San Antonio | Deep In The Heart.

[josh]

Rezoning makes way for 75 million dollar, 600-unit mixed-use development just south of downtown, along the Mission Reach, in the Riverside neighborhood.

The San Antonio City Council voted 6-4 Thursday night to approve the rezoning of an area home to the Mission Trails Mobile Home Park.

Council approval paves the way for a $75 million retail and residential development to be constructed in the 1500 block of Mission Road, forcing residents who live in the mobile home park to vacate the property.

[josh]

Google sends out email proclaiming San Antonio is "one step closer to Google Fiber".

[josh]

Tech company, VYSK, relocates headquarters to San Antonio.
Plans to add 50-75 high paying jobs (65k/yr) and 350 manufacturing jobs

The 18-month-old cell phone security firm VYSK announced Thursday its plans to hire 50-75 more San Antonians in the coming months in addition to the more than 25 employees already hired by VYSK.

Most jobs created by VYSK will be high-paying engineering, technology, and project management positions paying upwards of $65,000 a year, said VYSK Co-founder and CEO Victor Cocchia. By early 2016, the cellphone security startup plans on bringing 350 high-tech manufacturing jobs to San Antonio.

To double-down on their investment in San Antonio, VYSK is moving its manufacturing facilities from San Francisco and the Silicon Valley to San Antonio. ”We think Texas and San Antonio is the place to be (and) a great place to do business,” he said.

VYSK's River North headquarters along the Museum Reach

[josh]

Here are some before and after GIF images of the future 281 freeway expansion, which will begin construction sometime next year and cost nearly 1 billion dollars.

281/1604 Interchange


281 at Redland Rd. - South view


281 at Redland Rd. - North view


281 at Encino Commons Blvd - North view


281 at Stone Oak Parkway - South view


281 at Stone Oak Parkway - North view


281 at Wilderness Oak - Northwest view


281 at Marshall Rd. - South view


A few more here.

[HangryHippo]

I just don't get Texas' endless expansion of highways. At some point, that new highway is going to be congested too and $1 billion dollars would've built a lot of rail with a lot fewer impacts on the environment while being much, much easier to expand.

[Plutonic Panda]

That will be soooooo nice. Wish OKC could get nicely and constructed highways like that with real interchanges that are actually efficient.

[Plutonic Panda]

I just don't get Texas' endless expansion of highways. At some point, that new highway is going to be congested too and $1 billion dollars would've built a lot of rail with a lot fewer impacts on the environment while being much, much easier to expand.

yeah, at some point it will be congested and hopefully so. It's called growth. The more a city grows, the more traffic it gets. You can't expect them to build a 40 Lane Highway when traffic counts don't justify it either.

[ljbab728]

That will be soooooo nice. Wish OKC could get nicely and constructed highways like that with real interchanges that are actually efficient.

Somehow I knew you would like that.

[josh]

I just don't get Texas' endless expansion of highways. At some point, that new highway is going to be congested too and $1 billion dollars would've built a lot of rail with a lot fewer impacts on the environment while being much, much easier to expand.

First off, 1 billion doesn't get you much light rail and even New York and Chicago and San Francisco have highways, congested highways at that, and they're full of mass transit options. Some of the best in the nation. From streetcars and light-rail to rapid transit trains. But that doesn't mean they don't need freeways. This is America. A country that is incredibly car oriented. Americans like their cars, no amount of light-rail is going to change that.

Second, there's a reason this is happening. It's not to just build it, it's to relieve some of the worst congestion in the state. Stone Oak is a small area some 15 miles north of downtown San Antonio that grows by 5,000 people a year. Stone Oak first broke ground as a master-planned community in the early 1980s, and as of 2013 has a population of nearly 80,000. In 2000, it had a population of 20,000. That's 60,000 people in just 13 years! And that's Stone Oak. Cibolo Canyons has exploded in growth since the mid 2000s and 281 north of 1604 is sandwiched right between both master-planned communities.

The traffic in the Stone Oak area is insane. The traffic on 281 that runs just east of Stone Oak is even more insane.

During rush hour and post rush hour, traffic is at a stand still for miles.

The following two pictures of the 1604/281 area were taken at two different times of the year back in 2012.

Spring 2012:

281/1604 viewing south



Fall 2012:

281/1604 viewing north


This is 281 a few miles north of 1604/281:


This is 281 a few miles south of 1604/281:

As I said: This is a daily and nightly occurrence.

The freeway expansion is long overdue and actually should have/would have begun construction back in 2006 had it not been for anti-toll groups suing and causing the county to do environmental study after environmental study, which caused them to lose their funding which caused even more delay. Now, there is funding, everything has been approved and everything is set.

Btw, just for reference, the 281/1604 interchange is the same distance from downtown San Antonio as downtown Edmond is from downtown OKC.

[josh]

BIG TEX DEVELOPMENT TO HAVE OFFICIAL GROUNDBREAKING THIS FRIDAY

The dirt will be flying soon on one of the latest multifamily projects within the center city.

This Friday, James Lifshutz of Lifshutz Cos. LP and Dan Markson Sr. of NRP Group LLC will join city officials to celebrate the start of construction on Big Tex — a $50 million plan to turn the former Big Tex Grain Co. into an eclectic urban residential community.

Plans call for 336 units and 6,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space.

Mayor Julián Castro and Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff will also be on hand for the event.

The project is now being hailed as the gateway to the Mission Reach portion of the San Antonio River.

[josh]

MIXED-USE DEVELOPMENT, ON CLAY STREET, PLANNED FOR SOUTHTOWN
212-UNITS WITH GROUND FLOOR RETAIL

[josh]

Both the Clay St. mixed-use and the Big Tex development are in the same area of Southtown.

[josh]

Many may not know this, but most of the San Antonio Riverwalk is actually connected to and part of the San Antonio River. Most of people know or identify as the "Riverwalk" are man made channels connected to the actual river. For most of its history, the Riverwalk was the only developed part of the river, which runs down the middle of San Antonio. However, since 2007, nearly $400 million has been spent improving the San Antonio River. Those improvements have come in the form of two different segments. The Museum Reach (completed: 2009) and the Mission Reach (completed: 2014). Both of which had always been overgrown, dirty and cluttered. However, as I said, since 2007, hundreds of millions have been spent improving those areas. The Museum Reach is a 1.3 mile urban extension north of the Riverwalk. The Mission Reach is an 8 mile "park" extension south of the Riverwalk. All four segments are connected, creating a nearly 12 mile linear park.

The $400 million improvement project was completed earlier this year.

This article details the economic impact of the 5 year old Museum Reach.

For comparison, the 70+ year old Downtown Reach, aka the Riverwalk, is 2.5 miles and has an annual economic impact of $3 billion.

ECONOMIC IMPACT OF THE MUSEUM REACH EXCEEDS $130 MILLION

Local officials have compiled new data demonstrating the economic impact of the Museum Reach portion of San Antonio River improvements.

That price tag for that 1.3 mile leg of improvements north of downtown was $72 million. However, officials with the City of San Antonio and the San Antonio River Authority point to numbers provided by Alamo City economist Steve Nivin which indicate that the total annual economic impact from the Museum Reach redevelopment is nearly double the initial investment.

The project, completed in 2009, has catalyzed development along the Museum Reach, attracting 50 new businesses and more than 1,200 new housing units, representing in excess of $253 million in private investment. According to Nivin, those businesses employ the equivalent of 800 full-time positions and support more than 1,200 jobs across the city.

Nivin estimates that the cumulative impact of these businesses generate a direct output of more than $81 million and a total economic impact of $139 million annually.

MAP OF THE SAN ANTONIO RIVER SEGMENTS

[josh]

Pictures of the four different segments.

MUSEUM REACH





























DOWNTOWN REACH























EAGLELAND REACH

















MISSION REACH

[Plutonic Panda]

Josh, those pictures are incredible. Did you take those or are they photos from somewhere else?

Your canal is truly world class. I hate to say this, but the Bricktown Canal doesn't even compare. I really wish they would expand the canal a mile or two in total length.

[Dubya61]

Josh, those pictures are incredible. Did you take those or are they photos from somewhere else?

Your canal is truly world class. I hate to say this, but the Bricktown Canal doesn't even compare. I really wish they would expand the canal a mile or two in total length.

Note: San Antonio's river is not a canal.

[Plutonic Panda]

Note: San Antonio's river is not a canal.

I'm talking about the canal downtown. I understand the last set of pictures wasn't part of the canal.

It just seems OKC's Canal is very underwhelming from what I've seen of the canal in San Antonio.

[HangryHippo]

San Antonio is beautiful. Thanks for the pictures Josh.

[zookeeper]

I love San Antonio. Nice collection of pictures, Josh.

[josh]

I appreciate the kind words.

Btw, just a small note. Nine of the arched pedestrian bridges are the same in those pictures. Each one is different and at a different location along the Mission Reach.

[josh]

DOWNTOWN MIXED-USE PROJECT WINS INITIAL OK
272-UNITS, 450-SPACE PARKING GARAGE AND 50,000 SQUARE FEET OF COMMERCIAL SPACE

An underused segment of downtown, two blocks south of the Bexar County Courthouse, could become the site of a vibrant mixed-use development that would include 272 apartments, half of which would be priced for people who earn less than San Antonio's median income.

The $50 million development would also include about 50,000 square feet of commercial space and 450 parking spots.

City Council is slated to vote later this month on an incentives package that would move the project forward.

LOCATION


THE BUILDING ON THE LEFT WITH BE RAZED

[josh]

I appreciate the kind words.

Btw, just a small note. Nine of the arched pedestrian bridges are the same in those pictures. Each one is different and at a different location along the Mission Reach.

Oops, should be none, not nine.

[JoninATX]

Great pictures Josh.

[josh]

SAN ANTONIO URBAN CORE DEVELOPMENT MAP

[Urbanized]

I'm talking about the canal downtown. I understand the last set of pictures wasn't part of the canal.

It just seems OKC's Canal is very underwhelming from what I've seen of the canal in San Antonio.

You understand, don't you, that the San Antonio Riverwalk is the result of many decades of focused effort and multiple waves of development? Do you understand that at various times during its existence the Riverwalk was written off as a sewer and as a crime-ridden wasteland? And yet believers in its potential prevailed and made it what it is today.

The final chapter of development associated with the Bricktown Canal is many years from being written, and hopefully one day soon it will find champions in the same way the Riverwalk has. To make apple-to-apples comparisons between the two is unfair to both. You need to look for context before comparing them.