Speaker 1: 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 round table to talk about the latest news stories with the journalists behind those stories.

Join us now, as we go on, welcome to Speaker 2: The record I'm Randy Beamer.

Want to thank you for joining us a number of interesting topics tonight, all about San Antonio.

And we began with a man who knows all about San Antonio grew up here, mayor HUD secretary, all kinds of, uh, titles, former, uh, city council member at the beginning and businessmen.

Now, entrepreneur, you have written a book.

Henry says, now it's called the Texas triangle, you and three others.

And before we get to anything else, why did you write this?

Speaker 1: Well, I think it was two motivations.

One of them was that Texas is changing so rapidly and our, our attitudes, our politics don't really reflect the reality of Texas.

The reality of Texas is we're not the state of wide open spaces and ranches and oil and gas Wells driving the state.

The drivers of the state today are it's big urban areas.

And principally those three of the triangle Dallas Fort worth in the North Houston Galveston in the South East and Austin, San Antonio in the Southwest, that's 66% of the population of the state in just the 35 counties at the tips of the triangle and 77% of the state's economy is generated.

So that's point number one, let's just kind of put on record the truth about what Texas is today.

And the second motivation is always related to San Antonio.

I don't want to see San Antonio get left out of the conversation and the way to avoid that is to link ourselves to this massive dynamic this way that's occurring and make sure we're in sync.

Speaker 2: Yeah, this is, it reads like a study because there were so many, uh, factoids and numbers and we talk about population growth.

That's one of the things that people will just be reminded of the Texas demographer talks about how San Antonio is going to not nearly double, but, uh, close to doubling by two.

Speaker 1: And with Austin together, we're going to be a Metro of about 5 million to 6 million, uh, just in the next 20 years or so.

I mean, people don't really understand just how dynamic Austin is.

And, uh, recently, uh, they landed Tesla and Oracle's world headquarters and presences from Google and Amazon and the United States Army's future command is there.

Their airport is now serving Amsterdam, Paris, London, Frankfurt, um, and they're 75 miles away.

And the land between us and them is filling in.

So we're part of a dynamic that we want to be sure we attend.

Speaker 2: And so in some ways it also reads, uh, I guess you could say like a brochure to let the rest of the world know.

And is that part of it too?

Speaker 1: A little bit about of boosterism in the sense that we want the country to know, uh, America is clearly a metropolitan nation.

Its economy is a metropolitan economy.

And so when people hear that they think the two coasts, Boston, New York, Philadelphia, down to Washington, maybe Miami, and then on the West coast, they think of Seattle Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego.

They might throw in Chicago in the, in the Heartland, but they probably don't think about Dallas, Houston and San Antonio yet as not just national forces, but global forces.

And that is only going to get more intense and more important.

Speaker 2: In the news recently, we were talking about California losing population for the first time Speaker 1: They lost a congressional seat for the first time, since the apportionment Speaker 2: Congress in Texas got to 93, I thought we'd get three.

But, um, the people coming into another fact in the book, I thought it was interesting is the in migration from the rest of the country, San Antonio got a bigger chunk of that.

Percentage-wise like 20% in migration from the rest of the country.

Well, uh, Houston 9%.

Speaker 1: Oh, that is just, uh, mathematics.

In other words, the larger you are, even though you get a large number of people, the percentage is smaller.

You know, Speaker 2: Getting used to from the rest of the world Speaker 1: That we are, we're getting a lot of people here, uh, impact.

Somebody told me the other day they were in a parking lot and there were more California license plates than Texas license plates.

And that's a function of taxes in California.

Uh, just the, the effects of overcrowding and people wanting to come to what they believe to be the, the magnet that is the economy of Texas, the job opportunities.

Uh, and I think whether we like it or not, and some people don't like it, we're riding a rocket ship and we need to be thoughtful about preparing for it.

And that means our water supplies, our power grid, our, um, transportation systems and building for them.

Um, Austin is the classic case.

They went through a several decades of saying, keep Austin weird.

That was the city motto, you know, uh, and now they understand what it means to have somebody putting 10,000 jobs, 20,000 jobs of high quality.

Speaker 2: And that's one of the things that you talk about in the book.

You talk about potential pitfalls.

We saw it in new Braunfels just this week.

There was a city council meeting, a battle over development.

If somebody is a shirt, new Braunfels population full, they don't want to be Austin, Tonio, California.

And they're worried about that.

Should we be Speaker 1: Worried?

But yes.

I mean, it's, I think you worry about it because you have to prepare, but once these forces are unleashed and they're bigger than us, we're, we're going to have the growth and we're going to have the development and we're going to have the people so prepare in a thoughtful and conscious way to avoid some of the mistakes that are being made right now in Silicon Valley where housing prices have gotten completely out of whack transportation makes it impossible headline.

And the business section of the New York times about a month ago was getting out as fast as they can.

People coming out of Silicon Valley.

Well, you want to avoid those kinds of mistakes by, by thinking ahead.

Speaker 2: One of the things you talk about thinking ahead is the Republican democratic split in terms of democratic cities led by democratic, uh, mayors and councils and San Antonio, Austin, Dallas, Fort worth Houston versus the Republican legislature.

Tell us what you are worried about with that as we go, Speaker 1: It's not productive to, first of all, uh, not orient the state's policies to the reality that this, this golden goose that's growing for us need some support support for education support, for higher education support, for roads support for, uh, the rest of the infrastructure health health initiatives.

So if you had a positive working relationship, you could address those things.

And we would be even stronger and not end up with big time problems of inequities and division that SAPs our ability to grow beyond that.

Uh, it's a political strategy of sort of dividing the base by going after the quote cultural issues.

So instead of, instead of supporting the cities and working cooperatively, instead we're debating bathroom bills, sanctuary city measures, reducing local property taxes, cutting their ability to a next, all kinds of things, limiting Speaker 2: The power of those local governments.

And Speaker 1: For a while, that may be a viable political strategy, but for the long haul, it only hurts the potential of Texas.

The importance of this is not just for the people who live in the, in the triangle.

It's for Texas as a whole.

That's where our state budget is going to come from because it's 70%, 77% of the GDP of the state, right?

That's why our state budget is going to come from.

We're going to fund the entirety of the university of Texas and a and M and Texas tech systems.

A and M has 11 universities from Laredo to, to Corpus Christi, to West Texas.

They're funded out of that state budget.

So the better off these engines of the economy are the better off as the rest of the state.

It's also a national issue.

America is about to inherit a major global complex that matters Houston and the port and petroleum Dallas and the N DFW airport and the technology sector, Austin, and then the growing tech sector and the, uh, San Antonio and biomedicine, as well as the Houston medical center.

These are global institutions.

Speaker 2: So who is the book written for?

If somebody is out there wondering what, what am I, what am I going to get?

What, what, what do I expect?

Speaker 1: The book is written for, uh, the state's leaders for the chamber of commerce and, and local officials, uh, it's written for academics who teach these subjects, uh, it's written for every Texan that is curious and wants to be oriented and wants to know about these places.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

I thought it was fascinating.

Cause I thought I knew a lot about it and know about the growth, but you really dig into yet three other authors and they dig deep into what's what's going on?

What do I want to mention?

One other thing that you're doing, you're a renovating your grandfather and your uncle's old print shop on the West side.

So it's important.

You're, you're developing parts of San Antonio still, Speaker 1: That, that that's personal in the sense that it's not connected to any other larger dynamic.

Um, it was, uh, a deteriorating industrial plant, a print shop.

Uh, it's on the West side, it's in the poorest census tract in San Antonio.

And in some respects, I'm trying to walk the talk that is to say, uh, if we're talking about raising incomes and opportunity by investing in the underserved areas, I'm actually trying to do it.

Speaker 2: We have a time for a yes or no question.

As we look at the book.

Now this is the Texas triangle.

It's not a book about Henry Cisneros.

No, not at all.

Will there be a book about Henry Cisneros?

Speaker 1: No, my daughter presses me on that all the time and I just don't have time to do that.

I'm still trying to get things done.

May be somewhere down the road, but I can't promise because I keep finding important things to talk about that relate to bigger subjects.

This is a joint product with rice university, a fellow named bill Fulton and the George Bush center in Dallas and SMU fella named Calum Clark and myself Speaker 2: And Texas a and M university presses in there.

You have to be as an Aggie plugging that Texas triangle, the book is out now, right?

You get it everywhere.

Amazon bookstores, whatever Henry says, narrows author.

Thanks very much for coming in.

Appreciate you.

Good luck with the book.

Thanks.

joining us now is former city council.

And then Bonnie Connor, who is, I guess you could say in this case, a concerned citizen and speaking out about what you could boil down to being called a water fight, a conservation fight over the San Antonio Edwards aquifer recharge.

And if you could kind of explain it, there are a couple of landowners who have conservation easements on their property that are concerned that the San Antonio water system is going to build water and sewer lines through their conservation easements to support the development over the aquifer recharge zone.

Uh, tell us about this.

You have it exactly right.

That's exactly what it is.

Um, the city has what they call the EAP P Edwards aquifer protection program and, uh, properties that are eligible to be taken into the program are thoroughly vetted, meaning that, uh, there's a science-based reason for wanting to protect those properties that they lay over the recharge zone.

Um, and it's interesting.

People are not sure what the recharge zone does.

Uh, it filters our water and that's why we have the wonderful Edwards aquifer water, the cheapest water in town.

And, uh, you know, we've had it forever.

And that's what made San Antonio grow so greatly in the early years.

Uh, this is this property.

Two properties that we're talking about today, uh, are right on the edge of right on the edge of town.

Now you're building all around them.

Uh, I was out there yesterday, net with the owners, along with some other people.

Uh, they do not want Shaws coming in and putting extra large sewer lines and pipelines on their property.

And now the easement is basically it was tax money from San Antonio.

We've had that tax eighth of a cent sales tax up to this year that pays landowners not to development.

It's a conservation easement is correct.

So the whole point of it is to not develop on that property.

That's right.

To keep it pristine, keep the water clean.

Uh, and it was the fourth of ascend.

Fourth of a sentence.

Okay.

Yes.

And that ended.

Yeah, We ha we have had that since 2000 it's passed every four years, uh, was changed at, by the city council this last November election.

So we no longer have that, What it's supposed to be paid for by general city funds now.

Uh, yes.

Well, yes, we hope it is.

And now, so they see it as it defeats the purpose of having a conservation easement.

If you're going to put city saws, uh, pipes to another development, right next door over the recharge.

Well, you're right.

It does that.

And not only that, uh, it's a dangerous thing to do.

You know, we read about pipes breaking on a pretty regular basis here.

It just happens.

And these are extra large pipes that they want to use.

Uh, and this is for development around this property, not on this property.

They met with the two landowners, neither one of them choose to do this.

They, they bought this property to live there, to stay there, to pass on to their children.

Saws wants to do this project though.

Originally those easements weren't in the plans.

No, not at all.

The easements were not in the plans.

The agreement was made that this would be protected property.

And, um, last week they received, uh, a letter of eminent domain from the engineer, which is STEM on saws employees.

So we were looking at that.

I was surprised to see that, um, I don't know what kind of a timeline it has on it.

Um, I did attend the saws board meeting about a week or two ago.

And, uh, it was presented this piece of property was presented to them for the second time.

It was presented a year before and passed.

But unfortunately we found out that the board was never informed that it was a conservation easement.

So it was brought forth at this last meeting, Amy Hardberger and the mayor both spoke up about it.

Uh, they weren't very satisfied with it.

And so they'd been put in, it's been put on hold.

It has been put on how, what do you want to have happen and what are the landowners want to have happen?

They just want it to be left as it is.

There are alternative saws can follow and then they can take another route.

Um, I think Borg field road, for instance, um, that would probably cost them more money.

They would probably have to put in a lift station and that just pumps the water because it's going up Hill.

Um, I guess the other alternative might be a package plant, but that's like a miniature plant that would be terribly expensive.

Well, that would be the developer that would have to do it, But also in the bigger picture, this is about development over the recharge zone.

And whether, at least some people who are against it say, you know, they're just funding and helping sprawl rampant strike in that area.

Is that what you're concerned about?

I am concerned about it, although I'm also a realist.

I know we're going to grow, but you know, we can grow well.

And I think that's one of the big issues that, uh, our city council, our mayor saws needs to figure out how to make that happen.

Tighter restrictions, overdevelopment over the recharge Restrictions.

Yes.

Yes.

Because you get pushback from the development community.

If you just arbitrarily tightened up things, you know, we all have to live together, but there are ways to do that and do it well.

And where can they find out more information on this?

They can talk to the, um, AA Edwards, aquifer authority.

Um, they can get the planning department needs to be talking to people who are, uh, interested in and knowledgeable of good planning.

All right.

Well, thank you very much, Bonnie Connor for coming in today on reporters round table, we are talking with Ben Allevo, who is with the San Antonio Heron, a nonprofit you see online here, delving into everything to do with downtown.

And one of the biggest issues that we've been talking about recently is the lone star brewery project part four or whatever it is now, the redevelopment of the brewery, just South of downtown.

Where are we on this right now?

There've been a couple of developments recently.

Speaker 1: Sure.

So currently there's a $24 million incentive package that is being proposed for this development.

Um, the city council is going to vote on this, I believe May 20th, but basically the incentive package is going to pay for, um, infrastructure improvements around the lone star brewery.

So the developer goes in, they build the actual buildings, um, the apartments, the hotel, um, parking, retail, all that kind of thing.

The city comes in and, and puts money into the streets, um, drainage, um, sewer lines and things like that.

Speaker 2: And it's been sitting empty since 96.

It was the last of brewery.

There've been three different efforts at least to renovate it into something.

The last one with Aqua land was going to be a $300 million project.

This is a $709 million project in total.

How is this one different?

And, and what are the odds of this one happened?

Speaker 1: So there's a lot of optimism for this, this, this version actually happening because of the developers involved.

So one of the main developers is a midway at a Houston.

They are a mega developer.

They've done some huge projects in Houston and called the station.

And they're partnering with gray street partners, which is locally based Peter furniture.

Exactly, exactly.

And so the, so there's a lot of optimism because of who's involved, but also, um, how are they going to go about doing it?

So they're going to do it in three phases.

And the first phase from a building standpoint is actually the smallest phase.

And they've been very deliberate about this saying, look, we know that this is a huge ambitious project.

It's 32 acres, um, because the site has set so vacant for so long there's there's environmental issues.

Um, you know, what buildings do we need to keep demolish?

And so they're starting small just to kind of get something built and then kind of go from there.

Speaker 2: And this is between pro band and it actually goes to the mission reach of the river, we'll know that area it's South of blue star.

Um, and that amount of money now we're talking the tax breaks.

Is that going to be the controversial part?

Because they say it's the biggest project.

The first part is the biggest ask from the city.

So there, Speaker 1: They're asking 24 million in total.

And the first ask for the first phase of three phases is 11.5 million.

And they say that the big it's the biggest ass because they need to redo the streets, sidewalks.

They want to bury, uh, the, the utility lines, the ground, and they kind of need to get that sort of done first.

And then they can start actually building construction, the buildings and things, Speaker 2: But that isn't really controversial right now.

The committees have, okay, that is going to go to the council.

You think it will pass?

Yeah, Speaker 1: It will pass.

Um, I'm almost certain it'll pass.

You never really know a city council, but, um, the, the reason is because it's set, it's set vacant for so long.

Now, the reason it might be slightly controversial is because there's tax breaks involved.

They're getting, um, tax rebates worth $24 million from the city in Speaker 2: The next 15, 20 years and Speaker 1: In the next 15 years.

Correct.

And so there's always been a, there's been a lot of, um, uh, controversy and talk about, you know, what is the public getting in return for these tax breaks?

Developers are getting tax breaks.

What is the public getting in return?

And I think that the main argument for this development is that this, this iconic site has sat vacant for 25 years.

And it's finally going to come back to it.

Speaker 2: And now the fires that they had recently, one within the last month or so shouldn't play any part in this.

They weren't that destructive to change their plans.

Right.

Speaker 1: Right.

So the, the last that I heard of this was a city attorney told, um, one of the city boards, I was looking at this project that right now, um, they think it was a warming fire, but that it will have little effect on the outcome of, of the actual Speaker 2: Is this Pearl too?

Is this a look like some of the drawings yeah.

Could have been taken at the Pearl?

Speaker 1: That's a great question because it, it could be parole too, but, but some of the main differences is that the Pearl, while it is more sort of expensive and more on the, on the higher end side, it is a hundred percent local.

Whereas for this development, the developers have talked about bringing it in national chains, regional chains to kind of, to kind of mix things up in terms of like the retail and, and who will actually be there.

And Speaker 2: What about the concern of neighbors and people in that area?

There's always concern any massive project.

Gentrification, property taxes are going to just skyrocket around there or there's concern about that.

And what would they do to, uh, ameliorate that, what can the city do?

Speaker 1: So that, that's a really good question because the city department, um, it's, it's the neighborhood and housing services department, they're the same department that's doling out the, the, the $24 million incentive, but they're also the same department that's in of ameliorating, um, gentrification concerns.

And so they are administering this, um, this incentive package, but they're also going to be conducting a study, like an impact study when this gets built, what kind of impact will that have on the neighborhoods around it, and especially property values and property tax.

Speaker 2: And what about that land in between that it's industrial between the Lonestar and say BlueStar, there was already some development there, but what's it going to do to that?

Um, that's a good question.

We're gonna extend really downtown all the way South toward Roosevelt park.

Speaker 1: I mean, it has the potential to, I mean, if you, if you look at what's happening at the Pearl, I mean, you're starting to see some, some pretty major developments happening around it as a result of the Pearl.

And that is very possible after, you know, 10, 15 years Speaker 2: When this is done.

Do you see it?

I mean, it's rather specific in terms of 700, $9 million, right.

But it's going to take 15 years to be there.

Is it just a vague blueprint right now?

Really?

And then what are the odds at the second?

And third phase will be as written now since everything else has changed.

Speaker 1: I, I think there's a huge appetite for, for that particular site to become something.

And, you know, I was talking with some, some friends and some relatives who have memories of the lone star brewery back in the day and the pool, the pool, the pool.

Exactly.

I know the developers are talking about, um, they're going to get rid of the pool, but they're going to, they're going to pay homage to it.

They're going to have like, like the pool outlined the teardrop outlined on the, uh, on, on the new development.

But I mean, th that's a great question.

I mean, I, because of who's involved with this, you've got midway grey street partners.

I mean, th this has the potential to actually, you know, fully happen.

So, And for the latest on that, you can always check out San Antonio heron.org, as well as your, the taco list I used to.

And it's still on the web.

Right.

All right.

Well, thanks very much for, to Livo downtown.

No, at all in a good way.

Yes.

We appreciate you coming in.

And we also want to thank you for joining us for this edition of on the record.

You can see this show again, or previous shows as well as our podcast.

Just go to dot org.

We'll see you next time.