SAN ANTONIO | Urban Core Development Thread

[sirkingwilliam]

LOVE the potential roundabout. Great location too. Hopefully in the future a monument or art piece is placed in the center. Maybe a "cattle drive" to pay homage to the creation of our downtown street grid.

[miaht82]

Now if they can just address an overall design guide for buildings in/near the core. On that roundabout, you have a parking lot to the north of a suburban style bank building. This isn't the only problem I have though; you also have the McDonalds on Houston (by 35) that could have been built better and the new (still u/c) GFCU building on St. Mary's just to name off a couple.
Sidewalks are good, but they do NO good if you have 3 driveways within 50 feet, and thats not the only qualifier; the buildings also need to be up to the street and built to a higher density, or else you end up with the RIM for a DT.
Roundabout is a good idea, not quite sure what the obsession is with reverse angled street parking though?

[Keep-SA-Lame]

I don't get the reverse angled parking either. Seems like it would be more difficult to me. And even if it is in fact easier, it would definitely be perceived as being more difficult by a lot of people.

[Spoiler]

It is harder to pull in, way easier to pull out.

[Boquillas]

Originally Posted by Spoiler

It is harder to pull in, way easier to pull out.

It's not harder to pull in than parallel parking. That requires cutting the wheel twice. This only once.

I believe there's a consensus emerging that it's safer.

[Spoiler]

Originally Posted by Boquillas

It's not harder to pull in than parallel parking.

True.

[miaht82]

Originally Posted by Boquillas

It's not harder to pull in than parallel parking. That requires cutting the wheel twice. This only once.

I believe there's a consensus emerging that it's safer.

It might be.... I guess I was just thinking of the drivers side rear corner "blind spot" clipping a car on the passenger front side; but I guess with cameras helping out and having wider angles, it might not be as "blind" as it used to be on older cars that were twice (j/k) the length of newer cars.
I think I would just rather use the space for parallel parking and a bike lane or a wider sidewalks (some of the ones DT could use it) instead of the extra space required for angled parking.
One of my experiences with it was in Adams Morgan in DC and I just remember it being a b**** to park and a bit of a liability whenever we "pregame"d. It was much safer to park in the extra crowded and compact garage or up a few blocks even though you ran the risk of rats jumping up at you when stumbling back to the car.

[Boquillas]

I think I've done reverse pull-in once or twice in California somewhere. It takes some getting used to, that's for sure. The one thing I think is unusual is looking left for oncoming traffic when you pull out, because you can't use your mirror like in parallel parking.

edit: miaht82 pointed out the same issue just before I did.

[miaht82]

Originally Posted by Boquillas

I think I've done reverse pull-in once or twice in California somewhere. It takes some getting used to, that's for sure. The one thing I think is unusual is looking left for oncoming traffic when you pull out, because you can't use your mirror like in parallel parking.

edit: miaht82 pointed out the same issue just before I did.

You know, I think it MIGHT've been safer before rear-view cameras were so prevalent to help out. Now, just like you said, if you look out to the left, you can't see until you're already in the middle of the road, especially if the car to your left is a truck or SUV, which in Texas, is alot more common than in other parts of the country.


Nothing to do with this topic but just wanted to post this photo.....
took it almost 2 years ago. Only difference (that would be seen on this shot) now would be Municipal Auditorium demo, parking garage behind the Hippolito Courthouse/Post Office and University Hospital construction.

, on Flickr

[WorldTexas]

So I read the Austin newspaper regularly and came across this article this morning:

Evolution continues for Austin's skyline
By Shonda Novak

The skyline changed dramatically in the past decade, with the addition of nearly 4,800 residential units — 2,465 apartment units and 2,319 condos — since 2000...
http://www.statesman.com/business/ev...e-2453944.html

Then I saw miaht's photo, and rightly that shot wouldn't look much different today. But that got me thinking about all the stuff that's changed over the last few years. So I sat down and added up some things:

Vistana - 247 units
Vidorra - 146
Alteza - 147
The Broadway - 90
Judson Lofts - 84
St. B's - 66
Full Goods Residences - 8
HemisView - 245
Refugio Place - 210
-------------------------
Total = 1,243 units added in the last 3 years.

I hadn't realized it had been that many. Now if you add the 1,855 units listed out in the River North thread, most of which should be done by the end of next year, you get

3,098 new living units around downtown within 4 years.

Compare that with Austin and that's 65% of the total they added over 12 years. Once we add the other 1,000+ planned between Blue Star and Lone Star, that's 86% of ATX's total.

Include the Tobin Center, University Hospital expansion, new bars planned for River North, the police HQ, the commercial stuff at Pearl, all the new cafes/restaurants on Houston, and clearly there's a lot of movement happening in the area. So why aren't we more excited down here in SA?

[Keep-SA-Lame]

To be fair, The Broadway isn't downtown and the Alteza condos still are mostly vacant, aren't they?

Even leaving those out, I think the amount of residential construction is quite impressive and I'm pretty pumped about it. Where DT seems to be lagging is in office space. The vacancy rate last time I saw was almost 40%, which is not exactly stunning.

[miaht82]

Originally Posted by Keep-SA-Lame

To be fair, The Broadway isn't downtown and the Alteza condos still are mostly vacant, aren't they?

Even leaving those out, I think the amount of residential construction is quite impressive and I'm pretty pumped about it. Where DT seems to be lagging is in office space. The vacancy rate last time I saw was almost 40%, which is not exactly stunning.

The vacancy rate of Vidorra I saw prominently advertised on a huge banner on the building was either 70 or 80%. The Broadway might still be mostly vacant, but like you said, not really DT; and if we did count those, we could count the apartments off of San Marcos near the Stock Yards which are closer to SoFlo than The Broadway is to RN. As for Alteza, well, I don't expect it to sell out until at least we see another couple of rental developments announced (besides the ones that we already know are coming down the pipeline). I'd expect Lynd to announce "EnV San Antonio" at the corner of Houston and Soledad way before another "luxury" condo project gets announced.
You should take Refugio Place off of the list though, it was built in 2005. You did forget to include Cevallos Lofts though which would increase that number by 36 (more than RP). Either way, the number is impressive.
Vistana was completed in 2009 (I think March was the "soft" move-in but it might have been delayed a couple of months) and I us it as an indicator (I moved back home Oct. 2007) of what is pre/post Vistana; it was the first completed project DT after I moved back. I have a report that was done for DTA (here) and it shows what was done "Pre". 2006/2007 was the Milmo Lofts and Palacio Del Sol (Senior housing off of Frio).
I've also tried keeping up with the "post" portion and created a spreadsheet of my own to keep up as best I can; perhaps one of ya'll can tweak it and keep it a bit more detailed and up to date. I haven't included every single thing in there like all of the retail space leased out, and I didn't include the reuse stuff in there and we did have quite a bit of that for a while (Neisner, St. B's, Hotel Indigo, Home2Suites, and a majority of the retail stuff on Houston) so this list can be a bit misleading as to the true development going on in the core.
Also, just by looking at it, I can tell you that I didn't include Edwards Aquifer Authority's expansion on St. Mary's and and the Medical Offices on Camden. There might be a couple of other misses on this.


WorldTexas, I am/have been excited, although I feel as though I am the only one sometimes.
I don't think that the announcement of Sigma Solutions moving downtown will solidify DT as a "strong" office market, it surely doesn't hurt. It is lagging a bit though; we'll see what kind of effect the Pearl office space has on the rest of DT.
Good news (maybe), we have yet to hear of Graham Weston's major announcement for DT.

[KevinFromTexas]

Originally Posted by Keep-SA-Lame

I don't get the reverse angled parking either. Seems like it would be more difficult to me. And even if it is in fact easier, it would definitely be perceived as being more difficult by a lot of people.

I'm not sure it makes a lot of sense on a smaller narrow street with lower speed limits. On a large street, though, with multiple lanes and higher speed limits and traffic flow, it is safer. They put in reverse angle parking on Austin's South Congress (south of downtown). While some people don't get it and hate it, it does serve the purpose of making it easier to exit your parking space. The benefit is that you aren't blindly backing into traffic trying to get out of your space. South Congress also has a lot of bicycle traffic since it's the main route into downtown from the south, and it's made it easier for drivers to see oncoming bicycles before they pull out of their space. Believe me, as someone who rides a bicycle on that street frequently, being able to make eye contact with the driver knowing that they see you in the bike lane is a huge advantage to both the driver and bicyclist.

Besides, anyone who is a good driver who needs to back up, reverse or back into a space/driveway, knows that using your mirrors is key to pulling it off. I think people forget that sometimes.

The only drawback I've encountered is that it seems to take people longer to back into a reverse angle space than it does for them to pull into a front in parking space. Of course that doesn't matter since the amount of time it takes them to back out of a front in space is equally long. Really the only reason for reverse angle parking is to improve eye contact between drivers and cyclists and to improve visibility of oncoming traffic, thereby making it safer.

Here are two photos I took along Austin's South Congress. They installed reverse angle parking sometime earlier this year. I was riding my bicycle when I took these.
http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b2...490843EDIT.jpg

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b2...490840EDIT.jpg

[Schertz1]

Originally Posted by WorldTexas

........clearly there's a lot of movement happening in the area. So why aren't we more excited down here in SA?

There is a lack of excitement because glass high-rises are not yet part of the movement.

[JACKinBeantown]

I grew up in San Antonio and went to college at UT Austin. I always thought San Antonio was a great place to visit and Austin was a great place to live (that was several years ago). San Antonio has the Riverwalk, restaurants, the Alamo and a few other attractions downtown... mostly things for tourists. Austin's downtown has a vibrant music scene, bars, restaurants, a big river and expansive parkland... all good things for locals as well as tourists. As San Antonio gets more residents in the downtown area, hopefully there will be continually more things for them to do, thus attracting more residents downtown. It will take some time though.

[Schertz1]

Originally Posted by JACKinBeantown

I grew up in San Antonio and went to college at UT Austin. I always thought San Antonio was a great place to visit and Austin was a great place to live (that was several years ago). San Antonio has the Riverwalk, restaurants, the Alamo and a few other attractions downtown... mostly things for tourists. Austin's downtown has a vibrant music scene, bars, restaurants, a big river and expansive parkland... all good things for locals as well as tourists. As San Antonio gets more residents in the downtown area, hopefully there will be continually more things for them to do, thus attracting more residents downtown. It will take some time though.

What do you mean JACK? Should San Antonio build a big river near downtown to make it more conducive to residents? All the things you listed are for tourist and locals alike. You failed to mention there are numerous bars, a few large museums, bracken Ridge Park and a zoo……. San Antonio only lacks the large live music scene. You are right in that, with more residents downtown will get more food and bar options. But, they are plentiful now.

In all honesty, I would rather live on or close to the River Walk than in or near an entertainment /live music district. Don’t get me wrong, part of the River Walk is an entertainment district. However, the River Walk is unique, refined, historically significant, and distinctly Texas – it is more than just an entertainment district. In my opinion, there is not a cooler address or location in Texas for townhomes or high-rise condos than the San Antonio River Walk.

[JACKinBeantown]

You're right. And as I said, it's been years since I lived in either city.

[sirkingwilliam]

I am not sure if this has been posted but these are the final renderings of the Tobin Center for the Performing Arts, currently under construction.

Some information on the Tobin Center:

This renovation and expansion of the San Antonio’s historic Municipal Auditorium will celebrate the venue’s unique character while providing a state-of-the-art facility for San Antonio’s cultural arts groups. While the familiar and beloved exterior remains, the Center ‘s interior will be reconfigured to house a 1,750-seat theater, a second smaller theater, rehearsal facilities, educational spaces, and offices . It will serve as the permanent home for San Antonio’s major performing arts organizations, including the San Antonio Symphony, Ballet, and Opera. A striking feature of the project will be the technology that allows it to transform from a nearly 1,800-seat performance hall into a flat floor ballroom space. This flexibility will enhance the hall’s use for music and special events, and help generate additional revenues for the Center.

[adtobias]

Looks like Vegas.

[kornbread]

It certainly was a difficult job to transform that space. It doesn't look like it flows to me. I actually think it looked better without the new "covering". It's kind of like a fat lady wearing a sarong. It draws attention to itself. Especially on the riverwalk side. What are you trying to hide?

Maybe my memory is bad; I have to see the orginal design, but it feels like the HDRC made this worse.

Going back to the Tobin Thread I liked some early sketches, but after they had to actually make things fit it did have some issues.