Days Four & Five - San Antonio Thrives: Beyond The Riverwalk

The Vistana
San Antonio, TX

Welcome to San Antonio where the Texas real estate group from UTA spent days four and five of our tour.  Overall, days four and five in San Antonio were perhaps my favorite part of the Texas Real Estate tour. San Antonio, in my opinion, has the most potential of any of the cities we visited on our tour.  Day four included site visits to: Build San Antonio Green, Solar San Antonio, Marty Wender's HQ, the 3+1 development, San Antonio's Economic Development Office, Lake Flato architects, and the Pearl Development along the famed San Antonio Riverwalk.  These site visits got to the heart of the matter addressing such issues as mixed-use developments, timing, location, design, sustainability, alternative energy, and the interplay between public and private entities in the real estate industry.  It was a heavy-hitting day, filled with tons of information about current and future trends in real estate.  Day five started with a great breakfast at Mi Tierra and a discussion with urban developer Ed Cross.  After talking at breakfast about a variety of real estate topics such as capital expenditures, unit mix, and borrowing and holding costs, we visited Ed's developments: The Vistana, a 1.4 acre mixed-use development, and 1221 Broadway, a multi-family project, which was fully leased up in 6 months.  Clearly, there is a huge demand for urban apartment living in San Antonio, just like there is in the DFW Metroplex.  On the other hand, Mr. Cross told us that his commercial/retail component at The Vistana was proving more challenging to lease.  We also made stops at the Friedrich Building, Alamo Architects, and AECT.  Six site visits later and we're on the road to Houston, but there is a great deal to talk about before we leave San Antonio for the more cosmopolitan city of Houston.

New Portion of RiverWalk
San Antonio, TX

San Antonio is a great city that feels on the cusp of a brighter future.  Major tourist attractions like the Alamo and the Riverwalk are there and heavily influence the real estate activity in downtown San Antonio.  This has its pluses and minuses.  As you might expect, tourist attractions are a big draw for hotels and there are plenty of them in downtown San Antonio. Tourist attractions are great for a city because they draw dollars into the city from outside the area.  Other heavy hitters in the tourism industry are in San Antonio as well. For instance, while talking with developer Marty Wender, we discussed the importance of economic generators such as Sea World and Fiesta Texas.  Sea World is an economic generator because it creates other economic activity such as hotel construction and road construction, two things that are necessary to create a tourist destination.  Marty Wender understands economic generators as he was the developer who brought Sea World to San Antonio.  He also felt strongly about building roads because roads provide access for commercial end-users.  As a result, many high profile companies like Microsoft have located in his developments.  To me, it seems that San Antonio, like most cities, is learning or has learned that it can not solely rely upon one industry like tourism and it must, at the end of the day, strengthen its local economy and serve its citizens as well as the thousands of tourists that visit the city each day.

We also discussed another crucial aspect of real estate and that is sales.  As any good salesperson knows, selling is a mixture of art and science.  According to Mr. Wender, to be successful in sales, you must believe in the product or service, believe the product is good for the customer, and have a passion to sell.  This is so very true in real estate, and we practice it everyday at my own company, Blue Leaf Realty.  You can't sell what you don't believe in!

Several keys to development were discussed during our time in San Antonio:

1. understanding how to maneuver in the political landscape, 2. understanding of how growth is occurring in the city, 3. understanding the cost of money and how to find it, 4. understanding trends, 5. understanding how to be flexible when the economy shifts, 6. understanding how to lead a team of professionals, and 7. understanding the role of location, timing, and capital.

1221 Broadway
San Antonio, TX

It became apparent that these factors were applicable in all the cities that we visited and that each city is inherently struggling with the same challenges in varying degrees. Such challenges voiced were: How do we attract and keep young professionals? How do we redevelop the blighted areas of a city without stepping into the private arena?  How do we fuel growth without stifling competition? How do we encourage sustainable building practices without discouraging growth?  Each city we visited was facing these and other issues that were voiced by San Antonio's Economic Development Coordinator for downtown, David McGowen.  Thanks Mr. McGowen for shedding light on how public and private entities must work together to make things happen.  Public/private partnerships are rapidly becoming more common and more important in the real estate industry.

3+1 Development
San Antonio, TX

As downtown areas like the CBD of San Antonio receive more attention and more dollars, it will become a tightrope for cities to balance the demands of urban and suburban dwellers.  More attention should be paid to economically sustainable models of development in urban areas as well as suburban areas.  Lanny Sinkin and Nic Jones at Solar San Antonio are doing their part.  They are leading the charge in San Antonio for the use of alternative energy via solar power.  They gave our group a better understanding of why solar is a terrific alternative energy source.  Mr. Sinkin indicated that politics is holding solar power back but progress is being made.  He also mentioned DOW's new solar shingles and the new legislation that prohibits HOAs in TX from restricting homeowners from adding solar panels on their roof.  I look forward to learning more about both of these topics that are vital to green building.  In my opinion, HOAs definitely need to have their power curtailed so I was glad to hear about this new legislation.  

Pearl - Mixed Use Development
San Antonio, TX

It was also good to see a mixture of sustainable projects in the downtown CBDs such as the Pearl Brewery redevelopment and the 3+1 development, an experiment led by college students comparing energy efficiency among alternative construction methods such as SIPs and autoclaved aerated concrete versus traditional stick construction, in San Antonio.  Overall, the Vistana in downtown San Antonio was very different from the Mueller development in Austin which was very different from the 3+1 project in San Antonio, but all contained elements that were sustainable and all were excellent examples of developments that provide options for the city's inhabitants.  In real estate, housing options are a good thing.  It was also nice to hear from Heather Holdridge how Lake Flato Architects (see video below) in San Antonio is building sustainable practices and energy modeling into all of their projects.  Thanks to everyone in San Antonio for their time; a special thanks to Mr. Jetter (see video below) who talked with us for several hours and explained in detail about how sustainable materials are a great option for construction.

Lake Flato Architects

AECT Compressed Earth Brick Machine