{"id":430519,"date":"2026-09-09T10:14:24","date_gmt":"2026-09-09T10:14:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/430519\/"},"modified":"2026-09-09T10:14:24","modified_gmt":"2026-09-09T10:14:24","slug":"san-antonio-councilman-proposes-shovel-ready-program-to-attract-businesses-how-would-it-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/430519\/","title":{"rendered":"San Antonio councilman proposes \u2018shovel-ready\u2019 program to attract businesses. How would it work?"},"content":{"rendered":"

As San Antonio leaders look for ways to grow the economy and collect new revenue, one City Council<\/a> member is pushing a new idea he says could help the city attract more businesses and spur economic development.<\/p>\n

District 10 Councilman Marc Whyte is proposing a pilot program to make San Antonio land “shovel-ready,” clearing important steps for development before companies arrive. The idea is to check off early steps on the to-do list so companies don’t have to themselves, removing months or even years of preparation so they can get up and running right away.<\/p>\n

“Economic development is, of course, gonna be a major way that we get out of this,” Whyte said on Aug. 13 as city leaders discussed ways to address a budget shortfall <\/a>projected to reach $157.7 million by 2028.<\/p>\n

At that meeting, staff suggested the city’s first property tax increase<\/a> since the mid-’90s to stave off the shortfall. Whyte warned the cycle would only continue unless the city pursue new economic development, while also cutting what he called wasteful spending.<\/p>\n

According to his Council Consideration Request (CCR), Whyte wants the city to work with SAWS and CPS Energy to look into the possibility of making sites shovel-ready, starting with a few test spots around town.<\/p>\n

“We need more revenue in San Antonio,” he said. “We’re seeing that right now, with the budget crisis that we have going on.”<\/p>\n

What is a ‘shovel-ready’ site?<\/p>\n

The idea is to take care of some of the work that can slow down new development \u2014 including permitting, utility hookups and other infrastructure needs \u2014 before a business commits to the site.<\/p>\n

“The city would identify a small number of sites, complete entitlement and infrastructure work and market them for sale to businesses seeking to build or expand in San Antonio,” states the CCR, which was filed on Aug. 20.<\/p>\n

Whyte said giving businesses a head start on operations might also reduce the strain of incentive agreements on the city.<\/p>\n

“If we can prepare land that would allow a business to move here, hire our residents, pay them good wages and get into business quickly, that’s what we want to accomplish,” Whyte said.<\/p>\n

‘Behind the curve’<\/p>\n

The proposal early support from the Greater San Antonio Chamber of Commerce. President and CEO Jeff Webster said he has seen companies choose other markets because of the amount of time it can take to bring a project online in San Antonio.<\/p>\n

In one instance just a few years ago, he said a manufacturing company was looking to relocate to the Alamo City. They went somewhere else.<\/p>\n

“It was gonna take six or seven years just to get them power and three or four years to get them water,” Webster said. “You know what that company said? ‘Thanks, but no thanks.'”<\/p>\n

Webster said Whyte’s idea is one that’s been talked about for years, going back to his own City Council tenure. The competition has only grown since then–and not just in Texas.<\/p>\n

“We compete against Atlanta, we compete against Phoenix, we compete against San Diego,” he said. “These are the cities that are hot. We’re not breaking new ground on this. We’re actually behind the curve.”<\/p>\n

Webster — who said the city needs more wins like the recent local business expansion at Toyota<\/a> and Brooks <\/a>— described the concept as essentially creating a land bank of sites that are ready for development.<\/p>\n

He said having land that can be developed quickly could help San Antonio compete for larger economic development projects both in Texas and across the country.<\/p>\n

“Not having land readily available to quickly develop is a limiting factor for us,” Webster said. “If we can pull this off, this gives them the ability to catch more big fish.”<\/p>\n

The proposal is expected to go before the City Council’s Governance Committee next week. From there, it could eventually advance to a full City Council vote or be redirected to another council committee.<\/p>\n

Whyte said the program could be funded by any number of revenue streams. But he’s adamant that property or sales taxes not be raised to provide that funding.<\/p>\n

He also said leaders should understand such a program would be a long-term investment.<\/p>\n

“This is something that three, four, five years from now, if we begin this program, we’ll start to reap a lot of benefits for our city,” Whyte said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As San Antonio leaders look for ways to grow the economy and collect new revenue, one City Council…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":430520,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[8072,4519,437,149474,13826,82,84,83],"class_list":["post-430519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-businesses","tag-city-council","tag-economic-development","tag-jeff-webster","tag-marc-whyte","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-headlines","tag-san-antonio-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430519","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=430519"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430519\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/430520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=430519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=430519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=430519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}