Rivard Report (https://therivardreport.com/tag/decade-of-downtown/)
If the past year in San Antonio was an episode of VH1’s “Behind the Music,” Summer 2014 would cue the narrator to say, “But backstage the band was falling apart.”
The optimistic “City on the Rise” bubble started to burst when former Mayor Julián Castro stepped down from his post to join the Obama Administration.
The first standing ovation for Mayor Julián Castro came at the mere mention of his presence in the packed Marriott Rivercenter ballroom.
The next speech by Mayor Julián Castro is billed as the “The Future of Downtown,” a fitting topic for a departing mayor who came to office in 2009 declaring the next 10 years as the “Decade of Downtown.”
Mayor Julián Castro, flanked by a majority of City Council at a hastily called Thursday afternoon press conference at City Hall, announced a proposed downtown real estate megadeal put forward by Weston Urban and Frost Bank that would give the city’s skyline its first new Class A tower in more than 25 years and generate a breathtaking wave of downtown development north of Main Plaza.
City Council threw its unified support Thursday behind a comprehensive program to address the urban core’s hundreds of vacant buildings that range from historic downtown landmarks to abandoned inner-city homes.
Chef Michael Sohocki, the city is learning, is also a good writer.
Donovan Rypkema, the intellectual force and principal behind Washington D.C.-based PlaceEconomics, a real estate and economic development consulting firm, couldn’t be coming to downtown San Antonio at a better time.
Since 2003, I have called San Antonio my home.