San Antonio | Deep In The Heart.

[josh]

Google Fiber Lease Agreement Approved

The City Council approved Thursday, a long-term contract with Google Fiber Texas, LLC., allowing the tech company to install about 40 so-called “fiber huts” at San Antonio libraries, fire and police stations, and other city buildings.

City Council members applauded the deal, which lays the legal framework for Google to roll out a fiber-optic network that clocks Internet speeds 100 times faster than traditional broadband.

Mayor Julián Castro lauded the deal because he said it would lessen the “digital divide” in San Antonio and force better competition among Internet service providers — driving down costs and increasing speeds.

The contract allows Google Fiber to lease space for its fiber huts, which house hardware that makes the system run, for an initial 20-year period. The lease may be extended in five-year segments for another 15 years. The market-rate rent Google will pay escalates each year by 3 percent.

[josh]

Progress is ramping up on the Alamo Beer Company brewery in East Point, formerly known as the near east side.

[josh]

Rendering: View of the Brewery and Beer Garden from the Hays Street Bridge




The Hays Street Bridge at night

[josh]

In-N-Out confirms first San Antonio location will open in November on the far west side

After months of speculation, the popular fast-food chain confirmed it selected a site on the far West Side for its first location in San Antonio.

“We really like the site and hope to be able to get it under construction in the not-too-distant future,” Carl Van Fleet, vice president of planning and development for In-N-Out, said in an email.

Architectural records filed with the state Wednesday show In-N-Out plans to spend $1.5 million on a freestanding restaurant with a drive-thru at 10918 Culebra Road near Loop 1604.

This is a map of the four In-N-Out locations planned for San Antonio and the metro area so far. The far left marker is the Culebra Rd. location which will open in November.

[josh]

Tesla execs secretly visit San Antonio to meet with Mayor Castro and others

A pair of executives from Tesla Motors Inc., the electric carmaker that's scouting a location for its planned $5 billion “gigafactory,” secretly met here Wednesday with top city and county officials, a person close to the discussion said.

The meeting came less than a week after the San Antonio Economic Development Foundation submitted a proposal to the Palo Alto, Calif.-based manufacturer for the factory, which will produce lithium-ion batteries for Tesla vehicles and battery storage units for use in homes, commercial sites and utilities.

While details of what local officials offered Tesla weren't available, the proposal included a separate section for CPS Energy, positioning the city-owned utility as a potential partner for the company.

[josh]

A neat little townhouse development on a narrow strip of vacant land in Lavaca is set to be approved by the HDRC.

[josh]

Here's a cool video I found: Stone Oak in two minutes

[josh]

KACO to relocate North American headquarters to San Antonio

San Antonio will soon be home to a major solar manufacturer.

Mayor Julian Castro announced Monday night that KACO, a Germany based solar company, is moving their North American headquarters to San Antonio.

They are currently located in California, but city officials said they will make the move to the Alamo City by midsummer.

In addition to relocating 40 employees from California to Texas, KACO is expected to hire as many as 25 more employees.

[josh]

It looks like two In-N-Out restaurants will be under construction over the summer and both will open in November.

In-N-Out to begin construction on their Windcrest location in May

In-N-Out Burger will break ground on its Windcrest location in May, according to architectural records filed with the state.

The popular West Coast fast-food chain submitted its plans with the Texas Department of Licensing & Regulation last week and estimated construction of the restaurant at 8202 N. Interstate 35 would finish in November. The company plans to spend $1.5 million on the restaurant.

Earlier in March, In-N-Out confirmed it would build a free-standing restaurant with a drive-thru at 10918 Culebra Road near Loop 1604.

Construction there also should start in May and finish in November, according to public records.

[josh]

Local restaurateur is opening a vegetarian fast food (drive-thru) restaurant

Veggie burger boss, Mike Behrend is getting in on the fast food game. Behrend and his team at Green Vegetarian Cuisine will open Earth Burger at 722 NW Loop 410 inside the Park North shopping center.

Behrend, who recently opened a Green location in Houston, hopes to provide healthy options for the drive-thru set while using Gardein products and at similar price points to their corporate counterparts.

The restaurant has launched a Kickstarter campain for signage and other whatnots. Behrend said he hopes to open Earth Burger by June.

[josh]

I forgot to post this here last week.

Both Uber and Lyft are now operating in San Antonio. Lyft launched on March 21st and Uber launched on March 28th.

[josh]

AT&T Eyeing San Antonio for High Speed Internet Known as Gigapower

Less than two months after Google announced it was considering San Antonio as a location for it's new super fast 'Google fiber' internet service, 1200 WOAI news has learned that AT&T is also eyeing San Antonio for it's 'U-Verse With GigaPower' fiber service, which would provide similarly fast service.

"With the leadership of Mayor Castro, San Antonio is a testament to what is possible when policies encourage investment in technology," AT&T Regional Vice President Renee Flores told 1200 WOAI news.

At next week's City Council meeting, council will consider granting AT&T the same deal that Google was granted last month, the right to use city property, mainly exiting police and fire stations and libraries, to erect 'prefabricated communications equipment shelters' and to string fiber along existing city rights of way.

[josh]

Huge gaming and convention news!

PAX South in San Antonio announced for January 23-25, 2015

Penny Arcade is expanding PAX to Texas with PAX South in San Antonio, co-founders Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins announced today during their "Make A Strip" panel at PAX East 2014.

The inaugural PAX South will take place from Jan. 23-25, 2015; a press release from Penny Arcade did not mention a specific venue. Robert Khoo, Penny Arcade's president, teased a new PAX earlier this month on Twitter.

Prior to today's announcement, Penny Arcade ran three PAX conventions around the world: PAX Prime in Seattle, which began in 2004; PAX East in Boston, which began in 2010; and PAX Australia in Melbourne, which began in 2013. The organization also holds the developer-only event PAX Dev in Seattle just before PAX Prime.

[josh]

San Antonio city council approves master lease agreement with AT&T similar to Google Fiber pact

It was predictable. Now, AT&T has moved to protect some turf in the wake of Google Fiber’s pursuit of potential expansion to San Antonio.

AT&T has reached a master lease agreement with the City of San Antonio that would allow the company to establish a series of network huts on municipal property that could help facilitate deployment of a fiber network that would provide communications and technology services to Alamo City residents and businesses.

City Council unanimously approved the deal on Thursday.

“I applaud AT&T for responding to the call for greater competition in the San Antonio market,” says Mayor Julian Castro. “The big winners will be local consumers who will have greater access to super fast Internet speeds that can spur innovation and drive entrepreneurialism.”

If all of this sounds familiar, it should. In March, I reported that City Council approved a 20-year master-lease contract with Google Fiber Texas LLC that allows that company to rent space for network huts that would support expansion of its ultra-high-speed fiber-optic network to the Alamo City.

San Antonio is one of nine metro areas that could enter the Google Fiberhood.

[Snowman]

Given the size most of their other events are, it seems pretty likely it will be the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center

[josh]

Yes, definitely HB Convention Center. That just seemed to be left out of the official press release. It has since been confirmed.

[josh]

Microsoft partners with UTSA on three-year research pact

The University of Texas at San Antonio took a big step forward into the world of advanced energy research Wednesday morning as it joined with tech giant Microsoft to announce the establishment of a “three-year agreement to research and develop sustainable technologies to make data centers more energy efficient and economically viable.”

Microsoft is lending more than its name and support to the project. A a company executive announced a $1 million gift to UTSA’s Texas Sustainable Energy Research Institute, established in 2010 to accelerate and expand energy, water and sustainability research projects at the university.

Microsoft has undertaken a $250 million expansion of its existing data center in San Antonio, built in 2008, a project that will expand the 427,000 square foot facility by adding a companion 256,000 square foot data center next door. Energy supply and costs are key factors of data center management, and UTSA’s new mission will be to find ways to gain greater efficiency while not sacrificing reliability, especially in times of peak load demand when the state grid comes under the greatest pressure.

[josh]

WESTON URBAN PLANS TO BUILD A 1.000-UNIT URBAN VILLAGE ON THE WEST END OF DOWNTOWN SAN ANTONIO

In northwest downtown, workers are at work renovating a 120,000-square-foot, century-old former department store into the new home for Geekdom, a communal workspace for tech professionals, which has 800 members. The building will eventually have a cafe, a rooftop bar, and other amenities "that the geeks want," said Randy Smith. Mr. Smith is the president of Weston Urban, a real-estate development company founded in 2012 that aims to "create the ecosystem for tech entrepreneurialism" in San Antonio, Mr. Smith said.

Mr. Smith co-founded Weston Urban with Graham Weston, a native of San Antonio who is the chairman and chief executive of Rackspace, a cloud-computing company valued at $4.5 billion. Over the next five years, Weston Urban plans to develop a downtown district using four surface lots the group bought last year, along with three buildings it already owns, and by buying other properties. The plan includes 1,000 rental apartments plus restaurants, shops and other businesses designed to create a lively downtown.

This is the area that will be transformed by this urban village.


In the same Wall Street Journal feature, it is noted that residential demand in the Pearl District (about a mile north of central downtown)has nearly doubled to 1,500-units.

Mr. Goldsbury then began building a new neighborhood called Pearl. Today it is home to 11 restaurants and bars, a campus of the Culinary Institute of America, and 320 units of rental housing, the bulk of which were completed late last year. Apartments rent at averages of $1.80 a square foot, Mr. Shown said. A Kimpton hotel is under construction, as is high-end rental building The Cellars, where the 124 units will be priced at 40% more a square foot than existing Pearl apartments. The district has room for 1,500 more apartments, said Mr. Shown. But everything, including future apartments, is for rent.

This is the Pearl District.

[josh]

New rendering for The Prado student housing development currently under construction across from UTSA's Main Campus on the far northwest side.

It's also across the street from The Block, a popular food truck park.

The Prado is one of three large student housing developments under construction at the UTSA main campus.

The other two being:

• The Luxx
  
• Tetro

[josh]

please delete.

[josh]

Get excited!

Click on the image for a larger version.

Reata updated their packet for 930 Broadway.

In the update, they have a map of River North and overlaid it with different developments that are planned/approved/under construction.

Some we know about, some we heard about, others we are now finding out about.

What's listed:

• 1221 Broadway Phase 3 - 100 units
• The River House - 261 units (under construction)
• 1130 Broadway - 300 units (approved/construction to begin after Fiesta)
• Jones Ave. and Broadway - 300 units
• Broadway St. & 10TH St. - 100 units (renovation of Iron Mountain building)
• 930 Broadway - Medical Office
• 10th St. & Alamo St. - 250 units
• Avenue B & 9th St. - 370 units (10 stories)
• Avenue B & 8th St. - 300 units

1,981 total units are in the pipeline for River North.

[josh]

Map of River North.


The area overlaid in gray

[josh]

THE PEARL IN 2011 AND THE PEARL IN 2013

[JoninATX]

Update on the new Tobin Center for the Performing Arts





https://m.facebook.com/TobinCenterSA...9562350720825/

[josh]

Picture
of
Cherry Street Modern



in Dignowity Hills