On the record is brought to you by Steve and Adele Dufilho.

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

That's why each week we go on the record with the news makers 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.

Hi, everybody.

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

I'm Randi Team.

And now this week, we're going to be talking about everything from what's up at the Alamo Dome to the cost of a baseball stadium where that might go in San Antonio.

We'll meet the new director of the county's public health department.

First, we're going to talk about public housing.

A new development or redevelopment and the cost of public housing.

Joining us to talk about that is Ed Hinojosa, Junior who is with what was called the San Antonio Housing Authority, now called the Opportunity Home.

San Antonio president and CEO.

Thank you very much for coming in.

Now, the project that we're talking about that you're going to be working on is the redevelopment or I guess the rebuilding of the Allentown courts out on the West Side.

Tell us how this differs from all of the other projects that have been done with public housing in San Antonio for decades.

Let me thank you for having me here today.

It's great to be here and talk a little bit about the work we're doing in San Antonio.

So this this project, this approach we're taking is different from the way we were planning to approach on a patchy redevelopment over a year ago.

There was some negativity in the press, some demonstrations so we planned originally to demolish our design and relocate the people, rebuild it into a mixed income community.

And that was the old plan and this was during the pandemic.

And it was not very long after I started working as the interim president and CEO that I realized the negative impact this would have on the community.

First of all, we would be removing people from their support systems, from their schools.

The families that I was on at that time were at income levels of about $8,000 a year.

And we decided to hire a master planner and begin working with the community to figure out a way that we could approach ours on redevelopment without displacing families.

The master planner has worked with the community and the residents in order to develop a plan that's about to become public in the next month or so.

And so what we think of as Alexander Percy courts are actually two developments right now, Palatine being north of Guadalupe.

Is that right?

Apache being south.

What you're going to do is rebuild on a baseball field or build new the Arlington courts.

I understand the cost.

24 million or so that would represent about $272,000 per unit, which people might think, well, wait, that's a lot of money per unit for a public housing project.

Yes, that's right.

First of all, construction costs have increased dramatically.

But in addition to that, we are spending extra money on creating a very environmentally sound, energy conscious building.

So we are targeting a net zero carbon footprint for that development.

So in the short term, yes, it will cost more, but long term it will have the energy savings associated are there going to be small and compact as we see now in courts and housing developments?

We think of public housing.

So much of the public housing at Ellison Courts is about 600 square feet, and that's just not up to current standards.

The existing units don't have washers and dryers.

They don't have central air will address the size of the units as well as modern realities.

And this represents a whole shift in the thinking of public housing and how it's financed.

Weekly court was replaced with mixed income.

You say eventually it was a bad idea because it just got rid of more public housing because developers had to make some money on that mixed income.

This you're supporting yourself.

It's not public private.

It's public development.

It's the old SA itself.

That's correct.

We are approaching this in a very different way.

Public private partnerships are great for a certain purpose, but what we found is over the last two decades, we in San Antonio have removed 1700 public housing units from our inventory and yet the need has grown tremendously.

Our waitlist has grown.

It almost doubled during the pandemic.

And what is it now?

It is close to 70,000 families that on the average earn about $10,000.

70,000 families?

Yes.

And now so this program and every project, how fast will that be done?

And then will you get on to the Apache project and others?

So yes, we will.

The initial construction is about 88 units and we are planning to move fairly quickly with that.

Since we're not using one of these complicated structures, we're funding it ourselves and we've also applied for city bond funds to assist with the funding.

And those two sources of funds will allow us to move very, very quickly as we have the first stage ready.

We hope to move families out of the existing alleys on into the new construction and then continue renovating or rebuilding in a phased approach.

Well, it's interesting.

I wish we had more time.

I know you're going to be announcing more of this in the next month, so please come back and give us an update as you're, I guess, changing the whole image from Zaha to Opportunity.

Opportunity Home, San Antonio.

Sorry it didn't roll off the tongue.

Ed Hinojosa, junior president and CEO, thanks for coming in.

Thank you for having us.

We are getting ready to see some renovations at the Alamo Dome after the busiest three months they've had there in some time.

A number of concerns.

Joining us to tell us what's going on at the dome and what's going to happen at the dome as we get ready for the 30th anniversary is Richard Oliver, who is the communications manager for the Alamo Dome, as well as the convention center.

Thanks for joining us.

Good to see you again.

30 years.

You were five.

You were five when I was covering the Alamo Dome when it opened.

And even before then with the architects and things like that.

But it's amazing that it's been here.

We don't realize how much first of all, let's get into how much it has brought to this city, you know?

You know, it was very controversial at first.

Some people said did the white elephant, some people say it's still.

That never made us any money.

What do you what do you tell people I tell people all the time.

You know, when you talk about quality of life at San Antonio and the things that we've been able to bring in because that Alamodome is there, it's astounding.

I mean, you've been at how many events over the years We I joke all the time and I think there's been enough confetti dropped from the rafters over the years to cover the Alamo.

And I don't think I'm too far off on that.

I mean, we have we have a lot of dreams have been made inside that facility.

And I think a lot of people who live in San Antonio have seen things happen and have experienced things in their life.

But economically, that's the argument some people made, but that it's paid for itself.

How many times over in terms of other development, other money brought in?

Right.

Well, you talk about the Final Fours there.

We have our fifth one coming up at 20, 25.

You talk about UTSA football, big league weekend.

Go back over your checklist of events that have come in that have been able to drive revenue you talked about just the last three months.

Let's just talk about that.

Those four concerts, Elton John, Bad Bunny, Poison, Motley Crue, Def Leppard, all of those coming in drove 200,000 people through the doors of the Alamo Dome and $27 million in gross gross revenues that it's a catalyst for economic impact.

Not to mention the folks who come in and enjoy San Antonio's downtown before or after at an original cost is I remember something at $179 million in those years died off within a year.

And tell us about what's going to happen in the next year or two before the next final four.

Well one of the great catalysts of having a Final Four and as they come in and say, boy, we'd sure like to have a few improvements in X, Y and Z, and that's what's going to happen with the Alamo Dome.

$23 million part of a $109 million long range capital plan for the Alamo Dome.

They're going to be doing everything.

We're going to be adding most notably 18 new suites which will give 70 suites in the Alamo Dome to be able to accommodate.

We found that all the shows are coming in.

They want more suites.

This will be a great way to do that.

Also the 52 existing suites are going to be upgraded, renovated, also restrooms, some of the upper level concourses concessions.

I could go through a whole checklist, obviously, of the things that are going to happen, but it's going to be a better place.

And in the long run, over the next six years, those improvements are going to help the Alamo Dome be more competitive or as competitive and extend the life of the facilities.

And it still didn't bring us the NFL team that we had hoped for won't bring us that team even with the suites.

What does it look like compared to all the other new stadiums you get in L.A. and, you know, the Cowboys Stadium, whatever there is out there, we shouldn't be expecting it to do that.

No, I don't think so.

I don't think by design, I don't think the Alamo Dome is now capable of handling an NFL franchise.

Certainly we talk about 70 suites.

Those billion dollar Taj Mahal now that they're being built or complexes, the Alamo Dome is not going to have that.

They have the bones.

But getting it to that point would be very and as we talk about this in a few minutes, we're going to talk with Michael Taylor and express news about the baseball stadium plans for downtown.

And some people are saying, well, the Alamo Dome, you know, is an example of why we shouldn't be spending any public money for a baseball stadium, the AT&T center.

What would you say to people like that?

I would argue it.

You know, part of it, part of the cost that goes into these kind of things.

Let's just talk about the seismic ramifications in your community.

Businesses that come in, they want to bring their employees in.

They want a place that has a quality of life and has offerings beyond the work place.

San Antonio has that with the AT&T Center and the concerts there and certainly the Alamo Dome and baseball.

If they do bring a stadium downtown, we have the most walkable, beautiful downtown in America.

I'll I'll stack it up maybe around the world.

These are complements to each other.

I think with the NCAA comes in and says, we want to put the Final Four at the Alamo Dome.

It's not because the Alamo Dome is this like in the Taj Mahal, like Jerry rolled up in Arlington, but it's part of the big package.

It's downtown.

Hey, we could go park it our hotel downtown.

We can walk everywhere.

I want from you to campus.

The night of the Elton John concert probably got there as quick as a lot of people who drove because it was just downtown.

People when walked across downtown, walked through Hemisfair is a great night.

Beautiful but it's hard to convince people, some of them about I don't want to park around the dome.

I don't know.

What do you tell people about that?

Well, I would tell them you go to some other communities, you go to some other big shows and some other big places you're going to walk there.

It's all about parking and all these different things.

And San Antonio, at least when you're walking from wherever you've got to park to get to a big event like an Elton John concert, you're going to you're going to walk a bit.

At least you're walking through a beautiful river, walk downtown and restaurants and everything else.

We've got the whole package here, Randy, and it's a it's a beautiful thing.

In the meantime, there's going to be a little construction at the dome, but we can still go to concerts.

It's bad money coming again.

That money would like to miss bad money the first time.

50 for John.

Elton John was worth it.

Yeah.

Richard Oliver, thank you very much.

The communications manager for the Alamo Dome in the convention center.

Appreciate it.

Come back when we have more development as of today, there is a brand new department in Barrow County Department of Public Health or Preventative Health, an environmental services technically.

And taking over today is Dr. Andrea Guerrero.

Coronado, who is the director.

Thank you very much for coming in on this first day explain to people what this department is, because you really, at least right now, there are three departments that exist that you're taking over kind of an under an umbrella, but you're going to expand this thing.

The county wanted to, I guess, create its own public health department, especially out of COVID.

How do you see this whole new department developing exactly.

So because of COVID and because of the pandemic, I think that there it became very evident that there was a lack of capacity within the county departments to effectively address the inequities and health disparities, especially in the unincorporated areas of the county.

And so Commissioner Judge Wolf and the commissioners court wanted to create this entity, this division, to increase that capacity so that we could address those issues.

Some people were surprised by this.

They thought, well, Metro Health works with their county, and you don't want to duplicate the services but the argument against that is you want to expand those services, and especially because of the disparities out in the county.

Absolutely.

So I do not want to create any any new things that are happening within Metro Health, but want to develop partnerships and complement anything that that is existing there.

But there are nearly 600,000 people that live outside the city limits of San Antonio in the unincorporated, unincorporated areas of the county who lack some access to basic services, where if we do have higher rates of diabetes and cardiovascular disease just among the general population, especially among folks who are lower income and might have difficulty accessing services because of transportation, because of lots of lots of different reasons.

But it's their options are sometimes limited because they are farther removed from the city of San Antonio.

And so creating this department with a focus on partnerships, with a focus on being complementary to anything that's already existing, I think will provide a more comprehensive set of circumstances for people in the entire county and not just those that are inside the city of San.

Antonio, I guess especially a focus on preventative health services.

How do you see that developing and what's this department going to look like a year from now when you're actually more or less standing up?

Right.

So COVID did obviously, you know, highlight the the fact that people with preexisting conditions, people who have higher rates of diabetes and cardiovascular disease and especially obesity, who lacked access to health care, access to a doctor.

Obviously, there was lots of testing and things like that.

But once once someone who was already had a preexisting condition and then got COVID, where a much higher rate or much higher risk for death and severe illness because of COVID.

And so creating this department will address a lot of the the options for preventing some of those chronic conditions that can lead to severe illness and death.

And not just from COVID.

We have, you know, flu is is really high right now.

My daughter is recovering from flu right now.

And so there are lots of other conditions that can exacerbate or be exacerbated by chronic conditions that exist.

And so I think that the the reasons that these chronic conditions exist, sometimes our historical there's been, you know, lack of access for lots of different reasons.

Obviously, the history of San Antonio, not unlike many other cities, is that those who have lower income and who are people of color, that they have been made vulnerable because of some of these historical inequities that exist in our systems.

For example, the south side is going to finally get a big university hospital that'll be down at the Texas A&M, San Antonio campus or in that area.

And that's where your headquarters are going to be.

Eventually.

Eventually, yes.

How long are we looking at because the commission has just announced that within the past year, how long is it going to take to to develop that whole area?

The plan is well into next year.

They haven't broken ground on that hospital.

Them I'm told that the plan is to create there to build that hospital next year.

And so eventually the public health department will move down there.

But for now, we'll be downtown with the other county office.

And now the three departments that you have that are under you right now are agro life.

Environmental health, as well as behavioral and mental health are environmental services what does that mean?

What are some of those things do now that we wouldn't think environmental services, agri reliant, but that's part of a health department, right?

Environmental services is responsible for air quality, for mosquito control, for garbage and waste pickup also for.

Which we don't think of as part of a health department per se.

Say, oh, I mean, just the disposing of waste is extremely important in terms of public health and in so in lots of neighborhoods, if there is an abundance of trash that's not picked up, it can attract lots of different things that are unhealthy.

You know, you can have roach infestations, road it infestations depending on the type of garbage that's left out.

And so our county's done a really great job of building up that department.

So that definitely is directly related to public health, but also septic folks who need access to wastewater and, you know, really efficient septic systems that out in the county, those are extremely important to town like health.

You're going to have a wide portfolio there to start on.

Right but the behavioral mental health department also, you know, as a lot of folks know, the county jail is the largest provider of mental health services in the county and so that department, I think, is going to be essential to increase the capacity to serve those folks that are in that in that facility.

And then the folks that are in that facility also have families and children and wives and husbands.

And so the just the person that is in that facility is not the only person that probably needs access to mental health it is a it is a family issue and extremely important department to to include in public health.

Well, it sounds like you have a lot of work to do.

So good luck with that new job.

Again, this is Dr. Andrea Guerrero, who is the director of Preventative Health and Environmental Services Department for the county as of today.

Thanks for coming in.

Thank you.

On the record this week, we're talking baseball in San Antonio and possibly a new baseball stadium.

And if you build it who will pay for it and what happens?

And with the answers to all those questions is the man who should know all the answers, Michael Taylor, San Antonio Express-News, a business columnist Smart Money, as it's called in the Express-News and the Houston Chronicle.

Thanks for joining us.

Thanks for having me, Randy.

First of all, if people haven't been kept up with the baseball story, in the baseball Elmore group that's on the missions for a while, they're selling to a group involving Graham Weston of Weston Urban who also owns Downtown Properties.

All this is expected to happen, and there is expected to be a push for a baseball stadium.

So what does it all mean?

We're talking about a triple-A baseball stadium or a possible Major League Baseball stadium.

I think that's what the civic leaders would love.

But the reality is we have a Double-A baseball team that plays in a double league.

So I don't think you could promise anything beyond that for the moment.

But you don't think it'll go to a triple-A?

I'm sure the owners would like us to believe that there's a triple-A or Major League Baseball coming.

I don't think that's anything anybody should ever expect.

So in your column, you said planning to move missions downtown is Weston's Field of Dreams if you build it and you meaning tax payers, right?

Yes.

So Weston owns incredible properties.

He's maybe the biggest civic cheerleader for downtown, has a lot of private interests in having good urban, walkable density, owns a lot of properties.

That's great.

Works perfectly for him.

We expect many people expected to be in the San Pedro Creek area, which has been renovated and is beautiful but empty.

And I think to quote a children's story, if you give a pig a pancake, he's going to want syrup.

And then if you give him syrup, he's going to want napkins.

And this may seem like a very strange analogy, but yes, when sports when when millionaires buy sports teams, they want civic leaders to build them a stadium with taxpayer money that support them, or at least partly taxpayer money.

So, yes.

Do you know or do we know how much this might cost?

I mean, there are all kinds of ranges for selling to to this team built had a stadium built for them with public money in Amarillo.

Cost $45 million in that's a triple 19 for a stadium built in downtown Amarillo.

So I would say downtown San Antonio you're looking at $5,200 million and how much of that do you think they could push for trying to get the public to pay for it.

I mean I have no idea.

I assume they will say would you like to build a $100 million stadium and the best part, I mean just knowing San Antonio and the history of what's happened here with the Alamo Dome with, say, Wolf Stadium, as well as the AT&T Center what do you foresee happening the way this is often done, the way it was done in Amarillo just a couple of years ago, as you do a hot, which is a hotel occupancy tax and that means that civic leaders with a semi straight face say, look, outsiders are staying in our hotels, we're taxing them, we're using outsiders money, we're going to build the stadium.

I find that objectionable because money is money.

And if you have a pile of money, whether it's from hot or something else, you can do lots of good public interest things downtown.

You can build parks, safety, homelessness, you can do a lot of things.

So that was the little stadium.

That was how the AT&T center was built.

The county used its portion of the hot tax to do that.

Right.

Sold it as keeping the Spurs here.

Right.

It wasn't a pile of money that they had yet, but it was going to be built stream of service.

And they did.

And then they they effectively used that and moved on.

But in terms of history, of sports teams and things like that, you you don't think we have a shot at a Major League team down the road?

No.

I mean, this thing has been dangled we've been dangled with the NFL teams for the Alamodome that's not even close to happening.

The Alamodome was not built.

The suit for an NFL team, it's too small for that is too big for the NCAA.

It's a one size fits none.

Stadium built without a purpose.

If you speculatively build a stadium hoping to get a team, it's not going to happen.

Didn't happen with Major League Soccer.

I don't mean to be a downer.

We just have a very bad track record of paying the public, hoping teams will come in and they don't.

But you know, the Alamo Dome, whether or not it was sold for football, you know, people say it's more than paid for itself.

It's brought in a lot of other things, a baseball stadium.

What do you think there?

What could that bring to that part of downtown aside from a stadium, or at least in terms of what, say, grandma said, we want urban density, walkability, residential development.

Look, I think it's very valuable to have large crowds of people downtown.

That's what I want.

I want a walkable city.

Presumably Graham Watson wants the same thing.

What I want, though, is for the private real estate developer and his team to pay for it with private money.

And that's great.

That'd be lovely.

What I think is going to happen is that the public civic leaders are going to fall over themselves to say, would you like some taxpayer money?

And I think that's the big error.

Graham Western and his team wants to build this because they're going to benefit from urban density.

And that's lovely.

And they've done a lovely job downtown.

It's the taxpayers funding this thing, which is enraging me.

But do you really think that in this current climate with inflation, and with not at the angle of a professional sports team like we thought with the Alamo Dome keeping the Spurs here, like we saw it with the AT&T Center as well as the Alamo Dome that that we are going to fall all over ourselves.

Do you think that's really going to happen?

I mean, yes.

But also, if you have a you have a progressive city council and you have a newly elected Democratic judge and newly elected commissioners who across the board have a pretty progressive agenda, an equity lens.

And if you have an equity lens, I want to help people who are poor.

And then you turn around and you find 50 to $100 million of public funds for millionaires for their privately owned sports team.

I would tell you, except you're not as progressive as you think you are, you are taking hundreds of million, $100 million and helping millionaires you are not using an equity lens on it.

So I don't see that happening myself.

But how big a chunk do you think they would go for of that $5,000 million price, do you think with an equity lens you should take 10 million or 30 million or $50 million?

This is a very poor city.

You can take public money and you're going to build a private real estate for private real estate developers.

That's what we're looking at.

So I think $1,000,000 is too much to pay for this with public money.

I hope Grandma soon and Bruce Hill and his team of really philanthropic, civic minded people pay for this for themselves and enjoy the private benefit that they will get from it.

But I'm just unhappy with $1,000,000 of public funds.

Interesting.

OK, well, I would ask you, what's your what are the odds of them getting a million, at least 100% thanks very much.

Michael Taylor on the Odds with the Smart Money and the San Antonio Express-News.

Thanks for coming in.

Thanks every year.

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

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