By Lisa Sorg 02/10/2005

Inner-city residents still waiting for the South Side boon

Inhale deeply, for these are heady times on the South Side. Toyota, Brooks City-Base, Texas A&M; housing, industry, restaurants; new roads, new residents, new money: The part of town once neglected, disparaged, and forgotten is now developers’ opiate, as intoxicating as the poppy fields in the land of Oz.

Yet, not all the South Side sees such promise. The no-man’s land that lies inside Loop 410 south of Highway 90 and west of Roosevelt Street suffers the same plight as many inner-city neighborhoods: washboard streets, few sidewalks, and bad drainage. What passes for economic development is no fancy new condos or boutiques, but a row of pawnshops, check-cashing joints, and tax-refund outfits that line Military Drive.

While none of this is news to the South Side, the problems assume a greater disparity when compared to bigger, sexier projects launched as part of Mayor Ed Garza’s CitySouth Initiative. ACORN, a national non-profit group that works in low- and moderate-income neighborhoods, is organizing a McCollum chapter to draw attention to the area, which is in danger of being lost in the glare of illustrious developments farther east and south.

“A lot of people care, but they don’t know what to do,” says Gary Davenport, an ACORN volunteer who lives in the neighborhood.

On a recent drizzly day, Davenport, fellow volunteer Marian Lyon, ACORN organizer Bea Flores, and I toured the neighborhood, home to housing complexes whose names, the Aristocrat and Hutchins Palms, sound elegant, but residents allege that drug dealing goes down nearby. A cross and memorial are posted on a chain-link fence where apparently someone died in a car accident. Along S.W. Military Drive, an abandoned Kmart sits empty, as does a Wal-Mart store. The big-box chain closed the smaller store to build a Super Wal-Mart one block away. We turn south near the San Antonio River, where the dead are buried at Mission Park. “Now we do have a very nice cemetery,” Lyon says sarcastically.

Later we stop at 3505 Pleasanton. Here stands the neighborhood’s dream: a former Winn discount store whose windows are covered with plywood, which is plastered in graffiti. In back, a soaked jade-colored mattress wilts in the steady rain.

The 32,000-square-foot building on about 3 1/2 acres, says Lyon, would be the ideal community center, just three blocks from Terrell Wells Middle School and across the street from Lila Cockrell Homes, a federally subsidized senior citizens’ housing complex. As the crow flies, the closest recreational center is at Harlandale Park, more than a mile east from Terrell Wells - too far, Lyon says, for senior citizens and children to easily travel.

“It could be a senior nutrition center, an after-school center, a place for legal aid, job training, computer resources,” says Lyon. “It could be a hub for the South Side.”

Yet, there’s a hitch: According to District 3 City Councilman Ron Segovia, who says he’s spoken with the property owner Gene Rodriguez, the building is being used for storage and not for sale. According to Bexar County Appraisal District records (which lists a different owner), the property is worth $375,000.

If it were for sale, it is uncertain if the City could pony up for such a purchase.

“I don’t know what process the City would go through before we did something like that,” says Segovia, who is running for re-election.

“The inner city is one of the main reasons I’m running again. Our focus is still on neighborhoods and seniors, working with the Harlandale School District to make sure they have the tax base. They’ve lost students. If we provide quality development, we can bring them back.”

Emigration from the South Side began as early as the ’70s, says Lyons, a McCollum High School graduate. She lived throughout the city before returning to the Cantrell Street home in which she spent part of her childhood.

Some South Siders moved to the North Side to be closer to better-paying jobs and higher-quality school districts. “I was one of them,” says Davenport, who returned to the South Side after 20 years. “I see how things are going down. Getting allies is the essential problem. A lot of people who live in the community have tried to make waves on their own.”

Individual efforts made little difference, so ACORN selected the McCollum neighborhood for the group’s next organizing effort. Bea Flores spends afternoons and early evenings knocking on residents’ doors and asking them about the issues facing their neighborhood. At the end of the conversation, she encourages them to join ACORN and help organize their neighbors.

“People sometimes don’t want to get involved,” says Flores, a South Side native who says she has recruited about 40 members since last October. “We’re fighting for changes. I ask people, ‘Does it bother you, these roads? Are these issues you have?’ We tell them, ‘You don’t have to live like this.’”

Reviving the South Side

Last year, when Mayor Garza rolled out his South Side Initiative, since rebranded the CitySouth Initiative, he targeted 57 square miles south of Loop 410 between Interstates 35 and 37 for development. “The South Side has been neglected,” he told the Current. “We need to do something bold and long-term.”

That vision is expressed on the horizon of the far South Side. From Highway 16 south of Loop 410, you can see the skeleton of the Toyota plant, scheduled to begin manufacturing in 2006. The same scenario is playing out farther east, where Brooks City-Base, tucked just inside Loop 410, is a new business venture among the city, military, and private sectors. Signs posted on vacant lots announce the future sites of new houses and stores. And south of the base on Blue Wing Road, the Corporation for Education and Economic Development has donated 550 acres for a new Texas A&M-San Antonio campus that - if the legislature okays an $80 million tuition revenue bond - could break ground as early as next year.

Inner-city residents applaud those developments, hoping their employment and educational benefits will trickle northward. They also fear that the fate of San Antonio’s interior will mirror that of Detroit and other suburban-dominant cities: Its only residents will be those who can’t afford to leave.

During the 2003 City Council campaign, District 3 candidate Joe Farias specifically mentioned the area between Highway 90 and Loop 410 as ripe for development. “There needs to be infill in the inner-city neighborhoods,” he said at the time.

Segovia, a native South Sider and former police officer, also campaigned on a platform of commitment to the inner city: responsible development, infrastructure improvements, and a crackdown on crime. He has fulfilled some of those promises, including long-overdue drainage improvements at Goliad and S.E. Military Drive that were necessary for city leaders to realize their vision for nearby Brooks City-Base.

Segovia emphasized community participation in solving problems in his district. While block-walking, he often told residents, “I want you to hold me accountable and I’ll hold you accountable for your involvement.”

Davenport says Segovia has met with ACORN and agrees the Councilman “has done little things. But we want him to be fully aware there are still issues. Don’t turn a blind eye.”

On a milder afternoon, Bea Flores canvassed West Petaluma Street and areas south to Ansley, which are plagued by frequent flooding. Both Petaluma and Ansley Streets bottom out into little more than concrete creekbeds; their flood-gauge signs have weeds wrapped around them - at the 5-foot mark.

Flores spoke with Maria and Ramon Neira, who live near Ansley and Lutke, just a few feet from the creekbed. “The water floods my back yard,” Maria told Flores in Spanish.

Ansley Street farther west is on a list of improvement projects paid for with bonds, but the section near the Neira family is not.

“Do you want to be part of ACORN to make changes?” Flores asked the couple. They joined immediately.

The Neiras live in the eastern part of District 4, Councilman Richard Perez’ jurisdiction. During a party launching his re-election campaign, Perez described himself as “an inner-city guy,” noting that he and Segovia have worked to decrease cruising and crime along S.W. Military Drive. With Community Bloc Development grants, bonds, and partnerships with private business, several areas have been improved in District 4, including the major intersection of S.W. Military and Zarzamora. Yet, smaller neighborhood streets, such as Vestal and Cantrell, main walkways for elementary school children, still flood; nor are there sidewalks throughout much of those neighborhoods.

“A full-service community center
could engage the community.

Becky Solloa has lived near Logwood Street in District 4 nearly 40 years - most of her life. Many of her neighbors have been there for decades; it’s the kind of place where children buy homes next-door to their parents. Zachry Construction is on Logwood Street, one of the better-maintained roads in the neighborhood.

“I’ve seen a lot more negligence, graffiti, and violence,” says Solloa, adding there was a drive-by shooting across the street from her home several years ago. “I can hear gunfire several blocks away. There is a lot of drug trafficking and nobody is doing anything about it.”

Solloa plans to participate in Saturday’s march from Terrell Wells Middle School to the former Winn store that neighbors want to transform into a community center. Solloa now runs her own business, but has worked for the YWCA of San Antonio and the Guadalupe Community Center.

“As a child, I never had a place to go except for churches,” she says. Although South Siders can go to the Ramirez Center on Gillette Boulevard, about a mile away from Terrell Wells, it is primarily a sports center.

The McCollum neighborhood, Solloa says, needs more. “Financial counseling, life skills, teen leadership: It could help families achieve and strengthen the families. It could really develop into a resource.”

Solloa prefers a privately owned community center, operated by a non-profit agency, rather than one run by the City. Either way, the investment would be substantial.

“It would entail very committed people and grassroots efforts finding good partners to reach out to this area,” she says. “But what would you rather spend your money on? More jails? A full-service community center could engage the community. It could be a whole rebirth.” •

By Tricia Lynn Silva
San Antonio Business Journal
Updated: 7:00 p.m. ET Jan. 30, 2005

For the past two years, locally based TC Austin Properties has been marketing to developers a large parcel of land located on the city’s North Side.

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But recently, the firm inked a deal that will enable it to launch a development plan of its own.

TC Austin has announced that it will join forces with Laredo-based Alfra Development and take 29 acres of land off of U.S. Highway 281 North and Evans Road for a new office park and a townhouse community.

Alfra will serve as the majority partner in the project, says TC Austin President Michael E. Reyna. The office park will be called The Park at Encino Commons; the townhouse moniker: The Village at Encino Commons. Both projects are part of a larger, mixed-use development called Encino Commons. In all, Encino Commons spans 155 acres at the southwest corner of Hwy. 281 and Evans Road.

The Village at Encino Commons will account for roughly 17 acres of the 29 acres that TC Austin and Alfra will develop. Plans call for roughly 120 units ranging in size from 2,200 to 2,800 square feet; the starting purchase price will be around $225,000, says Reyna.

On the remaining 12 acres, the duo will create The Park at Encino Commons — an office-condominium project that will ultimately consist of approximately 90,000 square feet of office space — all of it available for purchase rather than as lease space. Reyna says the partnership is looking at building roughly 21 buildings that will range in size from about 1,500 to 10,000 square feet.

Total development costs for The Village and The Park, says Reyna, is roughly $45 million.
Speculative faith

The homes in The Village will be set up in the traditional townhouse fashion, says Reyna — a set of row housing, with each unit consisting of a rear-load, two-car garage and a small yard in the back.

Units will be arranged in groups of between two and six homes — with the six-unit pods to be shaped like a horseshoe. An internal courtyard will be at the center of this horseshoe to encourage neighborly interaction between residents, says Reyna.

The townhouse, says Reyna, is still a rather new product for the local market. The Village, he continues, will offer North Side residents a “lock-and-leave” type of lifestyle, versus having the constraints of maintaining a larger home and a large backyard.

Infrastructure work on both The Village and The Park is already under way, says Reyna, who adds that construction on the projects will begin in late 2005. The Village will be ready for residents by the spring of 2006, with the office-condo units to follow that summer.

And while the professional condos that The Park at Encino Commons will offer are a new feature for the local office market, it is a concept that has begun to gain momentum. The TC/Alfra project is one of a growing number of office-condo communities in North San Antonio alone.

Just last week, Huffman Developments announced plans to start the second phase of the Villages on Sonterra, which will bring another 60,000 square feet of office condominiums to the area. The project is located off of Hardy Oak and Sonterra boulevards.
Even more coming

This past September, locally based Alcar Construction began work on Las Plazas. The office-condo community is located off of Huebner Road and Stone Oak Parkway. Plans for the first phase of Las Plazas call for roughly 42,000 square feet of office space. Early demand for the project, however, has already prompted Alcar Owner Carlos Fis to begin planning a second and third phase for the community, according to Carl Bohn, a senior associate with locally based REOC Partners Ltd. Bohn is marketing Las Plazas for Fis.

“People see a real value in owning their office space,” says Jim Ploetz, who heads up marketing for Huffman Developments.

Low interest rates continue to fuel the desire — especially of smaller businesses owners — to have an investment in their office, rather than simply leasing space.

That the North Side of San Antonio has been the target market for these projects is also due to the demographics of the area — a lot of high-end homes occupied by residents with advanced degrees in high-paying professions.

“It’s like the old adage that retail follows rooftops,” says Ploetz. “Office development also follows the houses.”

People want an office close to home, adds Reyna, and there’s no denying the residential growth that continues in North San Antonio.

TC Austin and Alfra would have been hard-pressed to find a better location for their projects, industry observers say.

“The dam has been broken; there is so much momentum in this area,” says Bryan Parman, who is the director of retail services for REOC. “Whatever is built — be it retail, offices or homes — is sold or leased right away.”

Adds Reyna: “North San Antonio is becoming the hub for business.”

LAST UPDATE: 1/31/2005 11:39:42 PM
Posted By: CyberBob

Watch this story…

Some of you may remember her as the Vacuum Lady, but now Denise Sanchez is known for so much more! Her store, Homewerks, is bringing the best for your home here to San Antonio. She’s also a part of the San Antonio Concept Homes project. Homewerks will deck out the Texas Design Home with appliances, state- of-the-art home automation and security systems plus a central vacuum system.

Home may be where the heart is, but Homewerks is where you can find products that make life’s daily chores a lot of fun!

“Walk in and we’ll make your home work better for you,” explains Denise.

Denise got the name “Homewerks - Really Cool Stuff for Your Home” from her customers; by their reaction to all that you’ll find in her store.

Think vacuuming isn’t exciting? Then you have to check out the beam central vacuuming system that’s built into your walls. It can be installed in a new or existing home.

Taking care of the floor is just the beginning. Homewerks also features vapor steam cleaners– like the Ladybug—you get the clean without the chemicals.

“We have lots of stone and wood floors. Chemicals are not good for that and also your body. They just came out with research that a child’s asthma is affected by cleaning chemicals,” Denise explains.

After you’re finished steaming your floors, sinks and tubs, you can steam up something for yourself.

“We carry the best in San Antonio,” says Denise of the incredible line of coffee making appliances.

Built-in coffee systems are just one example of the many unique appliances offered, including the European Miela line.

And if you want to try it, you can. This is a hands-on store.

“The thing about our store is that everything is integrated, so you can actually see what it’s going to be like in your home,” says Denise.

One appliance or a complete kitchen, built in sound systems, security systems that do more than protect, but can even turn on the lights as you walk down a darkened hall, even colorful pottery that goes from freezer, to oven to table — you’ll find it all at Homewerks along with a promise of quality from Denise.

We have our own installers, our own warranty because we do sell the best of the best,” she says. “What makes us a really unusual home concept store is that we service, we install and we warranty. We don’t just sell you the products. We teach you how to use the products, and everything is live in our store. So that makes it a more interesting store. Put your hands on it. Taste, touch, feel - whatever - even with the central vacuum. You can use the machines and get an idea of how you’d use it in your own home. That’s the difference about us.”