Why cant the parking garage have retail?

^^ Short-sightedness.

The city's planning department really needs to start implementing zoning and land use restrictions and guidelines for the core.

I'm in Beantown. Maybe some SA forumers could talk to the right people to help make that happen.

I do have a friend that is a planner here. I'm not entirely sure what his responsibilities are tho.

I believe that San Antonio has a requirement for retail on the ground floor of all downtown parking garages. I don't know, however, if they will count the (small) retail in the apartment building as satisfying the requirement.

Who says there isn’t?

Given no information, I'm assuming the worst.

Is there anything out there that says there is not going to be retail at the parking garage?

All they’ve said is there will be a 5 story parking garage across the street. You can’t assume anything until full details are released.

The Tobin garage doesn’t have any retail.

They also said that the retail space for the project has been reduced to 4000 feet. Assuming they consider the parking garage part of the project, it doesn't sound good.

For the tower, not the overall. There very well not be any retail with the garage. But nothing will be known until plans are 100% released. Getting in an uproar til then does no one good.

:breakcomp:

The Tobin garage does have retail, technically. There's meeting space for the church and the corner has a space that's not occupied.

Settle down now.

I don’t know anything about this project, but forcing retail where it doesn’t work isn’t a good idea. Look around that area and tell me what other retail there is. Are there other buildings that have shops and restaurants in them? Not really.

The little mom and pop pizza/Ice cream place at Nueva and S st Mary’s is a much more visible location, and still seems to struggle.

If you want more downtown retail, more people need to support the existing downtown retail first.

That area? You mean downtown? Or the half-block radius of the project site as it looks in 2018? Why do you think the current state of the area determines how the area should be in the future?

I mean that block or two radius. I just want projects to get built. Forcing uses that aren’t market driven doesn’t help projects get built.

The city did ground floor retail facing St Marys when they built the Travis garage (which has lots more traffic than Villita) and it sat mostly empty, for years until they finally put city offices into it.

Putting the Whataburger into the Riverbend garage (which has tons of traffic) required an enormous amount of infrastructure (venthoods can’t vent up through the garage slab, they needed a big refrigerated trash storage room to keep everything from smelling, etc.)

It just isn’t easy to do, costs a lot, probably prevents you from doing a cheaper Pre-cast garage, etc., so it’s only worth it if there is lots of retail traffic. If they want to put a fitness place and subsidize a coffee place as amenities for the apartments, that’s great. I’m all for it. I just think you have to be realistic on what the market will bear.

The ground floor retail at Jones and Rio across from the SAMA remains vacant. Seems a pretty ideal location for retail also.