaboration Center is seen Wednesday, Jan. 26, 2022 next to Commerce Street next to Section 2 of Phase 1 of the San Pedro Creek Culture Park. UTSA held a virtual groundbreaking for the 167,000-square-foot, six-story building on Jan. 25, 2021 according to the university website and they expect to have classes in the building this year.<\/p>\n William Luther\/San Antonio Express-News<\/p>\n The city and county are giving developers subsidies, such as San Antonio Water System fee waivers and property tax exemptions, to build housing downtown to keep the area active around the clock.<\/p>\n Weston Urban, the most active downtown development firm, opened its\u00a0Frost Tower office building in 2019 and has constructed more than 600 apartments since then. The firm plans to build hundreds more apartments around the Missions ballpark<\/a> in the northwest corner of downtown. The firm\u2019s founders, former Rackspace Technology chairman Graham Weston and developer Randy Smith, are part of the group that owns the Double-A minor league team.<\/p>\n On the other side of downtown, more apartments are in the works at Hemisfair, near the site of the future Spurs arena.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n People swim in the pool at the InterContinental San Antonio Riverwalk hotel. Local officials are trying to draw more residents, not just tourists, to downtown.<\/p>\n Sam Owens\/San Antonio Express-News<\/p>\n Urban living<\/p>\n Nungesser grew up in San Antonio but she spent her working life in other big cities, several of them much more cosmopolitan than her hometown: Los Angeles, Mexico City, Austin, San Diego and Baltimore. She bought her River Walk condo in 2001 but didn\u2019t start living there full-time until seven years ago when she retired as a transportation and environmental planner.<\/p>\n She returned to San Antonio\u00a0to live near family.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n The urban lifestyle Nungesser loves is appealing to some young adults, empty-nesters, retirees and couples without kids. But to many San\u00a0Antonians,\u00a0 it\u2019s not attractive or affordable. They may drive downtown a handful of times a year to show visitors the Alamo, catch the holiday lights on the River Walk or take in a concert at the Tobin. Otherwise, they stay away.<\/p>\n People with children want larger houses with yards in better school districts, and renters can find cheaper apartments in the suburbs. Downtown is noisy and crowded during events like Fiesta and the NCAA Men\u2019s Final Four tournament. Traffic cones and torn-up streets vex drivers and often pedestrians, and Project Marvel\u2019s development will mean years of such construction.<\/p>\n When Nungesser invites friends over from other neighborhoods, she said they often complain about parking, even though \u201cthere\u2019s plenty of it.\u201d A recent study commissioned by the city and Centro San Antonio, which advocates for downtown residents and businesses, says there\u2019s ample parking downtown at a variety of rates\u00a0\u2014 it\u2019s not all expensive. But many locals don\u2019t see it that way.<\/p>\n If government officials and developers want to draw more residents to the area, it needs more affordable housing and sidewalks that are\u00a0e-scooter-free\u00a0and safer for pedestrians,\u00a0Nungesser said.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n She praised the work of the Haven for Hope homeless campus and\u00a0Centro San Antonio\u2019s yellow-shirted ambassadors, who often help people struggling with homelessness. But she said suburbanites spending time downtown are often anxious about the number of homeless people they see.<\/p>\n People walk along the River Walk in downtown San Antonio. Many residents rarely go downtown in part because it is geared toward tourists.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Andrew J. Whitaker\/San Antonio Express-News Class attendees bow to close out a Mobile Om yoga class at the San Pedro Creek Culture Park on Monday, Aug. 12, 2024, in San Antonio, Texas.<\/p>\n Josie Norris\/San Antonio Express-News Residents who live downtown said they enjoy walking to events,\u00a0restaurants and the River Walk.<\/p>\n Andrew J. Whitaker\/San Antonio Express-News<\/p>\n Residential growth<\/p>\n In 2009, the year Mayor Juli\u00e1n Castro took office, a partnership that included local developers Ed Cross and David\u00a0Adelman opened the Vistana, which has since been rebranded as Inspire Downtown.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n The 247-unit apartment building at 100\u00a0N. Santa Rosa St. was the largest residential project built downtown in decades, and it received plenty of public assistance\u00a0\u2014 a tax abatement, a loan and fee waivers from the city.<\/p>\n Castro launched his \u201cDecade of Downtown\u201d initiative a few months after renters started moving in. The linchpin of the effort was construction of market-rate housing, with the city providing tax rebates, loans and fee waivers to developers to build in the urban core, where land costs are higher and projects are harder to finance.<\/p>\n Mayor Julian Castro has been in office for 100 days. He had political aspirations from an early age. Sept. 2, 2009.<\/p>\n Billy Calzada\/San Antonio Express-News<\/p>\n City and county leaders were also spending millions to make the area more attractive.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n The Museum Reach linking the River Walk to Pearl opened in 2009, the same year that City Council created a corporation to oversee\u00a0Hemisfair\u2019s redevelopment. That same year, the San Antonio Housing Trust Public Facility\u00a0Corp. was established to help finance mixed-income apartment complexes. The Mission Reach connecting the River Walk to the Missions National Historical Park was completed in 2015.<\/p>\n The programs worked. Developers receiving public subsidies built thousands of apartments and condominiums, which helped turn Pearl and Southtown into urban destinations.<\/p>\n \u201cThese incentive programs led to a substantial amount of new construction and units that probably wouldn\u2019t exist today,\u201d said Danny Khalil, director of market analytics at real estate data firm CoStar.<\/p>\n But council members and community activists questioned whether the city should keep subsidizing high-end housing while neglecting affordable housing, and the incentive programs were\u00a0overhauled<\/a> in 2018 and allowed to expire in 2020.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n But the city and county have continued providing tax breaks and fee reimbursements for downtown housing, including Weston Urban\u2019s 300 Main high-rise, the firm\u2019s Continental Residences at 110 S. Laredo St. and the conversion of the Tower Life office building at 310 S. St. Mary\u2019s St. into apartments, a project spearheaded by the\u00a0McCombs family and Cross.<\/p>\n The number of apartments downtown has jumped 115.6% since 2018, though the 3,500 units comprise just a sliver of the inventory city-wide, according to CoStar. The average rent downtown is $1,695 per month, compared with the citywide average of $1,220 a month.<\/p>\n Local officials are trying to draw more residents, not just tourists, to downtown.<\/p>\n Andrew J. Whitaker\/San Antonio Express-News<\/p>\n The housing options are stratified, ranging from aging public housing to multi-million-dollar condominiums and new high-rises, with little in the middle.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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