It's handsome enough and I am again glad they are rehabilitating the Continental Hotel and Arana buildings.
I admit though that I am not a fan of the blank brick wall of the garage podium behind the Arana Building. In the previous renderings it was somewhat masked with some artistic license using trees and the ventilation openings of the garage. Obviously, having actual units in the corner in reality precludes the ventilation opening and so now we have the resultant blank wall. The preserved Arana Building is not likely to rise any higher, so that dead wall behind it will essentially become permanent.
The generic murals also don't grab me, as I am not entirely sold on the San Pedro creek facing base and the big hanging poster art. However, they do give me an idea...put a vast urban mosaic on the blank wall over the Arana Building!
This is facing south, so maybe it should be a mosaic of colored glass to give it a shimmering sparkle. Light fixtures on the roof of the Arana Building can similarly give it moody nightlighting. San Antonio has a local mural and mosaic tradition, and this is along the San Pedro Creek Culture Park. This isn't especially hard to do, and it is what our public art initiatives should be encouraging from developers.
Whatever artistic image used should complement and highlight the character of the Arana Building behind which the wall forms a backdrop. I ruthlessly grabbed a beautiful image found online with appropriate scale and complementary colors. The original painting, "
Magic of Emerald Ocean" by Nadins ART, can be found at Artfinder.