UT San Antonio to lease downtown developer’s building for student housing

The University of Texas at San Antonio is working on a deal with Weston Urban to use part of the developer’s newest residential complex on the doorstep of the university’s downtown campus as student housing.

The university said Tuesday it has signed a letter of intent with the San Antonio firm to lease all 28 apartments in the renovated former Continental Hotel building at 322 W. Commerce St. beginning this fall. It is still finalizing pricing and an agreement with Weston Urban, but expects rates to start at $5,600 per semester.

The furnished units were previously rented as extended-stay lodging through a partnership between Washington, D.C.-based Placemakr and Weston Urban. The historic three-story building, with commercial space on the ground floor and apartments on the second and third floors, is in front of the firm’s 290-unit Continental Residences high-rise.

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UT San Antonio said the apartments would accommodate about 50 students. The property is across the street from the university’s San Pedro I and II buildings, which are home to its cybersecurity, AI and data science programs, and three blocks east of its downtown campus.

“This new housing opportunity represents another important step in UT San Antonio’s continued growth downtown,” Mary Hernandez, senior vice president for administration and operations, said in a statement. “By creating more opportunities for students to live, learn and connect in the heart of our city, we are strengthening the integration of academic, research and community spaces across the downtown district.”

The university declined to provide more details about the arrangement with Weston Urban.

UT San Antonio President Taylor Eighmy has set a goal of bringing 10,000 students to downtown by 2028, which would more than double the university’s current enrollment of around 4,000 students in the urban core. To help hit that target, the university is relocating some of its departments from other campuses.

The College of Education and Human Development is moving from UT San Antonio’s main campus on the Northwest Side to the downtown campus, and the university is adding a new college in the center city – the College of AI, Cyber and Computing. The university turned the former Southwest School of Art into its Southwest campus in 2022 and shifted engineering, design, architecture and planning programs to One Riverwalk Place after buying the office building last year.

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UT San Antonio said those moves, along with departments already located downtown, will bring more than 8,000 students to the area this fall.

Weston Urban bought part of the block bounded by Laredo, Dolorosa and Commerce streets and San Pedro Creek from private owners in 2019, and the Continental building from the city of San Antonio in 2022. The firm planned to refurbish the historic Continental and Arana buildings and a house on the property, build a high-rise with 290 apartments between those structures and move another historic house on the property to a nearby site.

Weston Urban partnered with a nonprofit arm of Bexar County in a deal to keep the development off the property tax rolls for 75 years in exchange for the firm reserving half of the apartments for residents making up 60% to 80% of the median income in the area.

Weston Urban completed the project in early 2026 amid a sluggish market, as an influx of new housing and hotels mean residential buildings are taking longer to lease up and hoteliers are struggling to fill rooms. Building new housing downtown is expensive.

Apartments listed on the Continental Residences’ website Tuesday ranged from $1,450 per month for a 455-square-foot studio to $4,930 for a two-bedroom, two-and-a-half bathroom unit with 1,286 square feet. The firm is offering up to two months of free rent for certain apartments. The extended-stay apartments in the former Continental Hotel building were no longer listed on Placemakr’s website as of Tuesday morning.

Providing housing options is part of UT San Antonio’s plan for boosting enrollment downtown, where it is one of the largest property owners with around 48 acres. In a report last year, the university said it wanted to finalize a partnership to develop student housing downtown in 2026 and add 400 to 600 beds for students by 2032, including 100 to 400 beds by 2027.

The university is likely partnering with residential developers because building its own student housing would be costly, in part because it’s expensive to build apartments downtown and the construction is more complicated.

The Continental apartments for students will have kitchenettes, washers and dryers, Wi-Fi and utilities. UT San Antonio would manage leasing and programming, with priority given to students whose programs are relocating downtown. Undergraduate and graduate students will be eligible to apply.

Weston Urban co-founder and CEO Randy Smith did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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This article originally published at UT San Antonio to lease downtown developer’s building for student housing.