Well, this is all a bit pie in the sky, but there was a thread a little while back about where a future tallest building in San Antonio could be, so I thought I'd try a little thought experiment on where the Spurs might build a new arena.
Why? Well, the Spurs' lease at the AT&T Center is up in 2032 apparently. Of course that's a hell of a ways off, but suppose hypothetically they wanted to move to downtown at some point---if they wait until 2032 to make that call, I doubt there will be enough free space downtown that they could buy. Hell, there might not even be enough in five years, let alone 15. So they would need to start scoping out spots ASAP.
I looked on Google at the footprint of the new arenas being built by the Warriors and the Bucks. The former is about 13 acres, the latter quite a bit smaller, only about 7.5, I outlined them on Google:
So I was trying to see where in downtown San Antonio it could be realistic to find at least 7.5 acres worth of real estate without having to destroy whole neighborhoods.
One that I thought of was the the area just north of where the Frost is being built, bounded by Camaron and Flores to the east and west, Travis and Martin to the south and north:
That one is almost exactly the same size as the new Bucks arena.
Anyone else have any other ideas? If the Spurs do indeed want to trend towards locating an arena downtown, thereby giving people a more vibrant post-game experience, they'd have to get on it relatively quickly to buy up some space, otherwise if they wait a decade it'll be significantly more expensive and they'd have to tear down swaths of buildings.