As the November 4th election draws closer, the Spurs and the city are distancing themselves from a downtown project that had been listed as a key part of Project Marvel.
The relocation of a SAWS chilled water plant to make room for another convention center hotel.
The News 4 I-Team’s Jaie Avila reported that the estimated cost of that relocation has doubled.
The city and the Spurs say moving this SAWS plant and building a hotel in its place has nothing to do with the election, which will determine if county visitor taxes will be used for a new arena.
The SAWS plant across from the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center provides chilled water to help air condition downtown buildings. As we reported last week, the estimated cost to relocate it went from $100 million to at least $200 million.
Spurs owner Peter J. Holt tells News 4 he’s concerned shock over that project might sour voters on the arena election.
“The chiller plant is on the other side of the convention center from our project, and so if it has to be moved or upgraded, maybe it does, but that has nothing to do with our arena,” Holt said.
When the city first unveiled details about the downtown sports and entertainment district they featured a new, 1,000 room convention center hotel on the site of the chiller plant.
The materials did say the plan was subject to change based on a feasibility study, which is what determined the cost could be double the original estimate.
In a statement this week the City of San Antonio told us: “The SAWS chilled water plant serves large Downtown customers, such as hotels and the convention center, and it is paid for by those users. SAWS is conducting a feasibility study to determine whether to relocate and expand the chilled water plant to meet the growing demand by Downtown users. The feasibility study being conducted by SAWS will review several options. These options will be assessed and a determination on how or whether to proceed with the relocation of the plant will be made. If determined to not be feasible, then the relocation will not proceed.”
Opponents of the Project Marvel plan for downtown claim there’s not enough demand to justify another convention center hotel anyway.
They point to Visit San Antonio figures showing the number of convention room nights booked at existing hotels was 622,462 in 2024.
Fewer than there were in 2004, when there were 711,568 convention room nights. That was before the Grand Hyatt was built and before a previous expansion of the convention center.
UTSA Professor Emeritus Heywood Sanders says Dallas, Ft. Worth and Austin have all been expanding their convention centers.
“I mean we are flooding the market just here in Texas with new convention center space, and it’s not clear all of us are going to succeed,” Sanders said.
One city official said they want voters to focus on one thing at a time, and for now that’s the vote on whether to fund a new Spurs arena, because future elements of Project Marvel are years away or may never happen.