SAN ANTONIO – Some San Antonians are calling “foul ball” on a plan to bring a new minor league baseball stadium to downtown.
The City of San Antonio laid out a joint plan with Bexar County and the San Antonio Missions on Aug. 14 to fund a $160 million ballpark along San Pedro Creek. The plan relies heavily on surrounding development creating new tax revenue that can pay off the costs of construction.
The city says the team will not get the funding it needs until development is ready to start.
While supporters like Mayor Ron Nirenberg say it’s a fair deal with a group of local owners, a ball team’s worth of opponents came to a public hearing Thursday afternoon to object to the funding method, a lack of public input on the plan so far, and residents’ displacement from a low-cost apartment complex.
“This project is all about the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer,” local activist Graciela Sanchez told council members.
Randy Smith and Graham Weston, the co-founders of downtown developer Weston Urban, are also part of the Missions’ ownership group, Designated Bidders. Smith is both the CEO of Weston Urban and a member of the Missions’ board of directors.
The stadium funding plan is based around Weston Urban performing at least two phases of development around the proposed ballpark. In all, four phases with about $1 billion of taxable value are planned through 2031.
The stadium itself is expected to be ready for opening day in April 2028.
The project would take place inside the Houston Street Tax Increment Refinancing Zone (TIRZ), which allows a portion of local tax revenue to be set aside and invested back into local projects.
While the money isn’t technically coming out of the city or county budgets, critics of the project say it is public tax dollars.
SOAP FACTORY RESIDENTS WOULD BE FORCED OUT
Thursday’s biggest concern was for residents of the Soap Factory Apartments, which a Weston Urban-linked entity, And I Cannot Lye, acquired in 2023.
Made up of three clusters of buildings at the intersection of North San Rosa Street and West Martin Street, the Soap Factory has 381 units, according to multiple real estate sites. Though it is technically all market-rate housing — Smith says it’s actually priced above the market as a whole — the apartments are cheap for downtown.
The Soap Factory’s website lists rent for studio apartments as low as $682, one-bedrooms starting at $765 and a two-bedroom starting at $1,245.
Meanwhile, the average rent for downtown is $1,590, according to the website Rent Cafe.
However, the development map shows the complex is in the middle of the first, second, and fourth planned development phases.
Luis Alvarado told council members he had been homeless before he moved into the Soap Factory in November. He suspects many of the current residents will end up homeless, too, if they’re forced out.
“And I would be one of them,” Alvarado said. “I know for a fact that I would not be able to get somewhere else, and I would end up in the street yet again.”
A displacement plan included in Thursday’s presentation calls for allowing residents pushed out by the first development phase in late 2025 to move into other units at the Soap Factory.
When the second development phase begins in 2027, the next batch of displaced residents would also have the option to move to another portion of the Soap Factory or to another Weston Urban property a half mile to the south, the Continental Block Development.
Smith and city officials say Weston Urban would also help residents find other properties that work for them if they prefer.
“(The) bottom line is our plan over the next five to seven years is to treat our residents the way we would like to be treated,” Smith said.
Though the displacement plan mentions the two building clusters affected in the first two phases of development, it does not mention the third, which is in the footprint of the final development phase.
Smith told KSAT after Thursday’s meeting he did not have time to answer questions, nor did he respond to the email he asked KSAT to send instead.
Council members discussed the proposal for nearly two hours, with some showing apprehension over the plans.
“Yesterday we had a very robust discussion and debate about unhoused individuals,” District 5 Councilwoman Teri Castillo said. “And here we are removing deeply affordable housing. And it’s not even going to be replaced with the same affordability.”
Nirenberg, the plan’s biggest champion, vigorously defended the overall strategy but also acknowledged the concerns of Soap Factory residents.
“If we are doing our jobs in terms of an anti-displacement strategy, we need to make sure that they’re placed in a comparable unit. That’s what I’m hearing,” he said.
TICKING CLOCK
The Missions’ current home at Nelson Wolff Municipal Stadium doesn’t meet the latest Major League Baseball standards.
Smith said MLB had given the team an Oct. 15 deadline to get the broad terms of a deal for a new stadium settled.
Though the San Antonio City Council was originally expected to vote on Sep. 5, City Manager Erik Walsh said after Thursday’s extended discussion that the vote could end up being delayed to a later date.