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  #61  
Old Posted Aug 2, 2018, 10:39 PM
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Alamo Management Committee has posted Requests for Qualifications for "world class Alamo museum.

https://therivardreport.com/alamo-se...-class-museum/

While a controversial plan for the Alamo, its plaza, and the surrounding area is being vetted by committees and the public at-large, officials are moving forward with two key components for the proposed “world-class” Alamo Museum.

The Alamo Management Committee on Tuesday posted two requests for qualifications (RFQs) on the Texas Comptroller’s website for the architectural design and an architect of record to work on the proposed 130,000-square-foot museum.

“The Alamo Plan Committee is adamant that the firms chosen for these positions have outstanding and relevant resumes,” a news release sent by the Alamo Trust, which manages the Alamo, stated Wednesday.
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  #62  
Old Posted Aug 28, 2018, 1:04 PM
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  #63  
Old Posted Mar 30, 2021, 5:56 PM
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Cenotaph stays, cars go: Here’s the new City plan for Alamo Plaza

https://sanantonioreport.org/revised-alamo-plaza-plan/

The City of San Antonio no longer plans to lower Alamo Plaza or restrict pedestrian access as part of an Alamo redevelopment, according to City leaders who on Monday shared proposals for a new iteration of the Alamo Plan.

The plan has been in limbo since September, when
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  #64  
Old Posted Mar 30, 2021, 7:33 PM
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I don't understand the love for the Cenotaph. It's not even part of the original structure. I guess this works. As long as we can improve the experience of the overall site as it is. Right now, it is just there rather than having actual significance or regarding the history of the entire grounds.
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  #65  
Old Posted Mar 31, 2021, 4:59 PM
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Just saw that parade route and they are not thinking like a photographer. The route bends in front of the Alamo. One of the most iconic shots it the parade passing the Alamo, and will not look good if all the floats do a turn in front of the Alamo. Reject! Send it back!
They really need to keep Alamo Street open. There is not any good north and south routes in that area. Just Navarro to the west and Bowie on the east. Traffic will be really bad, guarantee!
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  #66  
Old Posted Mar 31, 2021, 9:43 PM
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Weren't they going to relocate the cenotaph to a traffic island or something? That would look way better than just sitting off to the side of the alamo like it does currently.
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  #67  
Old Posted Apr 1, 2021, 12:32 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by The Model View Post
Just saw that parade route and they are not thinking like a photographer. The route bends in front of the Alamo. One of the most iconic shots it the parade passing the Alamo, and will not look good if all the floats do a turn in front of the Alamo. Reject! Send it back!
They really need to keep Alamo Street open. There is not any good north and south routes in that area. Just Navarro to the west and Bowie on the east. Traffic will be really bad, guarantee!
Streets should be for people, not for cars. Particularly tiny colonial era streets downtown that have very little value for moving cars anyway. Alamo Plaza should have been closed decades ago.
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  #68  
Old Posted Apr 2, 2021, 1:43 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Keep-SA-Lame View Post
Streets should be for people, not for cars. Particularly tiny colonial era streets downtown that have very little value for moving cars anyway. Alamo Plaza should have been closed decades ago.
Agreed. And design of the plaza shouldn't be heavily influenced by a once a year parade.
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  #69  
Old Posted Apr 2, 2021, 5:00 PM
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Agreed. And design of the plaza shouldn't be heavily influenced by a once a year parade.
I agree it shouldn't be the controlling factor or anything, but there is definitely something to be said for allowing the parades if possible. It's one of the few times you'll catch any locals at the plaza, so I'm glad they're going to allow that tradition to continue.
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  #70  
Old Posted May 9, 2021, 12:55 AM
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Alamo releases renderings for sleek 2-story Exhibit Hall and Collections Building

https://www.ksat.com/news/local/2021...MVKv5fLT38kte8
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  #71  
Old Posted May 11, 2021, 11:39 PM
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The Phil Collins Memorial Storage Unit
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  #72  
Old Posted Sep 21, 2021, 11:13 PM
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Asking hard questions about the Alamo’s new Exhibition Hall

https://sanantonioreport.org/asking-...hibition-hall/

On Monday, members of the Texas Historical Commission’s antiquities advisory board gave lukewarm approval to the design of the Alamo’s $15 million Exhibition Hall and Collections Building that will be built within the Alamo walls on the property’s eastern flank.
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  #73  
Old Posted Sep 21, 2021, 11:15 PM
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Alamo plan takes shape under new vision, and it’s $60 million cheaper

https://sanantonioreport.org/new-ala...etails-coming/

The redevelopment — a result of a partnership between the City of San Antonio, Texas General Land Office, and the trust — has been on the drawing board since 2014. It’s seen a number of tumultuous fits and starts. This latest plan was approved by City Council in April, though the specifics being provided this week were unavailable.
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  #74  
Old Posted Sep 21, 2021, 11:16 PM
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Alamo officials pick design firms for museum repurposing Woolworth, Crockett buildings

https://sanantonioreport.org/alamo-museum-architects/

The Alamo Trust announced Friday that Gensler, a global architectural firm with a San Antonio office, and local firm GRG Architecture will design the new Alamo visitor center and museum.
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  #75  
Old Posted Sep 25, 2021, 1:52 AM
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(Image from Alamo Trust on the San Antonio Report)

I'm still dismayed that they are taking functioning, historic, street-level commercial buildings and gutting them for a limited-access, chintzy museum, all while downtown is still struggling to just maintain what remains of its street-level retail. Why are we demolishing what already urbanistically works? It makes me wonder which museum trust bureaucrat's offices will get all the windows looking out onto the Alamo while the actual museum displays go to the windowless back.

Worse still, the plan also requires the facade of the former Palace Theater to be demolished to make a fanciful glass arch entry for this museum. We should instead be pushing to restore the exterior of the former Palace Theater.


(Photo from Zintgraff Special Collections, Z-1216-I-1, from UTSA Libraries Special Collections found on The Top Shelf blog)

Additionally, adding the extra glass level above the Crockett Block and merging the block into a giant building radically changes the roofline in a way that I am not convinced preserves or augments the integrity of the plaza as a historical urban outdoor room. However, the State now owns the block, the currents occupants have been given notice, and the architects are hired.

What they really should have done is refurbish the already stately and limited-access Federal Building at the north end of the plaza into the museum. This is would preserve the Crockett Block while enhancing the existing powerful sequence of the existing plaza from the Torch of the Friendship, the Alamo Plaza Gazebo, the foundations of the South Gate, Plaza de Valero, the Alamo Cenotaph, and the ultimately the new Alamo Museum. The actual Federal offices can move to a new, modern building to be built upon any number of the empty parking lots in downtown as part of Federal infrastructure and revitalization investments.

Lastly, I would still move the Alamo Cenotaph, but this time 80 feet northward to stand at the northern end of Alamo Plaza closer to the current Federal Building. This opens Plaza de Valero for use as an actual plaza, or for re-enactment drills, or for memorial observances, all while still keeping the cenotaph in a memorializing position over and within the plaza while further connecting the refurbished Federal Building museum to the plaza.

Here is a rough photoshop mock up:


(Image from Google Earth with edits)


(Image from Google Earth with edits)

Those shocked by the idea that commercial buildings on Alamo Street will have commercial uses inside them can look at a possible tree line instead. Perhaps one day we can encourage outdoor café culture and further push the historical living plaza of people rather than the dead terrarium plaza some seem to want. The original impetus for foolishly expelling the cenotaph completely came from the ghastly design to close off the Plaza de Valero with glass walls and bind it as a controlled space under the museum. As a contained space, the plaza would have been awkwardly filled by the bulk of the cenotaph in its center. The walls are gone, but the problem remains that the cenotaph was designed as the centerpiece of a long traffic circle, and that traffic circle devours the space of what should be a plaza. To restore the plaza, we need to remove the traffic circle, and without the traffic circle, the cenotaph loses the basis for its current positioning. I suggest no longer treating it as a traffic circle installation, but as an actual memorial overlooking the inner plaza, and the best place for it to do that is at the northern head of the plaza.

Here we see the cenotaph is a traffic circle mostly surrounded by undefined dead space:


(Images from Google Maps)


(Image from Google Maps)

Maybe some Disney cannons here or something. Which reminds me, instead of the platformed cannon pointing goofily into the north wall of Ripley's Believe It or Not!, why not fully restore the facade of the former Grand Opera House? After all, if we are going for nostalgically historical recreations...


(Painting by Xiang Zhang on the Art Renewal Center)

Actually, we should do that anyway.

Last edited by Hindentanic; Sep 25, 2021 at 2:11 AM.
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  #76  
Old Posted Sep 25, 2021, 2:46 AM
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I agree with you generally that I would like a return to the way Alamo Plaza was. As recently as the 80s it was still a place you could go as a local and patronize a business or just hang out. My mother bought part of her wedding outfit at an Alamo Plaza shop in 1980 I believe, for example. It really was the focal point for life in the city for a century or more, even before the Alamo was a nationally known landmark. It's such a unique urban place. It's always reminded me of those piazzas in Italy that are built around the outlines of old fortresses or arenas (for those who don't know, the buildings around the edge of the plaza roughly conform to the outline of the old presidio walls). And being a kind of European-ish space, it certainly would lend itself to that kind of cafe culture, as you say.

But I'm not sure your solutions are really viable. The conversion of the Federal Building into a museum does make a lot of sense, indeed that was the original plan at the very beginning of all this. But the owners of the building, the US Government, had just spent a ton of OG stimulus money from the Obama years renovating it into fancy pants LEED certified office space, and they weren't interested in selling (and the state can't use eminent domain power against the Feds of course). And if we agree that the Alamo does need an actual museum to tell its story, which it absolutely does IMO, then there aren't a lot of other options if you want the museum to be right on the plaza. It's also worth pointing out that originally the state bought those buildings to tear down and restore part of the original mission walls. The museum wound up being plan B after a lot of pushback on that. And as for the Cenotaph, that was supposed to be moved to the area in front of the Menger, but the State Historical Commission denied that request, so we're stuck with it.

So the plan isn't what I want either, but I'm choosing to focus on the positives here:

-All the plaza streets are going to be pedestrianized (long overdue!)
-The actual plaza itself will get a complete facelift
-We will get a decent museum out of it, which hopefully will tell a better story of this place to the people who visit than what they get today, which is almost nothing
-The Davy Crockett fetishists lost in their attempt to restore the entire compound to 1836 via demolitions and reconstructions (this was a distinct possibility!)
-Also worth pointing out that all the commercial buildings on the south end of the plaza will remain in private hands. So there is maybe a glimmer of future hope that some better businesses will return to the plaza eventually.
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  #77  
Old Posted Feb 9, 2022, 8:01 PM
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Tourist attractions across from Alamo agree to vacate for museum, other redevelopment

https://sanantonioreport.org/tourist...redevelopment/

The long-time tenant of two buildings across from the Alamo has agreed to terminate its lease to make way for a museum and visitors center for the historic site as part of a multimillion redevelopment of Alamo Plaza, Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush announced Wednesday.

Phillips Entertainment Inc., which owns and operates Ripley’s Haunted Adventure, Guinness World Records Museum and Tomb Rider 3D Adventure Ride and Arcade, will cease operations by Sept. 1 and vacate the Woolworth and Palace buildings by Oct. 31, according to a General Land Office press release.

Phillips’ businesses occupy a significant portion of the buildings, but there are still some tenants with active leases within them.
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  #78  
Old Posted Feb 28, 2022, 5:13 PM
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Why is it called the Alamo? Seven things every Texan should know about the historic site

https://www.expressnews.com/news/loc...w-16941200.php

Many people come to San Antonio thinking they’re standing “in front of the Alamo” when they’re facing the Alamo Church.

When you’re in Alamo Plaza, you’re actually “at the Alamo.”

That spatial confusion, compounded by destruction of the historic mission-fort that began after the 1836 battle for Texas independence and followed with growth and encroachment of downtown development in America’s seventh-largest city, is a driving force behind a nearly $400 million makeover of the site that’s now underway. By 2026, state and city officials hope to complete construction of a museum and visitor center and a plaza renovation that will enhance the visitor experience and inspire more people to visit, stay longer and return.
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  #79  
Old Posted May 1, 2022, 6:03 PM
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Owner of Shiner beer donates $1M to Alamo Plaza conservation project

https://www.mysanantonio.com/news/lo...t-17137256.php

The restoration and conservation of Alamo Plaza has received a generous gift to give it a leg up towards becoming a reality. The Impetus Foundation donated $1 million to the Alamo Foundation on Thursday, April 28, to fund the Exhibition Hall and Collections Building that will house the Alamo collection of treasured artifacts as well as the Phil Collins Texana Collection, according to a news release.

Collins' collection will be featured in an exhibit called "A Collector's Journey," inspired by the collection he donated to the Texas General Land Office in 2014.

Carlos Alvarez created the Impetus Foundation and is the owner of the Shiner beer brand that is brewed at the Spoetzl Brewery. The 24,000-square-foot building will include a second-story terrace overlooking the Alamo Gardens and will be named the Alvarez Family Terrace.

"My family and I are proud to be a part of this effort to preserve and enhance the historic Alamo site," Alvarez said in the news release.

In February, the longtime tourist attractions in front of the Alamo like Ripley's Haunted Adventure agreed to move out of the buildings to make way for the future Alamo Museum.

Alamo officials and engineers also plan to remove the top panels of the Alamo Cenotaph this fall to inspect damage done over time. Officials promised to be careful and it does not mean the monument will move.
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  #80  
Old Posted May 7, 2022, 3:52 PM
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Land commissioner candidate Jay Kleberg weighs in on Alamo redevelopment

https://sanantonioreport.org/land-co...redevelopment/

“We need to make sure that the focus of the Alamo and the telling of its story is not just 1836, but also going back thousands of years and what happened on that site,” Kleberg told the San Antonio Report at a Cinco de Mayo rally for Democratic candidates in Roosevelt Park on Thursday.

Kleberg said he hopes to incorporate the stories of “indigenous groups that lived there,” as well as elements of San Antonio’s civil rights movement that occurred in Alamo Plaza. The lunch counter in the Woolworth Building, which will be part of a new Alamo museum and visitor center, was among the first to integrate by serving Black patrons in March 1960.

“Not all a lot of people know” about it, Kleberg said, “but that’s part of that history there in the plaza.”
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