{"id":820636,"date":"2026-05-25T07:39:23","date_gmt":"2026-05-25T07:39:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/820636\/"},"modified":"2026-05-25T07:39:23","modified_gmt":"2026-05-25T07:39:23","slug":"sage-proposes-a-public-market-space-on-the-east-side","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/820636\/","title":{"rendered":"SAGE proposes a public market space on the East Side"},"content":{"rendered":"

Whether it\u2019s the ongoing development of Pearl, projects at The Rim and the Shops at La Cantera or proposals around the Lonestar Brewery<\/a> or Project Marvel<\/a>, mixed-use districts have been growing fast in San Antonio.<\/p>\n

Now, a community organization is trying to bring something similar to the East Side.<\/p>\n

San Antonio for Growth on the Eastside (SAGE) shared proposals for a public market complex on Wednesday, looking at the Friedrich Refrigeration Building, The Hugo on East Houston Street and SAGE\u2019s headquarters on Chestnut Street.<\/p>\n

SAGE identified the three candidate sites with architecture and design firm Able City<\/a> and funded the process with a $150,000 federal grant<\/a>. All three sites would involve rehabilitating and renovating an existing building to make room for small businesses, office space or other community needs.\u00a0<\/p>\n

SAGE wants to have a final plan in June, but expects they would still face hurdles to fund and then build its public market space.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis community has waited a long time for its share of amenities, resources and \u2018third spaces\u2019,\u201d said James Nortey, SAGE\u2019s CEO.<\/p>\n

Nortey said Eastside community members deserve more \u201cthird spaces\u201d or places where community members can gather for leisure or recreation. Residents have to cross major highways to get to places like Pearl or Brooks, Nortey added. <\/p>\n

He also pointed out that the East Side lacks standard entertainment amenities like a movie theater.<\/p>\n

\"\"James Nortey of San Antonio for Growth on the East Side answers questions during the San Antonio Report\u2019s CityFest 2025 panel \u201cWhat\u2019s Next for the East Side\u201d at the Frost Bank Center on Oct. 22, 2025. Credit: Amber Esparza \/ San Antonio Report<\/p>\n

The three candidate sites bring different combinations of office, small business and community space. The Friedrich Refrigeration Building on Commerce Street would have around 68,000 square feet, the largest indoor space of the three options.<\/p>\n

The Hugo at 1228 E. Houston St. would be around 29,000 square feet and has a basement space, as well as a parking lot. Renovating SAGE\u2019s offices at 220 Chestnut St. would involve more outdoor space and utilizing Ellis Alley, which runs between the organization\u2019s two buildings.<\/p>\n

All three sites prioritize access, said Able City CEO Mario Pe\u00f1a, by being close to neighborhoods and bus lines. They\u2019re also in areas that could be primed for affordable housing construction and further investment because of their location in the City of San Antonio\u2019s tax increment reinvestment zones.<\/p>\n

Nortey said the public market complex is not supposed to be an end goal. Instead, he hopes a successful project will show banks and investors that there\u2019s no reason not to build on the East Side.<\/p>\n

\"\"Early renderings depict what a public market could look like at the Friedrich Refrigeration building at 1617 E. Commerce Street. Credit: Courtesy \/ Able City<\/p>\n

\u201cOne way we can shift that model is by demonstrating that, yes, private development can happen on the East Side. Yes, businesses can thrive,\u201d Nortey said. \u201cWe just want to make sure it\u2019s done in a way that protects Eastside residents.\u201d<\/p>\n

SAGE and Able City are also prioritizing community needs by making the planning process open to feedback. The three candidate sites were shown at a community engagement session at the Davis-Scott Family YMCA on Iowa Street, where community members could stop in, look at renderings and ask questions.<\/p>\n

SAGE and Able City have also held pop-ups and reached out to community members to get feedback. There\u2019s no set vision for what the public market complex will look like. SAGE could use its small business programming and provide support to businesses at the proposed public market, but what ultimately gets built will depend on what community members ask for.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really a space that the community gets to form. That\u2019s what we want to do with it,\u201d said Val Lara, a SAGE communications assistant. \u201cThe amenities that are there really depend on the feedback that we get today and what the community wants in general.\u201d<\/p>\n

That attitude parallels a wide-open community engagement and development process taking place on the opposite side of downtown around Cattleman Square<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The idea is still several steps from reality. Nortey said SAGE had received federal funding to develop a plan, but it still needs money for construction.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to be honest with the community, we don\u2019t want to oversell,\u201d Nortey said.<\/p>\n

\"\"Community members looked at renderings for SAGE\u2019s Public Market Complex proposal at the Davis-Scott Family YMCA on May 21, 2026.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s open to more grants, other public funding and even private investment, as long as partners on the project understand its community focus. There are still questions about how the proposed public market could be funded.<\/p>\n

\u201cTwo of the three [candidate sites] have significant redesign. One involves some potential new construction, and so we could be looking at anywhere from as low as $2 million, [to] $7 million plus,\u201d Nortey said. \u201cWe can do this in phases. We imagine based on community response that it might be more of an outdoor farmers market for a while \u2014 get the foot traffic, get the vendors and then, over a period of years, go to scale.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt could be that we strike the irons hot, [if] we have the funding and capital in place to immediately jump to scale,\u201d he added. \u201cBut whatever we do, we want to be transparent with the community.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Whether it\u2019s the ongoing development of Pearl, projects at The Rim and the Shops at La Cantera or…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":820637,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5133],"tags":[337437,5229,2556,9734,93912,24546,13123,128733,23453,7202,303526,7203,358,337438,7453,3187,7815,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,20705],"class_list":["post-820636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-able-city","tag-america","tag-development","tag-east-side","tag-james-nortey","tag-pearl","tag-project-marvel","tag-public-market","tag-sage","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-for-growth-on-the-eastside","tag-sanantonio","tag-texas","tag-third-space","tag-top-story","tag-tx","tag-typedaily","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa","tag-wc-750-1000"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116634083959413132","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820636","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=820636"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820636\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/820637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=820636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=820636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=820636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}