San Antonio is trading its old-school frontier town image for one of a 21st century hotspot. At least, that’s what the Wall Street Journal has noticed. A recent article in the Journal shows that as Alamo City becomes more and more a tech-business hub, investors are putting more money into developing downtown into a place tech-savvy professionals want to spend time in and businesses gather.
According to the Journal, since 2011, 2,900 housing units (five times the number built in the entire decade prior) have been built or are in the planning or construction phase. In the downtown’s northwest end, a 120,000-square-foot former department store is being converted into a communal workspace for tech professionals called “Geekdom,” which already has 800 members. What comprises the ideal gathering place for tech pros? Well, Geekdom will have a cafe, a rooftop bar, and several other “geek-friendly” amenities by the time it opens up.
But there’s more than geek-friendly hangout. The city is also in the middle of a $325 million expansion of the San Antonio Convention Center and a $280 million, six-mile streetcar project. The Journal reports that $210 million for this project has already been secured, as has $93.5 million in voter-approved funds earmarked for downtown improvement.
The push to live urban, according to the Journal, is pushing up rents downtown, but also driving up home values in the suburbs, where renovated homes in the best neighborhoods are starting to push past the million-dollar mark.
All this growth centers on San Antonio’s diverse economy, which may be ramping up in terms of tech, but is buoyed by the city’s traditional economic powers: defense, health care, and tourism, the Journal reports. Lackland Air Force and Fort Sam Houston Army Base are major employers, as is the South Texas Medical Center, just outside of downtown. And tourists to the Alamo and Riverwalk bring millions of dollars a year to San Antonio’s economy.
Downtown revitalization is happening alongside revitalization to areas that ring the downtown, where once-abandoned industrial urban wastelands are now being renovated as hip restaurant hubs and places for small business to grow. The most notable of these areas is just off I-35, where the former Pearl Brewery site now hosts a bevey of bustling businesses, including San Antonio’s best vegetarian restaurant, Green Vegetarian Cuisine.
In other words, things are only looking up for San Antonio, and business is getting better all the time. Posted by Richard Soto on
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