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San Antonio is a fast growing, fast moving community with something new happening every day.

And that's why each week we go on the record with the newsmakers who are driving this change.

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

Join us now as we go on the right.

Hi, everybody, and thank you for joining us for this edition of On the Record.

I'm Randy Beamer.

We have a lot to talk about this week.

First, a new kind of partnership between economic development leaders in San Antonio and in Austin to see if we can get more leverage about things we want maybe out of the legislature, for one thing.

Joining us to talk about that is the CEO of Greater S.A. That used to be the San Antonio Economic Development Foundation, Janice Saito, Arizona.

Thank you very much for coming in.

First of all, what is the partnership going to mean or what do you aim to have it do for San Antonio as well as Austin?

Well, first of all, thank you for the opportunity to be on the show to talk about it.

We in San Antonio and certainly a greater asset have been talking about greater collaboration with our colleagues in Austin for some time.

And and we've been collaborating informally.

But right now, because of everything that's happening regarding economic development at the legislative session, we leaned in and we said, Look, we've got to prioritize collective advocacy for shared prosperity.

So if not now than when.

So we leaned into it at the start of the New Year, and that's the first step to hopefully a more meaningful and broader scope to the partnership going forward.

We have one of the fastest growing corridors, I guess it's been called for years now.

The country, San Antonio to Austin, 5 million people and by some estimates live in the area.

They'll be 7 million within 20, 30 years.

And when you think of economic development, we're talking about bringing jobs that are going to be jobs coming here, housing, all of that anyway.

How is it going to be different with input from groups like this?

How do you want to see it grow differently than if it just grows naturally?

That's a great question.

So I would actually drag down that southern border to the Mega region down into Monterey and think about Monterey through San Antonio to Austin is truly one of the most dynamic employment corridors in the world.

Right?

We are growing.

People are coming, but we've got to be targeted in that level of growth, primarily for San Antonio.

I mean, think about income inequality and income segregation in San Antonio.

We've got to be targeted on the right types of jobs that we want San Antonians to have access to.

And to do that, we've got to be laser focused and targeted on what those industries are and also the training programs that San Antonio is need to fill those roles.

And so groups like ours in Austin, that's that's what we do where we're focused.

Some might think, though, that we're competing with Austin for different kinds of jobs and tech jobs, or they're leaning one way and we should lean the other maybe toward manufacturing if they're going to go high tech.

Some say we don't want to be in Austin in some ways.

And there are kinds of growth.

So what are we focused on in San Antonio as part of this partnership?

So we don't compete with Austin, we compete along with Austin.

And so when we're showing up to companies around the world, they already see us as a one mega region and we see ourselves that way through the data that we're presenting and with the conversations we're having with these employers and airlines, for that matter.

Right.

As a broader mega region.

San Antonio playing in this space isn't just about one industry or another.

We bring the value proposition that is our military base cybersecurity, bioscience and research and certainly manufacturing.

And yes, Austin brings high tech and also manufacturing.

Right.

Think about the automotive manufacturing corridor.

We've had Toyota.

We landed Navistar.

The multiplier effect of their supply chains right around those investments.

And now Tesla right up the road.

And so through collaboration, we can land those significant investments and then also the tiered suppliers that come along with it.

And what are you pushing for the legislature to do to make that easier, to make that happen?

We need the tools, right?

So as economic developers, we have tools like the Texas Enterprise Fund.

We had chapter 313 that expired.

We have 312 380.

And those are for those who don't know.

These are all different tax abatement mechanisms, right?

And so for us in economic development, we just need to make sure we have as many tools as possible.

Right.

The state of Texas, San Antonio and Austin, we've been highly competitive, but we need to remain competitive and we need to keep winning.

To do that, we need to keep innovating.

We can't go backwards.

We've got to go forward.

And how about competition between, say, our area and Dallas and Houston, what they might want out of the legislature and how we might position ourselves against that.

What's interesting here is that we're perfectly aligned with our allies, my equivalents around the state.

We all have this shared priority at the legislature, and that's we need the tools.

We need to be effective.

There are projects that you hear about, right Scout that just went to South Carolina and multiple projects like Micron in New York that we as a state competed for San Antonio, Austin, Houston, Dallas, and we need to continue to be competitive.

So this is one area where as an industry we are 100% aligned.

To our workforce development.

We we talk a lot about in San Antonio during the pandemic, the Ready to work assay program.

That's the San Antonio push for workforce development.

What can the state do to try to help us train workers?

Because you hear that all the time.

What our our workforce, you know, we have military, but we need better training for our own people here to come out of high school.

Yeah.

So I think it's alignment first and foremost with the demand occupations.

We're growing right around the industry, jobs that we're growing, but also it's funding, right?

So you can talk to our university presidents, you can talk to my as the chancellor of ACD, we need funding to make sure that we are providing those programs and that we're scaling those programs effectively.

Ready to work is exceptionally innovative in that we're moving, we're moving, that financial barrier to entry for San Antonians.

But it's that full alignment to not just to your certifications, but ideally for your programs and degrees to fill those roles.

Speaking about Texas A&M University, San Antonio and the growth generally on the South Side, and those are the things that you're keeping maybe a closer eye on than the rest of us at large.

So you can sell that to employers.

I mean, that's that's a huge area out there.

We think of sprawl in San Antonio and we want, you know, where we're going to have all these people.

But there's room in that area.

Yes, Yes, and yes.

So I grew up on the South Side and from Elmendorf.

I'm very proud of that.

And so, yes, right.

We're marketing the broader region, but there is a lot of opportunities specifically on the south side of San Antonio.

I will tell you that one of the things that we are struggling with right now is large shovel ready mega sites.

We define MEGA-SITES as 500 acres plus.

So you think about these large manufacturers in automotive space or even semiconductor space, and they are required seeing these large scale sites contiguous.

Right.

That are ready to move in six months so they can, you know, turn shovels, turn dirt.

And that's a big challenge for us right now.

So we're having active conversations with landowners and utilities, right.

To cobble together land, but also to make sure that we've got the utilities required.

And it's a priority for us and certainly the public sector as well.

How big a problem is that?

I was down near Somerset a couple of days ago and it seems like there's a lot of this land down there.

There's also some construction going on down there and industrial sites, but not not that big.

You say not as big as you'd like.

So it's got to be contiguous.

500, 500 acres plus you think Rivian right.

They needed 2000 acres contiguous and shovel ready.

That does not exist within our region.

Right.

We've got some sites that we're working now.

In fact, we've got about five that we're having conversations with to get them ready.

But we have lost out on projects because we don't have the existing mega sites.

And now we're not talking to San Antonio.

You talked about the eight metro counties.

We've had some develop a New Braunfels is just growing like a weed, but also in Seguin in that area, people might not realize here how much growth is going on there.

Singing is doing exceptionally well.

In fact, I think the last few projects that we've worked have gone out to the game that are in the manufacturing space.

International manufacturers looking at it again and their economic developers are also very innovative as well.

What about jobs for the inner city?

Because we're talking about all these manufacturing jobs, big companies, rural spaces being turned into manufacturing sites.

But how does that translate into jobs for people in different parts of San Antonio that have been overlooked?

I love this question.

So our strategy, Randi, is very simple, and that's if we invest in our people, in our place, that we can secure top quality jobs for the region.

And what you're getting at is the place aspect of it.

You know, the city of San Antonio worked on a comprehensive master plan where they identified 13 regional centers right around the area.

And I would say, you know, the Port of San Antonio is doing exceptionally well.

We support them on the recruitment side, but they're placemaking.

Brooks is in the same type of category, Right?

They're doing exceptionally well.

The medical center, the one area that needs some love right now, that need some focus, attention and quite frankly, leadership is downtown San Antonio and we're working on it.

And we've got a lot of available class space, but we need some leadership.

And I wish we had more time to talk about this.

And I should have gotten to this earlier.

Transportation Rail Between San Antonio and Austin, we talked about it for decades.

How how close are you to getting something done in that, say, at the legislature?

Is that going to even be brought up this year?

Help for transportation between, say, in Austin?

Yeah.

So the priorities are infrastructure, education, workforce development and economic development policies.

Right.

I can't say that we're going to have a solution for connectivity by the end of the session, but I know that there are conversations being had.

Let's just make it happen.

Let's do.

It.

Well, thanks very much, Jana.

So say the rarer the greater SATC CEO.

Thanks for coming.

In.

Thanks for having me.

We're coming up on the baseball season in San Antonio, and that means it'll be first pitch at Nelson Wolff Stadium for the missions with a new ownership team and with talk of a possible stadium in the works down the road somewhere downtown.

And joining us to talk about that is a member of the board of Designated Bidders, the new owners of the team, Bob Cohen.

Thank you very much for coming in.

Thank you, Randy.

Thanks for having me.

First of all, how did this happen?

You know, the missions have been here forever.

They were technically for about a year or two.

They're a triple-A team.

Then Major League Baseball got involved and kind of reorganized Major League Baseball is now overseeing minor league teams and this whole new ownership team, it seemed like to a lot of people came in out of the blue and white.

And, you know, in a lot of ways, that's that's true.

Randy, the the group, the core group that put this deal together was myself, Randy Smith and Peter Holt and Reed Ryan.

We were first contact when we were first contacted about a year ago.

Now by Dave Elmore and Joe More of the Elmore Sports Group.

They've owned the mission since the mid eighties and that's the last time the missions were ever owned locally was before they came in was in the mid eighties.

We had we had been interested in minor league baseball and frankly looked at some deals outside of San Antonio.

I personally looked at some deals in other states.

We never really felt like the missions were going to be a possibility.

In fact, we'd completely written that off.

Suddenly things changed.

We were contacted.

They said we were interested in selling the entirety of the team and Bruce Hill was contacted by Dave Elmore.

Indeed, Elmore Bruce reached out to me and said, Let's get busy.

There's an opportunity here.

We'd been talking to Randy through the years, too, about about baseball and center.

Listen, Urban and Western Urban.

Randy Smith is the co-founder of Western Urban with Graham West, and then he's the CEO.

We talked to him about centrally located baseball and so forth.

So so that the three of us were sort of pre-heated to to look at a deal.

We quickly went to work to try to get the team under a letter of intent.

We did that.

I had a personal relationship with Reed Ryan, the former president of the Houston Astros, a co-founder and CEO of Ryan Sanders Baseball.

They owned the Round Rock Express.

They used to own the Corpus Christi Hooks.

They've been in the baseball business for a very long time.

I reached out to Reed figuring that they probably were looking at the team as well, and I said to to read.

I felt like we had the potential to put together a group that could really bring this off and do good for San Antonio and keep baseball here for generations to come.

Would he be interested in joining up with us?

Took him a few days to come back to us and he said, absolutely, let's join up.

So we really put together our core group back about a year ago.

We spent the rest of 2022 putting the deal together, raising the funds, working with Major League Baseball, working with the San Diego Padres and assembling a great group of investors that reflect San Antonio and that really have a common vision with us about doing something that is transformative for for San Antonio, keeping baseball here for.

A long time it was talk about, you know, building a new stadium somewhere in the downtown area.

But it's a Double-A team right now.

Whether San Antonio would have the support, it seems like Round Rock had more support.

The Austin area, they basically have the triple-A.

Now we don't.

How are you going to sell a stadium if you need help building a stadium?

Alan, Assume that would be the case.

You'd need public money.

What is the sell that you'll you'll give to people as to what they're going to get out of it?

Well, we like the idea of a centrally located baseball stadium, whether it's in downtown or whether it's near downtown.

We don't know any of that yet.

We're working with a variety of ideas and sites and we've got a lot of planning to do.

We're doing a lot of listening.

We're learning, We're making the plan.

We're working on the plan.

And when the plan is fully developed, we will roll that out.

But the idea is to have a facility that's that's first class, that's best in class that reflects that's worthy of San Antonio and that is accessible from all parts of the community.

You know, when you look around the state and other cities that have baseball stadiums, you've got Amarillo, Midland, Corpus Christi, Sugarland, Frisco, El Paso, even if Round Rock, of course, we talked about, even if you go north to Oklahoma City and Tulsa, all of these cities have baseball stadiums which are top rate and better than what we have here.

And that's just not we just don't see it that way.

We've got to we've got to do something that really reflects what we are here and see it work.

You think to long term invest in Nelson Will Stadium because it's just in the wrong place.

Well, Major League Baseball, as you mentioned a little bit earlier, came in and changed a lot of the things about minor league baseball used to be more of a dotted line relationship with the minor leagues.

Now they really have control of the whole system and their focus is on player health and wellness.

So a lot of the requirements that they have are stepped up and much of them are reflected in the in the things that are inside of a stadium that fans never see.

We can do a few things, too.

NELSON Will Stadium.

Most of them are square footage related.

So we don't want to pour a lot of resources into a facility which is which needs quite a bit of upgrade.

I mean, it really is one of the worst stadiums in minor league baseball.

Not anybody's fault.

It was built at a different time with different purposes.

It's old now and so we can do a few things to it, put a put some makeup on it, put some paint on it, put some drink rails up, and we're doing some of those things.

Fans will see a new playing surface this year, but what we want long term is a state of the art facility that's best in class that can help make San Antonio and the mission to be one of the top franchises in minor league sports.

This is the most populous market in minor league baseball.

How important is it that you have some other names in there like, oh, Manu Ginobili, David Robinson, those kind of, you know, Peter J.

Hold?

How how important is it that they're involved?

The mayor said it's crucial to have a local ownership, which we hadn't had before.

Well, we did know that that to to for the long term survivability of professional baseball in San Antonio that a local ownership group was going to be imperative and crucial.

And what we intended to do was to to to put together a group of investors who had that common vision, as I mentioned earlier, to to do something that was great for San Antonio.

And we did that.

We put together a group of movers and shakers, people who can get things done.

The reflective of our community already mentioned some of the folks you mentioned money, Ginobili, David Robinson, Hope and a former secretary of State of Texas, the Cortez family from La Margarita Meteora.

And on and on and on.

We have a great group and and Henry Cisneros is one of our investors.

We are focused and everybody that's a part of our investor group can get things done.

And so it was important to have a group that was reflective of this entire community, and we've done that.

How important is this year in terms of getting people out to the ballpark to show that there is this kind of support in San Antonio starts April 11th and we're almost out of time.

Here is an old announcer like you.

But what you need to get people in the seats this year to show that it would work downtown.

Minor league baseball is the front porch of of of communities in the United States.

It's a great night out It's affordable family, fun.

We want people to come out and make a memory.

When they come out this year, the things they'll see are new playing surface, some drink real, some fresh paint, skinning a skinning of the fence line around the stadium.

It's a it's affordable night out.

It's a lot of fun.

They will see owners out there every night.

They've never had local ownership to look.

At and the ball piano and the puppy taco and out in the berm and the in the left field, that's still all going to be there.

I'll be there.

And the thing about minor league baseball is that nobody really cares whether you win or lose, that they're going to see great baseball.

And in Double-A, there are great prospects.

And by the time people go to their car, they really don't care who won or lost.

It's a big it's a big fun.

And used car is still with us.

It's coming.

By.

Well, thanks very much, Bob, on designated bidders.

Thanks for letting us know what's going on.

Thanks, Randi.

Thanks for having me on.

Our reporters roundtable this week, you might have seen a couple of stories about the latest on Brackenridge Park and the controversy over whether to remove some trees as part of an ongoing project, as well as the latest at the Alamo and what is going on there.

Joining us to talk about it is the man who knows everything about San Antonio, Scott Huddleston, staff writer for the Express-News on Baker County Government, History and Preservation.

And now we're out of time.

But thanks for joining us.

Now, one of the stories that you had recently was on a Texas Historical Commission meeting about whether to go ahead with plans to remove some trees as part of a bond project that actually dates back to 2017.

It's been on hold.

Tell us about this.

Well, you know, we've had numerous meetings locally on this issue, this 2017 bond issue, this much beleaguered project.

But this was the first time that San Antonio has had an opportunity to go to the Texas Historical Commission and present their concerns about the removal of trees, even though, you know, the city has reduced the number of trees that it plans to remove by about 25%.

So one of the I guess, key things that came out of that was the River Road Association, presenting a couple of letters from engineers saying that they have a more reliable way to repair the walls, a more sturdier construction method that would allow more of those trees to remain in place.

And we're talking about what is it, six, what they call heritage trees that are more than 24 inches in diameter, and then some other trees as well, about 40 trees.

And they want to relocate some as well.

About 19, yeah.

And that's just in the first phase of this two phase project.

But it's a very, you know, considered a sacred space because it's on the north end of Brackenridge Park, very close to the headwaters of the San Antonio River.

And the city, the tree people and the architects, they had said they need to move those because they want to get ahead of this project.

But the new people coming in and the engineers saying it's not.

How do you think the Texas historical Commission saw that and what's going to happen next?

Well, you know, they focus on US secretary of the Department of the Interior standards.

And so, you know, they don't necessarily focus on environmental issues per se, but if they're interested in what these engineers are saying in terms of how these 1920, his era river walls could be rebuilt in a way that allows more of the trees to stay in place, I think that they may support that.

And so basically, John, now the chairman of the commission said, let's put this on hold so we can study it further because we want to take the time to make the right decision.

And then there are a couple more hopes when the historical commission makes their decision, yay or nay, that it's the what is it, the Army Corps of Engineers, as well as the agency San Antonio Historic and Design Review Commission?

Yes, I expect that that process to be rigorous as well, going through the HRC.

So how long do you think this will take?

Because this is holding up, what do they call it, Phase one of redevelopment in the northern end of the park where there is a historic raceway that's right next to the river.

And some of that is deteriorating and they say it can't they need to work on it.

You know, Randi, this was deferred from last year.

They plan to start doing the work on this last year and the window closed because the migratory bird season is starting.

And so they can't take down the trees this time of year.

And that window's closing again.

So I don't know.

This this project is just it's been deferred for so long.

It's a 2017 project and the city's already started in its 2022 bond projects.

So I don't know, they may have to rethink the whole project or even pull the plug on it.

And the Brackenridge Park Conservancy, they also have some private money that they want to be able to spend and they can't really.

So that's on hold, too, as I understand it.

All right.

Let's move on to the Alamo, where the latest on this.

One of the headlines you quoted somebody as saying, the Alamo walls are crying, basically that there's this rising damp where their walls are rotting from within more or less.

We you know, years ago there was there were problems with leaks in the roof, you know, rainwater seepage.

And so that's been repaired more than ten years ago.

But there's still this problem that has gone on for more than a century called Rising Damp.

And it's just basically the Alamo Church sucking up moisture from the ground like a sponge kind of.

And so, you know, they've they've they're assimilating this team of preservation experts to preservation architects and a couple of experts from Italy, actually, who have a lot of experience in dealing with, you know, dampness and how they affect historic buildings.

And so they're they're going to soon hire, announce a lead preservation architect to work with that that committee.

And some of the things they're looking at are even as complicated as underground drainage to drain the water from that area.

Okay.

So we're talking, you know, years of work, but also this session of the legislature, they're looking at money for that bigger project of the Alamo Plaza renovation.

Where are they in that?

It's a $400 million ask.

And that's that's a ton of money.

That's all public money.

That's that's for the whole project, including, you know, the streetscapes and the sales leading down to the River Walk Riverwalk and 50 million of that will just be dedicated just to preservation of the church in the long barrack, those two missionaries structures at the Alamo.

And you think this is going to happen?

Dan Patrick has been a supporter of the Alamo, the Cenotaph where it is.

Politically, this is.

Yeah, I would think.

Yeah.

The state's got a surplus and this is a good time for a big ask like that.

But, you know, as far as what the specific fix is, is going to be on the church, whether it's, you know, adding reinforcing steel or, you know, replacing the roof or that kind of thing or even reconstructing some of the walls.

You know, they're taking the approach that this is a sacred space to just like Brackenridge Park.

And it's kind of like the physician's credo is, above all else, do no harm.

And they want to be absolutely sure that they're doing the right thing before they do it.

And they just open to are about out of time.

But they just opened the museum behind the Alamo.

I'm not sure what that's officially called.

Not the one that cross the street yet, but the Ralston Family Collection Center.

Yes, that's that's it.

And it's really a great addition to the Alamo.

And it gives us an idea of what could be headed down the road.

All right.

Well, thanks very much, Scott Huddleston.

And check his work out in the San Antonio Express-News, Bear County Government History and Preservation staff writer Scott Huddleston.

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

You can see this show again, our previous shows.

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