SAN ANTONIO | City and Metro News Thread
Hardberger sees 'golden years' for S.A.
In an address laced with bold statements about his vision for the city's future, Mayor Phil Hardberger on Thursday called the coming year "a time for doing" and vowed to lead San Antonio into unprecedented growth and prosperity. Addressing a downtown hotel ballroom packed with city, county and business leaders, Hardberger struck a relentlessly optimistic tone in his State of the City speech, promising big changes in the coming year, with more to come thereafter. The changes this year include $550 million in new public spending he plans to put before voters in May as well as an assortment of public and private investments planned around the city in the coming months. In a 25-minute speech interrupted a half-dozen times by applause, Hardberger said 2006, his first full year in office, had been a time for planning. The current year, he said, "will be a year to make good on the promise of our dreams, and a year to see a new San Antonio rise before our eyes." He said the effort is well under way to "rebuild the foundation of our city ... that will allow our city to prosper not just for the next decade, but for the next century."Hardberger, who has announced his intention to seek a second two-year term, said the May 12 bond election — in which the city hopes to win voters' approval for $550 million worth of major street paving and storm drainage projects as well as park improvements — will be a key element to lead San Antonio's "emergence into its golden years." "The importance of (the bond's) successful passage cannot be overstressed," he said. "A bond election is a city's vote of confidence in itself. It means that San Antonio's citizens have optimism about their city and their future" and that "they trust their government to deliver." Despite the size of the bond proposal — the largest in the city's history — Hardberger stressed there wouldn't be a tax increase. That drew applause at the Chamber of Commerce-sponsored luncheon. He said the bond package, while unprecedented in size, "is also historic for the manner in which it will be spent." The proposal would provide $300 million for street paving and sidewalk improvements, $150 million for drainage projects, $50 million for acquisition of parklands and upgrades to existing parks and $50 million for community initiative projects to be split evenly among the 10 City Council districts. Hardberger said City Manager Sheryl Sculley, whom he hired, is "the finest city manager in the United States." The hard-driving manager created the citizens bond panels that will guide the allocation of the funds. Four 32-member panels have headed the different bond initiatives. They have, for the most part, endorsed spending proposals developed by city staff. The panels' outlines of how to spend the bond funds will be presented to the City Council next week. The mayor highlighted unprecedented business growth and said the developments of the coming year will be the foundation from which business and public/private ventures flourish. He said a host of business growth would contribute to the city's national prominence, including AT&T's local construction of the largest voice and data network in the world; the decision by Tesoro, a Fortune 500 firm, to build a new facility on 122 acres on the North Side; the opening of a $24 million, 258,000 square-foot research and development lab at Brooks City-Base; and the planned construction of a $550 million data center by Microsoft. The mayor also noted that Fort Sam Houston is set to spend $1.6 billion for new construction. Hardberger said that within the next three months, three major public-private ventures will be launched including a new homeless shelter, the redevelopment of Main Plaza and the Museum Reach of the River Improvement Project. Hardberger spoke of the foresight of Walter Mathis, who developed the once-seedy, now-trendy King William neighborhood, as the blueprint for his own vision of park development. Key to that vision will be the $36 million in bonds that will be used to purchase the Voelcker Ranch. A Hardberger favorite, the 204-acre property that he predicted will become "one of the finest urban parks in the United States," is virgin land he termed "a breathtaking expanse of urban landscape" containing centuries-old trees. "To walk among those trees — many older than the heroes of the Alamo, older than the Alamo itself — is to know our history," he said, drawing sustained applause from the overflow crowd. |
Aren't State of the City speeches fun? Everyone gets so pumped up.
|
Corporate year-in-review all-hands meetings are the same.
The thing that's really crazy is 2 year terms and 2 term "term limits". That's almost no time to get anything done. Especially when you consider that term limits have always been in place, but they have generally been referred to as elections. Anyway... In this case I can understand the mayor's enthusiasm. There are a lot things happening that could really impact future economic development for the city. I think the real benefits may not happen until long after he leaves office, but here's to getting pumped up:cheers: |
Quote:
|
SAN ANTONIO | City and Metro News Thread
From mysa.com:
The Kohl's department store chain will open an operations center in San Antonio that's expected to employ more than 1,000 people within about three years. Kohl's planned expansion follows Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co.'s announcement in October that it would create 838 jobs at a new regional corporate campus to be built in the Westover Hills area. It already employs more than 900 locally. http://www.mysanantonio.com/business...wFullArticle=y |
SAN ANTONIO | City and Metro News Thread
The city is a finalist to land an aerospace project that would bring 5,000 jobs that have an average salary of $100,000. The overall economic impact would be 28.5 billion over tens years or 2.8 billion a year. There would also be over an over 1 billion dollar facility built for manufacturing and R&D.
http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/art...28-4284825.php |
wow! Imagine the footprint this would have on the south side and then the entire city. Let's hope SA gets this.
|
Chinese fashion company making San Antonio their North American headquarters. http://ww4.hdnux.com/photos/21/15/54.../3/628x471.jpg Quote:
|
Czech Republic energy company establishes HQ in San Antonio. Quote:
|
Did we get those 5000 jobs.
|
SAN ANTONIO | City and Metropolitan News Thread
Post news articles or columns that wouldn't validate creating a thread for and also do not belong in the downtown development thread, metro development thread or transportation thread.
Basically, any and all miscellaneous news and information pertaining to San Antonio or the metro area that doesn't belong anywhere else. :cheers: |
Average home price in San Antonio for August jumped to $210,000 http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5060/5...ff63376b_z.jpg Quote:
Quote:
|
This is a great idea, Sir.
|
Wizard World bringing Comic Con to San Antonio beginning in 2014. http://ep.yimg.com/ay/wizardworld/sa...n-center-7.jpg Quote:
LINK |
Quote:
LINK |
Quote:
|
Quote:
|
KCI, LifeCell Corp and Systagenix to merge Headquarters will be in San Antonio Quote:
|
Quote:
|
Eilan joins Marriott’s Autograph Collection of hotel properties http://assets.bizjournals.com/sanant...16%20Eilan.jpg Quote:
|
All times are GMT. The time now is 9:29 PM. |
Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.7
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.