Of course it's touristy, it's San Antonio, one of the top visited cities in this country. What city's downtown doesn't need some improvement? I wouldn't say it's all tourist driven, because of a few out of towners downtown giving their short lived observation, one from Phoenix of all places. Phoenix, the epitomy, of what kind of downtown a city doesn't wanna have. The other two from the Dallas Ft.Worth area, need i say more. Why would any city want a critique from panelist representing those cities? I would give some regard to Ft.Worth and moreso to the D.C. panelist. They need to be more concerened about their downtown's, than San Antonio's.
Anyhow, when I was at the Riverwalk a couple of weeks ago, the waitress asked if we were from out of town, I said, "yea.. Leon Valley", she chuckled, and said, sometimes it's hard to tell whom is a tourist and whom isn't. I use to go downtown a lot more in the past, my ex has a family business downtown. Of course it's more tourists, and will always be that way, since San Antonio is a popular destination. Hopefully, with River North, Main Plaza, and all the other new hot spots, the downtown area will have more of a balance of livliness-pedestrian traffic. Main Plaza is definitely more locals than tourists.
These panelist probably missed all the residential that exsists in historic conversions, conversions that have no labels as being a dwelling. They may have walked by the South Texas Building, Majestic, Casino, The Granada, and the scores of other historic buildings that have residences. It's easy to see that San Antonio's downtown resident population isn't comprised into new construction, but, certainly moreso in historic conversions.
River North should change any negative opinions of downtown.
Great article.
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