Developers add Christianity to mix
Web Posted: 07/19/2007 08:13 PM CDT
http://www.mysanantonio.com/business...0.2b70378.html
Rachel Stone
Express-News Business Writer
The cornerstone of Clyde and Peggy Smith's new development in Northwest San Antonio isn't made of brick or marble.
It's a little cube of plastic and paper.
Plans for Smith Parkway, the 20-acre development near Ralph Fair Road and Interstate 10, include 30 garden homes, a hotel, a restaurant, a bank and office condos totaling about 200,000 square feet.
But the couple's nondenominational Christian ministry is the development's driver. And that ministry is built on the EvangeCube, a colorful puzzle that sums up Christianity and can bring sinners to their knees, Peggy Smith said.
The $30 million development's focal point is a 15,000-square-foot training and worship center, where people — particularly college students — can learn to evangelize with the cube during two-day training sessions.
The center will feature guest speakers on Sunday mornings and will host weddings, luncheons, Bible study groups, concerts and meetings.
They expect to break ground on the training center this fall and want to open it by Easter.
"It's God's project," Peggy Smith said. "We just want to do what he would want. It's his land."
So don't expect to see a Hooters going in there. The 120 pages of deed restrictions include a ban on alcohol in the development, including the statement: "No alcohol-related business or sexually related business are permitted."
Project developer Jim De La Garza, principal of San Antonio-based Ocean 2 Ocean, said, "We're not in here to sell the property. We're looking for the right people who want to be part of a family-oriented, moral-based community."
Marq Hughes is building the garden homes, which are expected to start at around $300,000.
The offices will be marketed to doctors, title companies and other professional services. Fort Worth-based broker Patricia Craus is pre-selling the offices, but declined to quote a price.
The Smiths want to save as many trees as possible to give the development a serene feeling. The plans include restaurant and limited-service hotel pad sites, which could serve the training center's students.
Ocean 2 Ocean president and architect, Laura Vanoni-De La Garza, designed the training center in a "contemporary Spanish" style with terra cotta roof tiles and a stucco exterior. The entire development is expected to jibe with that design.
Clyde Smith developed the Tapatio Springs golf club in the early 1980s. When the Smiths sold the club for an estimated $20 million in 1990, they changed their focus to saving souls.
Their organization, Smith & Smith Ministries, supports Christian churches wherever the Smiths happen to go. They once spent six months increasing membership and making building repairs at a Baptist church in Maui, where they had gone for vacation.
Jack Parker, one of two partners who bought Tapatio Springs from the Smiths, showed them the EvangeCube about five years ago.
Since then, they've felt God calling them to open a training center, Peggy Smith said.
"We bought this land four years ago with the idea that we would donate it to a church," she said.
The couple, who live in the Dominion, were searching for land to build the training center site when "overnight, just like that, God said 'You already have the property,'" Peggy Smith said.
An on-site sales office is open now and can be reached at (210) 651-4355.
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