It may be another 20 years before the vision for reworking the stadium is complete, but city staff hopes to tear it down quickly once the baseball team packs up and leaves in 2029. In the years and decades that follow, the site is slated to include single-family and senior housing, acres of parkland and walking trails, or booming retail sites and light industrial spaces.
These are the points that have residents talking the most.
“We already have [industrial sites] up and down Highway 90. It looks like an industrial city. So we want to see something that’s going to be more useful to the community,” resident Cassandra Tyson told MySA, calling her collection of neighborhoods on the Southeast Side a “food desert” in need of retail and restaurant space.
However, San Antonio District 6 Councilman Ric Galvan tells MySA that light industrial in these plans doesn’t have to be an eyesore. He envisioned grocery development, manufacturers and warehouses. Firms brought in to help develop these plans alongside residents mentioned 3-D printing manufacturers for car parts.
However, those concerns won’t be front and center for a while. Current plans call for demolishing the stadium and replacing it with a park and a few retail spots between 2029 and 2031. The next four years will focus on single-family residential buildout and commercial flex spaces – areas that give pause to otherwise supportive residents.
Between 2035 and 2036, city staff hopes to see the first homes move-in ready and commercial sites ready for lease. The next 10 years will focus on finishing out the earlier phases and starting work on medical offices, additional retail and affordable senior housing – another phase of the project under the watchful eye of locals concerned about even more plasma donation centers on the Southeast Side.
Overall, the current plans set an ambitious end goal of 2046. However, there doesn’t seem to be any timeline for when a new community center is expected to be built at this sweeping site.
San Antonio Economic Development Director Brenda Hicks-Sorensen told MySA that this 20-year timeline is deliberate to ensure a “generational investment” rather than pursuing short-term wins. She and Galvan both pointed to the growing success at Port San Antonio and Brooks as examples.
“I think our focus here on the park space, on the creek way investments, on the Silver Line coming through the area as well –– all these things come together to help build this kind of market that people are looking for to invest in, create new opportunities for housing, create new opportunities for commercial space,” Galvan said.