{"id":230766,"date":"2026-04-01T21:06:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T21:06:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/230766\/"},"modified":"2026-04-01T21:06:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T21:06:08","slug":"san-antonio-historic-commission-approves-downtown-ballpark-plan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/230766\/","title":{"rendered":"San Antonio historic commission approves downtown ballpark plan"},"content":{"rendered":"

San Antonio\u2019s Historic and Design Review Commission gave the go-ahead Wednesday to plans for a ballpark for the Missions<\/a> surrounded\u00a0by apartments and a hotel in the northwest corner of downtown.<\/p>\n

The owners of the Double-A baseball team want to build the $160 million ballpark on mostly empty lots\u00a0between North Flores and Camaron streets just south of the San Antonio Independent School District\u2019s headquarters. They are incorporating the facade of the Sunshine Laundry and Dry Cleaning building on North Flores into the proposal.<\/p>\n

Development firm Weston Urban \u2014 whose co-founders Graham Weston and Randy Smith are part of the Missions\u2019 ownership group \u2014 plan to build 681 apartments and a 160-room hotel around the stadium. The bulk of the public financing for the ballpark hinges on those projects being designed as well as financed, and it\u2019s unclear whether the firm has secured its funding.<\/p>\n

The stadium will sit next to a 14-story residential tower with 271 apartments, a six-story parking garage with 389 spaces and an eight-story hotel with 160 rooms along West Martin Street. Kitty-corner to those buildings along San Pedro Creek, the firm plans to replace a portion of the Soap Factory Apartments with a 27-story high-rise with 410 apartments.<\/p>\n

Weston Urban will also rehabilitate the historic San Fernando Gym, also known as the \u201cJesse\u201d James Leija Gym, along West Travis Street.<\/p>\n

Leija, a world champion boxer, started his boxing career at the gym in 1985,<\/a> and the city named it after him in 2006. The city acquired the building in 1974 and closed it in 2017 following a land swap between Frost Bank, Weston Urban and the city. The firm plans to refurbish a basketball court inside the building and turn part of the structure into an exercise area for tenants of the adjacent apartments.<\/p>\n

Weston Urban must return to the commission for final approval of the designs. The projects would be the first phase of potentially four stages of up to $1 billion worth of development through 2031 and are tied to the city and\u00a0Bexar County\u2019s $126 million contribution to the ballpark.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The apartments and hotel would be built within a tax increment reinvestment zone in which tax revenue from rising property values would be used to repay bonds issued for the project \u2014 as well as ticket fees and the Missions\u2019 rent payments for the ballpark.<\/p>\n

The team owners would contribute $34 million to the stadium.<\/p>\n

The city is requiring Weston Urban to design and finance the first stage of development, which must have a taxable value of at least $300 million, and design the second stage of projects before it issues the bonds.<\/p>\n

Missions representatives declined an interview request and a city spokesman did not answer the question.<\/p>\n

Weston Urban would replace\u00a0the rest\u00a0of the Soap Factory complex in the second phase and empty parking lots in the third phase. The firm would renovate the historic Milam building at East Travis and\u00a0Soledad streets in the final stage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"San Antonio\u2019s Historic and Design Review Commission gave the go-ahead Wednesday to plans for a ballpark for the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":222910,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[82,84,83],"class_list":{"0":"post-230766","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-antonio","8":"tag-san-antonio","9":"tag-san-antonio-headlines","10":"tag-san-antonio-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230766","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=230766"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230766\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/222910"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=230766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=230766"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=230766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}