On the record is brought to you by Steve and AdeleDufilho San Antonio is a fast growing, fast moving city with something new happening every day.

That's why each week we go on the record with Randy Beamer and the newsmakers who are driving this change.

Then we gather at the Reporters Roundtable to talk about the latest news stories with the journalist behind those stories.

Joining us now as we go on the Record with Randy Beamer.

Hi, everybody, and thank you for joining us.

I'm Randy Beamer.

Welcome to another edition of On the Record.

This week, we're going to be talking a lot with different guests about growth, growth in downtown San Antonio, possible new development in downtown San Antonio, a new leader in downtown San Antonio, and the emerging mega metro.

It's called You might have seen San Antonio Austin, the emerging mega metro special right here on Carl Lauren, hosted by Guy.

You probably heard of Henry's Cisneros, who is former mayor, former HUD secretary, entrepreneur, author, businessman.

And we're running out of time, but thanks very much for coming in.

Now, this was even a heck of a lot of work on this.

You interviewed well over a dozen people.

Fit it into an hour.

Why?

San Antonio and Austin?

Because you had written a book about the Texas Triangle in terms of Houston, Austin, Dallas, San Antonio.

Why this one?

I've been working on Austin.

San Antonio as a region since the 1980s.

In the years that I was mayor, the first time we ever went to Japan, we went together, Austin and San Antonio, because we just thought that would be the way to highlight Central Texas and the Japanese in that era.

Kind of like the idea of cities working together.

They had pioneered the concept in Japan.

So it's been on the drawing board for a long, long time, and it's only grown stronger and more real as a concept.

It is now clearly inevitable that Austin and San Antonio are going to grow into a region.

Some people say are going to grow together.

Some people talk about the corridor.

I like to talk about it more as a region because it's really from north of Austin, where the fastest growing cities in America literally are Georgetown and Leander and Pflugerville and Round Rock and then there are, of course, New Braunfels and San Marcos between us.

I talk about the region as from Pflugerville to Floresville, but it also is wide from roughly S.H.

130, which runs Seguin northward to to 81 directly north of San Antonio and everything in between with age 35 is the spine.

I think that's all going to fill in.

But it's also filling in, probably frustrating to you as well as a lot of us, without things like advances in transportation, rail, highways, connectors, things like that.

What is since your days as mayor, what did you hope would have happened by now that that hasn't?

Well, first of all, you're completely right.

It's impossible to say this is inevitable and not going to happen without also adding.

And we're not preparing for it because we're not.

And what that means is we're going to have congestion and haphazard growth and stress on natural resources and inadequate attention to our open space, for example, aquifer protection.

If we don't do a better job of recognizing what's going to happen.

This region today, from Pflugerville to Flor Israel is about 4.5 million people.

People don't know that, but it's 4.5 million people.

Census tells us that by 2050 it will be about 9 million people.

So we're going to double.

9 million people is larger than the Dallas Fort Worth Metro or the Houston metro today.

Now they're going to grow as well, and they'll continue to have a larger scale.

But that gives you a sense of what we're dealing with in terms of the size of Austin, San Antonio.

What I would what I what I'm sorry hasn't happened is more collaboration, more structures for communicating.

And so our job in this time, I think, is to get the mayors, the county judges, the economic development groups, the councils of government and the new young business leaders.

Austin has this new tech crowd.

We have people here like Peter Holton and Graham Weston and Genesis Ora and others who ought to be talking together.

And they're talking.

You talk a lot about that, about not having competition that we've kind of, you know, had a little competition between Austin and San Antonio.

And that's not the way to do it.

But with the differences in median home prices, I think you pointed out some great statistics.

Yeah, nearly twice as much in Austin, 600,000, 300,000 average wages, median income overall GDP.

Are we we're more populous, but they have a higher GDP because they have higher wages.

And are we going to be assigned, though, if we have one metro or a mega metro, are we going to be assigned the task of having the menial lower skilled?

Absolutely not.

That's the whole point.

If we think of this as a region, then it begins to function as a cohesive region.

And one of the areas where that's showing itself right now is the automotive sector.

We got Toyota, one of the largest automotive plants in the world, produces 200,000 plus trucks, and also Navistar, the old International Harvester.

Now produces trucks here and Austin got Tesla.

So we have very good jobs, good paying jobs.

So do they in this sector.

Hopefully the same thing is going to happen in technology.

They focus in companies like Dell and we focus in opportunities like the cybersecurity companies that are here.

So the whole point, I think, is to draft on each other's strengths.

I never really thought it was directly competitive.

I never have thought that because we were so different.

But what would can happen is build on the compatibility and the strengths.

And there are some big strengths.

They have the University of Texas at Austin.

Flagship globally significant.

We have the University of Texas at San Antonio and A&M.

San Antonio.

But smack between us is Texas State.

It has 38,000 students Who would have imagined.

Right.

So there's two big, powerful strengths that are emerging.

And when you combine them all together and work together, it's pretty powerful.

And there was a couple of surprising statistics, I think.

I don't know if it's Genesis or rather who said that there are more students in San Antonio, San Antonio than there are in Austin.

We've got about 130,000 students.

When you put it all together.

The big the big piece of that for us is 66,000 students at the community college.

Right?

Just the community college.

So that's half of the 130 right there.

Then you add UTSA, which is not small anymore.

It's about 32,000 students.

And then you add A&M and Saint Mary's in the Lake and Trinity.

You get there.

How about some of the other challenges?

Because water was one of them where there are I can't remember who it was metros, it was talking about what happens if Austin right, gets the record drought with climate change that we're not playing for?

Well, that's an example of where we have to work to create the natural resources to sustain the growth.

San Antonio.

His name was Dr. Mace and he's with the Meadows It Center in San Marcos, says that San Antonio has done a good job of getting alternate water supply in the Vista Ridge project.

I think we all agree that solved our water challenges for a pretty long time in time and in population.

Austin relies on the Highland Lakes along the Colorado River, and in the drought of record, the lakes dropped dramatically.

If that were to happen again in a sustained drought, with the new population growth and the trajectory of growth, Austin would have very serious water shortage.

In fact, he said.

He said no.

He said the water supply dries up so Austin's got some work to do and finding water.

How about who do you want this seen by?

Because it seems like one of the things that wasn't or maybe I'm reading between the lines what wasn't.

There are state leaders and state support.

You talked about federal money for rail.

You talked about local businesses, local groups.

Well, I think it's leadership all across the board and the public.

So state leaders, yes, they have a immense say on transportation, on water, on higher education.

Local leaders.

Yes, they have an immense say in planning everything from zoning to land use and laying out new arterials, etc., like Austin is doing now.

They're spending over $10 billion on their roadways and their light rail.

But the general public has to be aware in order to be supportive.

Austin passed tax increases, including property tax increases, just to offset the congestion of their roadways.

So that's the kind of collaboration that needs to exist kind of thing, where Antonio has always been reluctant.

Not really.

I mean, look, San Antonio passed a sales tax just in 2020.

For what?

For ready to work for child pre-K and for VR.

So, look, with these things are properly explained and put it in the right context and people see the benefits and the connection to them the public will support.

And now I know this is going to be not only okay, Lauren, you're going to be showing at different places in Austin and also spinning off some of these many interviews.

Are you going to be out there talking about this?

I mean, it's it's great to do a program, but you have such a platform.

Well, I've got a commitment right this minute at Shriner College in Kerrville to do a to participate in a panel with showing of the of the of the PBS killer in a documentary and then and then a discussion with the community.

So doing more of these down the road.

Do you see anything I'm sure sadly we're out of time but come back any time.

Obviously, you go to jail or endorse.

Look for San Antonio, Austin, the emerging mega metro, and then new interviews.

You know, for a new guy, you're pretty good to be by my dream is to stand in the shadow of R&B.

Yeah.

Okay.

We'll be okay.

Thank you very much.

Henry Cisneros, appreciate you coming in.

There's a big change at the top of one of the biggest organizations helping downtown.

A new president and CEO joins us.

Tricia Berry is at the top of Centro, San Antonio as of, what, just a week and a half ago, a couple of weeks and a half ago on the job.

So I'm taking a little bit of water through a firehose.

But it's all good.

It's good, good.

And now how do you feel about this?

Because you are running for county judge, right?

And that's a whole different kind of of leadership.

Yep.

A whole different kind of gantlet that you had to run through.

Exactly.

Did you have to kind of get over that beforehand?

Mm.

Well, I mean, look, I poured my heart and my soul into the best kind of judges race and I mean, when you put that kind of time and energy and it's an exhausting pace that you have to keep is 24 seven because even when you go to bed you're thinking and your mind is running.

So yeah, I mean, it was a it was a tough race to lose.

And yes, there's a part of you that has to do a little bit of decompression, spend time with family.

I have a daughter who's graduated from high school.

And so anyway, I mean, there's there are blessings and loss, right?

There are learnings that come from that.

I felt like my kids learned a lot from the process, which is good.

And that is, you know, if you believe in something, you know, step out there.

I've always been long been a proponent of if you fail, it's okay, but you fail forward.

And now the Centro San Antonio that you're heading is one of those things that people may have heard about, but they're not sure what it does.

Yeah.

So, I mean, back to your I've seen, you know, from a big kind of judges race, I think there was a very strong vision that we framed and some of it was focused on downtown.

So this was not an opportunity that I saw coming, but it is an organization that I've been involved with for probably 20 years because I have office in downtown.

And you're more connected than people might think.

I mean, just working your public relations with County Commissioner Wright, running for judge.

Right.

And, you know, crisis comms and really policy initiatives, bond elections, school bond elections, city bond election.

So, yeah, there's probably not many people I don't know in San Antonio, which can be a good thing or a bad thing or whatever, depending on what take you have.

What do you think are the biggest challenges for downtown?

Look, I think we have big challenges, but I think we have huge opportunities too, which is very exciting to me.

I think COVID hit downtown very, very hard.

You had some coverage shortly before you left Eye regarding what was happening in downtown.

So it was a difficult time, there's no question.

But I think it's a clean slate and not just for San Antonio, but we have downtowns across the country that are struggling with what happened post-COVID.

We don't have workers that are in the office for hybrid work.

All right.

Exactly.

So we have a lot of empty office space.

And what does that look like?

So I think strategically, what do we look at that shift from office to housing and what does that look like?

But I think, you know, attracting businesses, I think multifamily and downtown is very important.

But I also think we've got to get away from the notion of always calling it a central business district.

Let's be clear, San Antonio's downtown really has been more of a central hotel district, right?

More than anything where rather than business.

And so I think lots of great talk out there about what downtown can be.

So as we look at the opportunity for downtown to be a central entertainment district and what is that central residential district, Right.

Well, I mean, housing is always going to be super important.

The mix between affordable and market rate, you look at 300 main and what Western urban is doing there, and that's a market rate project, plenty of affordable housing with a bond initiative associated with that.

But it's got to be the appropriate mix.

UTSA is a game changer for downtown regarding the School of Data Science.

They're going to break ground soon on the School of Entrepreneurship, but that brings students, that brings density of people into downtown.

And when you have density of people, as well as entertainment options, that spells success.

And back to what Centro is.

And it's a public improvement district which basically taxes the businesses or yeah, I don't necessarily call this a tax, but the PID, they call it a public improvement district and you have the ambassadors that help with tourists and they wear the yellow shirts.

Yeah.

And then you also have some people that do outreach.

Yeah.

Quality of life for homeless, for the homeless.

But then you also do other things and you have something what is it, $6 billion budget.

So you have the resources to affect a lot.

So yeah, we have a 6.2.

Yeah, that spins off from the peer now.

But you know, I think really the basic function of Centro is to provide clean and safe services in downtown.

The ambassador program that we have, when you see the power washing that's going on, when you see watering it plants, when we see maybe some activity regarding homelessness that is not so savory.

I mean, we try to intervene and get people into appropriate shelters.

So yeah, I mean, the clean and safe operation is hugely important and I have been very committed and said on several different occasions, and I'll say it again at a luncheon today, we've got to double down on clean and safe, because I do believe there's a perception problem that we have with downtown.

Is that one of the differences between you and Matt Brown?

Matt Brown Very different personality and I mean that in a good way.

But I love that kind of out there going back to California.

So how is it going to be different since early under perseverance, sir?

I mean, I'm I'm I'm a I'm visionary, but I'm also a pragmatist at heart.

And I said we got to we've got to lock down really the basic core services of Centro.

I came up with a 100 day plan before I came into the seed and I said, Look, we're going to focus on core services.

That means doubling down on clean and safe.

That means creating a sense of community again and downtown, which I think was lost as a result of COVID bringing about urban Renaissance linchpins, where Urban Spaces tour so people can see what's going on in downtown.

And then really from a communications standpoint, which I come from pushing out content and whether that's positive content or if there's a crisis, what does that look like?

But we've got to be from a digital strategy because not necessarily everything is organic, pushing out information regarding what is happening and how about getting locals back?

Because I agree with, especially right now with a struggle after the pandemic and so much construction going on downtown, a lot of people haven't seen UTSA, right.

So I think the really and the opportunity that exists is I think the city is very focused when it comes to not just clean and safe, but what is happening with the homeless situation in downtown, whether that's permanent supportive housing.

I think there has been a recognition regarding the value of low barrier shelters.

And what does that look like?

We have a severe crisis when it comes to mental health beds in San Antonio and Bear County.

And so that is a priority with the city and the county.

I believe.

I just got to wrap, but here's one quick question you can answer in 5 seconds.

New sports complex stadium in the downtown area.

Well, first of all, I'm an unabashed sports fan, so whatever we can do to help with that equation, but it's going to come down to really creative financing.

What does that look like?

But it would be a game changer, no pun intended, for downtown asking for tax money.

Well, I don't know about that.

Like I said, we've got to get creative about what we look like.

But it can't the burden cannot be completely on the taxpayer, but it's got to be a public private partnership.

All right.

Well, thanks very much.

I will sound like a politician, almost tourist, the very president and CEO in Centro, San Antonio.

They can find out more on your website about what you do and how to help.

Thanks.

Thank you.

On Reporters Roundtable this week, we were talking about more potential growth in the downtown area.

You might have heard talk anyway of a sports stadium, baseball stadium or a sports district.

Now that we're in, incorporate a new home for the Spurs with us with all the answers to everything you ever wanted to know about that as metro editor for the San Antonio Express-News.

No pressure.

Who is that journalist?

Greg.

I get that I have not met him or who knows all those answers, but I'll give you a So when's it going to be built and what's it going to look like?

It's going to be a dome like in its structure, I don't know.

So yeah, kind of.

Where we're at is the Spurs are looking for a downtown location.

It's not altogether clear whether they will in the end decide to pursue a downtown arena if they do, it will almost certainly be.

It'll probably come with some public financing.

We believe that the Spurs are talking with the city kind of along those lines, testing the idea, and I'm sure they're doing market research to see how a downtown arena would play, what it would mean for their revenue and what it would mean for development, how it could be sold to tax payers.

Yeah, exactly.

And we did confirm last week that the city manager, Eric Walsh, has met with the Spurs at least twice to talk about the potential for a downtown arena before and after one.

Benjamin Oh, after fits it's it's funny.

So go back to 1999.

The Spurs were playing at the Alamodome.

All right.

They'd previously they'd played at Hemisphere Arena, which was this kind of intimate noisy.

I mean, a lot of people really loved that district.

I mean, that that I love that, except for the obstructed views, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, you know, Red McCombs got the city to, you know, they he worked out a lease agreement with or an agreement with the city to put the spurs in the L.A. Alamodome.

But that was really built for an NFL team, not an NBA team.

So it was way too big.

And the sightlines were worse probably than they were in the hemisphere arena.

So in 1998, 1999, the spurs said we need a new arena.

So they first started talking with the the city couple of they, they tried to work out a couple of sites, including one in the Alamo Dome parking lot that didn't work out.

So this the county swooped in and, you know, moved them to the east, basically saved the day, right?

Yeah.

Wouldn't that But that Right.

And that involved a visitors tax election in in the fall of 1999.

And it just so happened that the Spurs won their first world championship just three or four months or four or five months before that election, created a lot of momentum going in there.

You know, there were several good reasons.

And it was visitors tax.

That's right.

That's right.

That was really my money.

Right.

It kind of boiled down to that.

In the end, it was somebody else's money paying for this arena.

But the fact that the Spurs had won a world championship definitely helped.

You've got, you know, getting Wendy is not exactly winning a world championship, not a61 yet, but it has created some momentum.

So, yeah, it's it's undeniable.

But that's what's fueling, if you think of it or sell it as the house that Wendy built.

Right then you think, okay, well the Spurs are going to have the money.

The Heat could build it for us.

You would think so.

I think it's from everything we've heard, right?

Yeah.

People assume that the Spurs probably will have to put in more money than they contributed for the AT&T Center if they kind of resolve to do a downtown arena.

But I, I just don't think it's in the cards for the Spurs to finance an entire arena.

The most recent the newest NBA arena is Chase Center in San Francisco for the Golden State Warriors.

It's in downtown San Francisco, $1.4 billion.

But it's got all the bells and whistles.

It's the Golden State Warriors a little more.

So, yeah, Silicon Valley.

Exactly.

Yeah, it is.

It is the heart of big tech.

So there was plenty of private sector money for that.

And I just I just don't see that happening here.

I also don't see a $1.4 billion and it'll probably be closer to what about now?

We've talked first about the stadium for the missions.

That would be a major league stadium, but it would be big.

And now a sports district with is there the land and where would that be?

Northeast of Denver.

It's hard to say.

We're trying to figure that out now because the missions, the Spurs and the city are being very tight lipped about this.

So when we get around, I mean, we've confirmed that the Spurs have been talking with with Eric Walsh, the city manager.

He's talked with the missions.

What we don't have confirmed is where they might be looking.

But if you look at the footprint, if you're talking about a stadiu you know, the the list of potential sites gets small pretty fast.

And I think maybe the most likely candidate is the Institute for Texan Cultures.

So the idea is you acquire that from the UT system because currently that's owned by kind of owned and operated by UTSA, they maybe move the institute to their main campus downtown.

I mean the downtown campus on the west end of downtown.

But that would also involve a fight with historic partners potentially.

Yeah, exactly.

There are a lot of unknowns here, but that's the most reasonable swap.

And if you're talking about a stadium district like that footprint where it's is, is probably not it's not big enough for two arenas side by side.

You could be looking at it.

This is this is one of the more you could build maybe the baseball stadium where ITC is.

And then one of the more radical ideas is you tear down the Alamodome, replace it with a new NBA arena, and create a SkyBridge linking the two.

And you've got you've got all of the parking around the Alamo Dome and we're available.

I'm sorry about out of time, but what's the timeline, do you think, on this?

In 5 seconds the last ones are going to be, well, the Spurs, I mean, there is there is a timeline to the squishy The Spurs lease agreement on the county owned AT&T Center expires in 2032.

So they've got to get a lot of in motion over the next couple of years.

We'll come back in a few weeks when you have all the schools also know the gets, you know, definitive answers.

All right.

Greg Jefferson, metro editor of the San Antonio Express-News, thanks for coming in, but thank you.

And thank you for joining us for this edition of On the Record.

You can catch this show again or any other show, or check out the podcast at KLRN.org I'm Randy Beam and we'll see you next time on the record is brought to you by Steve and Adele.

Dufilho.