SAN ANTONIO – If you have been in and around downtown San Antonio recently you know there is a lot of traffic, construction and cranes. The Alamo City continues to grow, both out and up.
Matt Brown, CEO of Centro San Antonio, said the goal of all the construction is to make the downtown area a place people want to live, play and work again.
“I just want to have a lot more fun and a lot more play. And I hope we get to see a lot more of that in this coming year,” Brown said.
Brown says his vision for the future for downtown is in fact, slowly coming to fruition.
“If you look at the city, it has a strategy plan called ‘The SA Tomorrow’ and it has these 13 different regional centers and one’s the downtown retail center and it includes both Southtown and Lone Star. I think the The Pearl is just outside of it maybe,” Brown said.
It has been years in the making of both construction and production.
“Frost Tower is spectacular. What Western Urban has done with Legacy Park and you know their investment now in the new apartment building, you know that’s going to, that’s just like every day I look at new levels kind of up, it’s outstanding and they’re going to redo the Continental Hotel and do a whole redevelopment there,” Brown said.
The new Frost tower appears to be the first major domino in the reconstruction.
“That’s really what we believe is the future of downtown. And it’s not just the faraway future, but more the near future, in that’s what downtown San Antonio is going to look like and it needs to become increasingly residential,” Brown said.
The Centro San Antonio CEO said the idea is for downtown to actually go back-in-time to where people worked, lived, and went out. The area’s foundation is already filled full with culture, ideas and personality.
“I know some of the construction is going to come to an end and that will feel really like, you know, fresh and clean and exciting. I think, (it’s important) for people to come down and see what’s what’s going on. And it’ll certainly make it a lot easier to come downtown to support these things,” Brown said.
The area should continue to see improvements that aren’t going to slow any time soon.
Brown said there is a huge demand for people to live there and now they are working on adding to the supply to meet the demand.