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San Antonio, Texas

Population: 1,758,210
Growth (2000-2010): 32.4%

San Antonio is a modern-day boomtown thanks to the Eagle Ford shale formation.

Covering a vast area just south of San Antonio, Eagle Ford is about the biggest thing to hit the Texas oil industry in years. New advances that have enabled drillers to tap the shale, which is estimated to hold about 3.6 billion barrels of oil, has brought many businesses and oil workers to the city and surrounding areas.

"We've got oil fields popping out all over," said Harper.

It's also been a boom for businesses owners, who serve the needs of the oil industry workers. Restaurants, hotels, stores, service stations and lots of other businesses are thriving.

Even before Eagle Ford, the local economy was doing well. San Antonio is a major center for health care and financial services. And there's also a large military presence in the area, a steady source of government spending throughout the past decade.

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Local average home prices continue upswing

San Antonio – March 13, 2012 – San Antonio home prices are continuing an upward trend, according to the February 2012 Multiple Listing Service report by the San Antonio Board of REALTORS®. In February 2012, the average home price was $183,955 a 3 percent increase from the same month last year. Median home prices remained stable at $147,100, a 1 percent decrease over February 2011.

“We’re glad to see that home prices are holding strong,” SABOR President and CEO Angela Shields said. “Considering the latest reports on other cities, we’re proud that San Antonio continues to prove itself time and time again as a city that’s making strides.”

Shields cites the recent residential price index by FNC Inc. which notes that U.S. home prices fell 0.7 to 1.1 percent in December in the top ten housing markets. Yet at the end of 2011, only homeowners in Houston and San Antonio had seen their property values rise above 2007 peak levels. San Antonio home prices continue to stay strong; the recently‐reported average price for February 2012 grew 3 percent over a year ago.

Job growth, affordability and low interest rates are all key indicators to the strength of the San Antonio housing market, Shields said. According to a report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, San Antonio ranked in the top 10 metro cities with projected job growth through 2020. The 15‐year fixed‐rate mortgage reached a new all‐time low last week, while the 30‐year mortgage edged to matching its record low, according to Freddie Mac’s weekly mortgage market survey.

“When coupled with its supportive economic climate, San Antonio is a great place to work, live, and do business,” said Liza Reyes, 2012 SABOR Chairman of the Board.

Key Statistics

• $183,955 – Average price for single‐family homes in February 2012, 3 percent higher than a year ago.
• $147,100 – Median price for single‐family homes in February 2012.
• 1,243 – Total number of single‐family residential home sales in February 2012, 12 percent higher than a year ago.
• 1,456 – The number of pending home sales in February 2012.

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Employment projections released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) in February expect total U.S. employment will rise 14.3 percent in this decade. Construction jobs, however, are not expected to recover their pre-2007 levels by 2020.

Regions expected to experience the greatest job growth in the decade are spread throughout the country. Some of the hottest areas of growth include the Phoenix-Las Vegas region; California's Central Valley; the Denver and Colorado Springs, Colo., areas; the San Antonio-Dallas corridor; and Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C.; Bethesda, Md.; Colorado Springs, Colo.; and New York City ranked No. 1 through No. 4, respectively, in the top 10 U.S. metros (out of the 100 largest U.S. metros) for projected job growth in the decade, according to the BLS.

The top 10 metros with the greatest BLS-projected job growth through 2020 (among the 100 largest U.S. metros) are:

2. Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, D.C.-Va.-Md.-W.Va.
3. Bethesda-Rockville-Frederick, Md.
4. Colorado Springs, Colo.
5. New York-White Plains-Wayne, N.Y.-N.J.
6. El Paso, Texas
7. Springfield, Mass.
8. Baton Rouge, La.
9. Tacoma, Wash.
10. Baltimore-Towson, Md.
11. San Antonio-New Braunfels, Texas

Notably, Los Angeles ranks near the top of the U.S. metros BLS projects to have the slowest job growth. This dire outlook for the City of Angels stems from a BLS-expected decline in apparel manufacturing and a slight decline in movie industry employment, according to Trulia's chief economist, Jed Kolko.

The top 10 metros (No. 1 representing the slowest growth) with BLS-projected slowest job growth through 2020 (among the 100 largest U.S. metros) are:

1. Greensboro-High Point, N.C.
2. Gary, Ind.
3. Los Angeles-Long Beach-Glendale, Calif.
4. Grand Rapids-Wyoming, Mich.
5. Columbia, S.C.
6. Detroit-Livonia-Dearborn, Mich.
7. Cincinnati-Middletown, Ohio-Kent.-Ind.
8. Milwaukee-Waukesha-West Allis, Wis.
9. Oxnard-Thousand Oaks-Ventura, Calif.
10. Salt Lake City, Utah

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San Antonio Children's Museum officials unveiled a plan Thursday to build a $45 million complex north of downtown on Broadway that will nearly double the space for exhibits and improve accessibility for visitors.

Almost half of the project cost will be covered by a $20 million personal donation from Charles Butt, the chairman and CEO of H-E-B.

The museum will launch a fundraising campaign to cover the balance, with the city expected to kick in $3 million from next's year's $596 million bond program for public improvements at the site.

It's the largest single donation Butt ever has made, museum officials said.

Butt, the city's wealthiest resident, is known almost as much for his education philanthropy as for his chain of grocery stores and is considered one of the city's great supporters of public schools.

“San Antonio children are tops and they deserve a first-class children's museum,” Butt, who's currently out of the country, said in a written statement. “When properly done, children's museums contribute significantly to the creative development and education of our young people.

“Houston, Dallas and Indianapolis have particularly outstanding children's museums, which serve as learning centers for the early childhood set,” he said. “San Antonio is too large a city not to have one, and if we are committed to improving education, the time is now to create a newer, larger children's museum of national caliber accessible to all children in San Antonio.”

The museum used a quarter of Butt's donation to buy a defunct car dealership on a 5.4-acre lot near Broadway and Mulberry Avenue, across from Lion's Field. Vanessa Hurd, the museum's executive director, said construction is expected to start in two years and should be completed by 2015.

The museum's current building, at 305 E. Houston, is 40,000 square feet. The new museum will be 70,000 square feet and will include outdoor exhibit space, a cafe and on-site parking.

The museum plans to sell its Houston Street location.

A conceptual plan for the new museum shows an inviting, airy edifice stretching across the block on Broadway, wrapped with sidewalk plazas, front and rear parking and a side entrance for bus groups. But officials said the final design will be based on a master plan that will reflect the needs of exhibit spaces.

Of the $45 million cost, $3 million will be set aside in an endowment for operating expenses.

The new museum will be in a corridor that already houses the San Antonio Museum of Art, the San Antonio Zoo, the San Antonio Botanical Garden and the Witte Museum. The children's museum is the only institution to focus solely on children up to 10 years old, Hurd said.

Annual visits to the museum have risen over the years, reaching an estimated 180,000 this year. In the new space, Hurd said she expects to tally 400,000 or more annual visits.

Though museum leaders began discussing the need for a larger location well before residents coalesced behind Mayor Julián Castro's SA2020 initiative, the museum's mission aligns with several of the long-range plan's key points.

With an expanded and more accessible site, the children's museum will become a premier resource for early-childhood education, Hurd said.

“This is going to allow us to become an even greater resource, and one that really closely aligns with the city's priorities, specifically those outlined in SA2020,” she said. “We know that early-childhood education and literacy are critical for our children. SA2020 also talked about the importance of healthy families and SA2020 also talked about the importance of arts and culture, and those are three areas in which the children's museum is especially well aligned.”

The museum will focus on literacy, science, health and art programs. It's the most recent example of Castro's vision to get the entire community to contribute to his long-range planning project.

From the beginning, the mayor has said the direction of San Antonio could be improved only with community buy-in, and he's long called on nonprofits, private-sector business and the public to help.

“I commend Charles Butt for his generous and steadfast support of education in San Antonio and the state of Texas,” Castro, who was in Washington, said in a written statement. “By expanding the size and offerings of the children's museum, we can better leverage our creative assets in San Antonio to become one of the nation's most vibrant brainpower communities.”

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Inspired and educated by home shows and magazines, a newlywed couple took out doors, windows and walls and brought in a slew of new materials to modernize their first house, a 1925 bungalow in Mahncke Park.

“I call it craftsman contemporary,” Kelly Meegan says of the updated look of the 1,300-square-foot home at 246 Allensworth St. that he and his wife, Amber, have worked on since they bought it in 2007.

“It's been blood, sweat and tears for the last four years,” Amber says.

The house is one of six on the 10th Annual Mahncke Park Home Tour from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. today.

The Meegans hired professionals to build the kitchen cabinets, drywall a portion of the house and pour the slab for the garage. They did the rest of the work themselves, assisted at times by relatives and friends.

They installed wainscoting on most walls because they like the look and durability of the wooden panels. Kelly built shelves on both sides of the living room fireplace, a move that required the windows flanking the fireplace to be reduced to half their size. He leveled the mantel, installed a slate hearth and used black granite tile for the fireplace surround.

The wall between the living and dining rooms came out, the opening to the kitchen was expanded and walls to the breakfast nook and utility area were adjusted to become part of the kitchen, giving the home a large, linear right side.

A home improvement store's website was the inspiration for the galley kitchen. Black subway tiles line one wall, above the charcoal concrete countertops that Kelly poured. Appliances are stainless steel, matching the Ikea shelves and utensil holders on both sides of the vent hood. The floor is the same slate as the fireplace and the ceiling sports pressed tin panels, inspired by a bar in Chicago, where the couple lived for a year.

Slenderizing the kitchen provided more room to create a master suite. Even more space came from a sunroom attached to the bedroom. The Meegans added a second bathroom as part of their bedroom expansion.

In the other bedroom, now occupied by Finley, born during the midst of remodeling nearly two years ago, an exterior door to the front porch was removed and replaced by a window. His room is decorated with a baseball theme, specifically the St. Louis Cardinals, the team from Kelly's hometown. Retired numbers of Cardinals players are on the wainscoting panels, with black and white baseball photos above.

Outside, the Meegans built a deck across the rear of the house and replaced a shed with a garage in the same style and colors as the house. Kelly attached a pergola to the garage, providing a shaded spot for lounging in the backyard. Finley's swing hangs from the pergola frame.

While their house has undergone a makeover inside and out, the couple says they're not entirely finished with the do-it-yourself projects.

“There's always going to be a little more to do on this house,” Amber said.

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Real estate investors: A lot is riding on you.

Investors are the key to the housing recovery, said RE/MAX CEO Margaret Kelly during her keynote speech at the 2011 Equity University Networking conference, earlier this month in New Orleans.

But more than that, investors stand to gain a lot in this economy. The circumstances surrounding the housing market are so ideal that if you don’t act, you’ll regret it later, she said.

“You will never have conditions like this again,” she said.

During her outline of the nation’s economic and housing outlook, Kelly emphasized that plentiful housing inventory, in addition to rock-bottom interest rates and reasonable prices, make it a buyer’s market. And of those buyers, investors are the ones who have the real potential to help rebound the economy.

Reasons to Rent

Kelly specified that it’s a great time for investors to buy properties and rent them out, creating a regular income from the property until conditions return to a seller’s market.

Gradually decreasing homeownership rates, an increase in immigration and other economic factors are indicators that the demand for rental property is strong. In that vein, conditions aren’t ideal for immediately flipping properties, she added.

Kelly acknowledged that it’s not possible to make a blanket observation about whether housing prices are ideal for selling because it’s truly a local matter. It can vary from neighborhood to neighborhood, so don’t rely on national trends to tell you if it’s a good time to buy or sell, she said.

The Distressed Market

Considering all the foreclosures that are in the pipeline in the form of shadow inventory, investors who rent properties are not only getting their pick of the deals, they’re also helping the victims of those foreclosures find shelter, Kelly said.

One of the best ways to figure out how to navigate the local housing market – especially when distressed properties are involved – is to with a real estate agent, she added, suggesting that investors take the time to find the agent that’s right for them by interviewing several agents from different companies.

Property agents can be beneficial as well – especially for property owners who have never been in the landlord role, Kelly said.

That due diligence can go a long way for the investor.

“Even though there are a lot of challenges,” Kelly said, “The opportunities so outweigh those.”

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Q: For the past year I have been holding two part-time jobs: one job pays me in cash only and the other pays me with a traditional paycheck. The job that pays me in cash allows me to save about $3,000 per month, which I put into a savings account, so I have quite a bit of cash saved up. I am planning to buy a house within the next year. I would like to use this savings toward my down payment. Will this be questioned or cause me problems?

A: First, you should be very proud of yourself for having the discipline and drive to both work two jobs and to save up such a significant amount every month. But you're smart to ask in advance about how your cash income will be construed by lenders. In terms of your down payment, all funds that have been in your accounts for two months or longer at the time your loan is being underwritten are presumed to be yours by a lender.

Your bigger challenge will arise in the event that you want or need the lender to consider that $3,000 per month in cash income as part of the income that qualifies you for the mortgage. If so, there are several things you'll need to put in place.

First, if this is a part-time job, you'll probably need to be able to document that you've been there at least two years for the lender to allow you to use it to qualify.

Second, be prepared to produce a letter from your employer, known in the industry as a continuity letter, essentially verifying your employment and indicating that your employment is "expected to continue."

And third, as with any sort of income, you will be required to produce two years' worth of federal income tax returns; the bank will average your taxable income from the last two years and use that as the baseline income upon which you'll be qualified. (If you haven't been paying taxes on your cash income, but you will want or need to use it to qualify for a home loan, now's the time to meet with your tax preparer and your mortgage broker and evaluate whether it makes sense to file an amended tax return and pay the appropriate taxes on your income.)

Depending on the specific facts of your situation, your lender might require you to jump through additional hoops in terms of documenting that income; on the other hand, you might not need the income to count for mortgage purposes if you can qualify for a large enough home loan on the basis of your traditionally paid income.

Long story short: Loop your mortgage broker or other lending professional in on your situation, stat, so you can begin the process of positioning and documenting this income to make the most of it in your mortgage application and qualification process.

Tara-Nicholle Nelson is author of "The Savvy Woman's Homebuying Handbook" and "Trillion Dollar Women: Use Your Power to Make Buying and Remodeling Decisions." Tara is also the Consumer Ambassador and Educator for real estate listings search site Trulia.com. Ask her a real estate question online or visit her website, www.rethinkrealestate.com.

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Home prices are unlikely to recover before 2020 and mortgage defaults will persist for years, says a survey of bank risk managers out Friday.

The survey conducted by the Professional Risk Managers’ International Association for FICO, found that 49 percent of respondents do not expect housing prices to rise back to 2007 levels for another nine years. Only 21 percent of respondents said they would.

The findings, which authors called “a decidedly pessimistic outlook”, are a sharp reversal from cautious optimism the survey respondents expressed late last year and in early 2011.

In addition, 73 percent of surveyed bankers say they expect mortgage defaults to remain elevated for at least another five years. And 46 percent believe mortgage delinquencies will increase over the next six months.

Only 15 percent of respondents expect mortgage delinquencies to decline during that period.

“While the housing sector will almost certainly gain strength during the next nine years, many bankers clearly believe prices will remain depressed for half a generation,” said Andrew Jennings, chief analytics officer at FICO.

Bankers concerns spread beyond the housing market.

A large number of respondents says they also expect to see an uptick in delinquencies on auto loans, credit cards and student loans.

Small businesses are expected to continue face a challenging credit environment. More than one-third of respondents forecast an increase in delinquencies on small business loans.

Bankers also appear to be pessimistic about recovery in consumer spending, with 64 percent of respondents expecting credit card usage to remain below pre-recession levels for at least five more years.

Half of the respondents expect credit card balances to increase over the next six months, due to higher spending by some households and smaller monthly payments by others.

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Despite another lackluster year for real estate, 80% of homeowners still plan to buy again and 59% of renters still aspire to own their own homes.

Twice a year, we ask people across the U.S. (through an online survey conducted by Harris Interactive) if homeownership is still part of their personal American Dream along with a few other questions about the obstacles that are keeping them from buying at this time. So what did our Fall 2011 survey tell us? To give you the inside scoop, we put together an infographic to help us walk though all the key findings. Let’s get started…

Survey Says: American Dream (of Homeownership) is Alive and Well

This past year has been filled with a series of unfortunate events – from the economy hovering on the edge of another recession and a lackluster real estate market to politics that are making people second guess their 2008 vote. Given everything that has happened, it’s only natural to assume that fewer people would say buying a home is a good idea, right? Surprisingly, this is not the case.

What our survey told us is that a whooping 70% of Americans said they still see homeownership as being part of their personal American Dream. When we asked this same question back in January, it was also 70%. What this means is being a homeowner is still on most Americans’ “I’ve made it in the U.S.A.” to-do list and that nothing (that’s happening politically or economically) is going to bring them down. Even when you look at the data by age (as we did below), most said their American Dream includes owning a home. In particular, we thought this sentiment was pretty strikingly high among young people – the children of the 90s and 80s in this case – especially when you consider the fact that most do not own their own homes.

Homeowners Can’t Get Enough (Of Buying Homes)

Believe it or not, 57% of current homeowners said owning a home is among the best long-term investments they could make – even more than buying gold and putting cash under a mattress (go figure). If you think about it, that’s a bold statement considering how many people have lost their homes to foreclosure thus far. As a matter of fact, 80% of these folks say they want to buy another house in the future. But wait, there’s more. When we broke down this stat by age, we found out that an astonishing 69% of current homeowners age 55 years old or older (we’re talking retired or almost retired Baby boomers here) plan to buy another home. Must be something about that homebuying rush that they can’t get enough of, eh?

Buying A Home Ain’t No Walk In The Park

Most housing markets may be “offering” a blue light special on real estate all year long, but times have changed. The home buying process isn’t easy anymore.

Hands down, the biggest barrier to being a homeowners is saving up for a down payment (though this isn’t necessary a bad thing ’cause you should be putting at least 20% down. Letting people buy with zero down was one of many things that got us into this mess of a housing crisis). This especially rang true for Millennials (18-34 year olds) – 62% said this was among the biggest hurdles that they faced in trying to buy a home. On the flip side, qualifying for a mortgage and having a poor credit history were a bigger concern among Gen X’ers (35-54 year olds).

Click here to download a copy of the infographic. Also, in case you can’t get enough of the American Dream, here’s a slideshow of all the key findings from the survey and let’s not forget about the press release.

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From time to time the IRS releases tips designed to help people with their taxes. Some of these are quite useful.

Last week the agency released "Ten Tax Tips for Individuals Selling Their Home," (IRS Summertime Tax Tip 2011-15).

As a real estate agent or broker, it is not your job to give home sellers tax advice. Indeed, it is advisable not to, since you could end up getting sued if you give wrong advice.

Instead, refer sellers to this list of IRS tips. It's a good starting place for them to begin to understand this often complex area of tax law. You could even print it out and hand it to anyone who asks you about these issues.

Here are the IRS's top 10 tax tips for home sellers:

1. In general, you are eligible to exclude the gain from income if you have owned and used your home as your main home for two years out of the five years prior to the date of its sale.
2. If you have a gain from the sale of your main home, you may be able to exclude up to $250,000 of the gain from your income ($500,000 on a joint return in most cases).
3. You are not eligible for the exclusion if you excluded the gain from the sale of another home during the two-year period prior to the sale of your home.
4. If you can exclude all of the gain, you do not need to report the sale on your tax return.
5. If you have a gain that cannot be excluded, it is taxable. You must report it on Form 1040, Schedule D, Capital Gains and Losses.
6. You cannot deduct a loss from the sale of your main home.
7. Worksheets are included in Publication 523, Selling Your Home, to help you figure the adjusted basis of the home you sold, the gain (or loss) on the sale, and the gain that you can exclude.
8. If you have more than one home, you can exclude a gain only from the sale of your main home. You must pay tax on the gain from selling any other home. If you have two homes and live in both of them, your main home is ordinarily the one you live in most of the time.
9. If you received the first-time homebuyer credit and within 36 months of the date of purchase, the property is no longer used as your principal residence, you are required to repay the credit. Repayment of the full credit is due with the income tax return for the year the home ceased to be your principal residence, using Form 5405, First-Time Homebuyer Credit and Repayment of the Credit. The full amount of the credit is reflected as additional tax on that year's tax return.
10. When you move, be sure to update your address with the IRS and the U.S. Postal Service to ensure you receive refunds or correspondence from the IRS. Use Form 8822, Change of Address, to notify the IRS of your address change.

These tips can be found on the IRS website at http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/content/0,,id=104608,00.html.

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This column is addressed to every home seller in America. Your obvious goal is to get the highest possible price for your home.

I'd like to share a little-known process about how you can get more showings per day than all the competition on your side of town. Also, I'm offering some tips on how to get more qualified prospects per day -- and there is a difference.

It has to do with your pricing strategy.

One strategy is to price it right and sell it.

Another is to price a little higher than market price and expect offers.

Another is to price it over the moon and hope someone comes along who just fell off the turnip truck.

The latter is the most common strategy among sellers, and this is the one I'd like to focus on.

Let's say homes like similar homes in the neighborhood are selling for $200,000, and the seller has spent $5,000 upgrading it for sale. So, the seller insists that the price has got to be at least $205,000.

The seller doesn't have any equity in the home, and needs at least $10,000 to purchase a new home, so the seller adds that amount to the price, making it $215,000. The seller demands to get at least $215,000, and won't sell otherwise, and an additional $10,000 is added to account for the real estate commissions, making the price $225,000.

But wait. We know that resale buyers are counseled by their agents to "make an offer," that in many markets these days will be below asking price, so you need to add another $10,000 or so (the seller is advised to try to keep it within 5 percent of what the seller will accept, if possible).

So -- there it is -- mathematically we have arrived at a listing price of $235,000. There is nothing emotional about this. It is all about the numbers. This is a really easy and fast way to determine a listing price.

There is some good news and unfortunately some bad news with this "strategy."

The good news: The seller's home will be shown by the smartest REALTORS® in the area, and will get a lot of showings.

The bad news: They will be showing it as what is called "sell against" -- to help build a value story for the homes down the street, which their prospects will actually purchase for around $200,000.

The good news: If the home does sell for $235,000, the seller will cover all expenses and have money left for a down payment on another home.

The bad news: Many agents will not show the home to prospects who don't want to look at homes priced over $200,000. This is really bad news if you actually need to sell the home.

The good news: The seller will not be disrupted by a move.

The bad news: The seller is not going anywhere soon -- the longer the home is on the market in an overpriced condition, the harder it will be to sell.

I am on the seller's side. We all know that the only reason a commissioned sales agent would suggest a salable listing price is that the agent would like to earn a commission by helping make the home salable -- regardless of who sells it.

Here's where this gets a little sticky when it comes to price: Usually, when the agent suggests a price the seller becomes flabbergasted and insulted, wondering how the agent could dare mention such a low price.

It is the same feeling the buyer gets when the agent mentions the asking price of the same home -- except they feel insulted by the seller, not the agent.

Here's where (speaking to the sellers out there) we need to meet in the middle with some quantified data (a fancy term for factual, relative information).

First of all, since the seller doesn't trust the agent, why ask the agent what the agent thinks the asking price should be for the home?

The seller should insist on seeing a comparative market analysis report to view what similar homes are selling for, are now listed for, and did not sell.

Here is the real question the seller must answer as accurately as possible:

As the seller looks at the data -- especially the "solds" from the last six months or so -- the agent needs to ask this question: "What do you think a reasonable buyer will pay for your home?'

What better way to answer that question than for the seller to see what similar homes are actually selling for?

The seller probably won't like the answer, but will likely thank the agent for sharing this information. Because it will prepare the seller to make the best decision. If the market prices are too low, and the seller chooses to wait and hope the market comes back in the next year or two -- fine.

The seller could decide to list at any price the agent might suggest, but shouldn't become upset with agents who are giving honest information and advice. Although the agents may be trying to help the seller, the truth can hurt.

A listing that goes to the "highest bidder" -- the listing agent who gives a nod to the seller's unreasonable price -- doesn't make sense to the seller or the agent, although new agents and those who "need a listing" might accept it.

The seller and the agent know it is only a matter of time before the price is lowered, whether that's "if it doesn't sell in two weeks," or thereafter. This is an OK approach in a market that is moving up, but in today's market ... not so good.

Agents are likely to show their buyers the same CMA they show to sellers, as a way to prevent lowball, insulting prices.

A seller can have confidence in the CMA -- and a lot more confidence in the probability of a faster sale at the highest possible price -- if there are multiple showings to qualified buyers. And that is the numbers game that sellers should really want to play.

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Rio Perla Properties LP, an affiliate of Silver Ventures Inc., has added Woodbine Development Corp. of Dallas to the development team at Pearl.

Pearl is the 22-acre mixed-use redevelopment at the formerly Pearl Brewery site along San Antonio’s River Walk.

Woodbine will manage the Pearl Parkway infrastructure and improvements project, including the streets and utilities, as well as the design and construction of three new buildings. These buildings will encompass 157,000 square feet of leasable space and will be used for a combination of multifamily residential, retail, restaurants and office space. These properties should be ready for occupancy in the fourth quarter of 2012.

“Woodbine has been consulting with us for several months on this project and brings a wealth of diverse real estate experience to our team, as well as significant San Antonio experience,” says Bill Shown, Silver Ventures’ managing director of real estate. “We chose to work with Woodbine because its team has a track record of success in developing master-planned communities, historic renovations and adaptive reuse projects, office buildings and hotels.”

Lake-Flato has been named the design architect for Pearl Parkway. RVK ArchitectsbizWatch RVK Architects Latest from The Business Journals About the KCI projectTearing down the walls5Minutes Follow this company is the architect of record on the north component of the project, and WGW Architects is the architect of record on the south component. The project is currently in the bid phase, and construction is scheduled to begin in a few weeks.

One of the buildings in the project is Pearl Parkway North, which will consist of 58,000 square feet. Retailers and restaurants will occupy space on the ground level and office space on the second and third levels. San Antonio-based Joeris General ContractorsbizWatch Joeris General Contractors Latest from The Business Journals Business Journal recognizes 50 companies as ‘Best Places to Work’Real estate vet Mona Lowe is giving San Antonio a voice in the retail industry Investment group is turning tenants into building owners Follow this company has been selected as the contractor.

Pearl Parkway South includes the renovation and adaptive re-use of the existing 2,600-square-foot brewery administration building, built in 1904. Troy Jessee Construction LP is the contractor for the renovation of this building. Pearl Parkway South also will include two new mixed-use buildings. The east building is a five-level building with retailers on the ground level and four levels (55 units) of multifamily residential units above. The west building also includes retail space at the ground level and three levels (27 units) of multifamily units above. Embrey Construction LLC is the general contractor for the two new buildings.

Other members of the Pearl project team include: Rialto Studios as the landscape architect; Pape Dawson Engineers as the civil engineering firm; Danysh & Associates and SCA Engineers as structural engineers; Cleary ZimmermanbizWatch Cleary Zimmerman Latest from The Business Journals Follow this company and Jordan & Scala as mechanical electrical and plumbing engineers; and Brown Design Consultants as the lighting design contractor.

Silver Ventures is a privately held investment company based in San Antonio. Silver was funded with a portion of the proceeds from the sale of Pace FoodsbizWatch Pace Foods Latest from The Business Journals Water resource bill introduced in Texas LegislatureSAWS gains responses in utility’s hunt for more waterDirect Hit Data helps clients whet consumer appetites Follow this company to Campbell SoupbizWatch Campbell Soup Latest from The Business Journals FXI moves ahead, intends to make people forget FoamexCampbell hopes salt will spice up salesCampbell’s Pepperidge Farm remembers, also looks forward with innovation center Follow this company in 1995.

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Artist Diana Kersey's ceramic panels on the Mulberry Avenue Bridge at Brackenridge Park whimsically depict the life cycle of the Texas Gulf Coast Toad, from mating to egg, to tadpole to toad again.

Kersey was commissioned to do the public art under the city's Public Art San Antonio program, and she chronicled the process on her blog, dianakersey.blogspot.com

Why the Gulf Coast Toad? "Just the other day I found a toad in my back yard and I picked him up and started telling him about the bridge," Kersey says. "I said I built a bridge in your honor. He didn't seem that impressed. But that's the point of what I'm trying to do with the bridge. You see the bridge, you learn about the life cycle of the Gulf Coast Toad. And then when you happen to see one in your backyard, it makes sense. You get that connection that toads are important to our environment. They are important to the macro system of San Antonio."

(To hear the toad's call, click on the Gluf Coast Toad's photo on this page at the Texas Parks and Wildlife site. Here is a very short video of the toad's call for a mate.) Here's the video:

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In the historic Tobin Hill neighborhood sits a dilapidated, two-story home with a strange feature: a newly installed door hovering on the second floor of the house where a window once was.

The Historic and Design Review Commission has ruled the renovation violates city preservation laws. And while the process for restoring such structures has dragged in the past, city officials expect a new enforcement position in the Office of Historic Preservation to boost compliance.

Ron Meyers, a longtime city employee, started last week as the city’s new historic building enforcement officer. One of his first orders of business likely will be a visit to the floating doorway in the 400 block of Kendall Street.

“It’s kind of a messed up situation, but we’re going to try and see if we can take care of it amicably first,” Meyers said.

The city long has sought to find and remedy violations to historic structures and local landmarks, but never before has an officer been devoted solely to the task, said Shannon Peterson, the city’s historic preservation officer.

“We didn’t have fulltime attention,” Peterson said, “and now this position will be focused exclusively on enforcement issues in historic districts, landmarks and river districts.”

Urgency in such matters is important, she added.

“You need to be able to respond immediately to those types of issues, because if it is original material that’s being removed, you want to be able to save it onsite so it can be restored,” she said. Meyers, who said his salary is about $35,000, is responding to sites where work has started without the proper permits or approval, and he also will enforce code violations. His territory includes the city’s 27 historic districts, about 1,300 local landmarks, such as the Milam and Tower Life buildings, and the River Improvement Overlay districts.

Another recent violation took place in the latter — someone built stairs leading from the San Antonio River to their home along the burgeoning Museum Reach, Peterson said.

The city was notified of the violation on Kendall Street by another resident, who saw the new door and four new windows, Peterson said.

Notified of the violations, the homeowner applied for approval. But the commission denied the changes because the windows and door are not consistent with the style of the house.

The violator has time to restore the home, Meyers said. But the case could end up in Municipal Court, where fines are assessed every day the violations are not remedied. “It can range anywhere from $10 a day to $2,000 a day,” he said.

See the linked PDF for full history.

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Remember your pet must have a rabies shot, a license, and must stay on your proprty! For more information on licensing see see linked PDF or visit this website: www.salicenseyourpet.com .

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Call San Antonio Feral Cat Coalition at 210-877-9067 for more information or see linked PDF.

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There’s a science to teaching science, and textbooks are only one tiny part of the equation. As the New York TimesbizWatch New York Times Follow this company reported in an article about the changes in curriculum at Boston’s Massachusetts Institute of TechnologybizWatch Massachusetts Institute of Technology Follow this company “most students learn fundamental concepts more successfully, and are better able to apply them, through interactive, collaborative, student-centered learning.” And so, here in San Antonio, Trinity University is redesigning the way it teaches science — both philosophically and emotionally — and the fulcrum around which the transformation is evolving is The Center for the Sciences and Innovation. Under construction since May 2010, the $100 million, 116,000 square-foot building is the largest development ever undertaken by the university. President Dennis A. Ahlburg, Ph.D. offers some insight into project with San Antonio Business Journal readers.

Q: Tell us about some of the exciting architectural components of the building.

A: The Center for the Sciences and Innovation is the largest development ever undertaken on the Trinity campus and incorporates new construction along with major renovations of existing buildings. When completed in 2014, the 116,000 square-foot center will house one of the most extraordinary arrays of undergraduate science and engineering teaching and research facilities in the country. We will take scientists who currently work in four different buildings and make it possible for them to work literally side by side, breaking down academic barriers and causing what we think will be “productive collisions” that lead to new scientific collaboration and innovation. Faculty and students from all disciplines will be drawn to the building — as will our partners from the community. The exterior-facing glass walls will let people see inside classrooms as a way to demystify science and spark curiosity.

Q: Who was involved with the planning and design?

A: The concept evolved from Trinity science and engineering faculty who recognized that breakthrough discoveries in the 21st century will be increasingly interdisciplinary and entrepreneurial in nature and that the University needed to incorporate this new reality in science and engineering education. After studying science facilities around the country and absorbing input from science and engineering faculty, a committee of faculty and staff worked with the Boston firm of Einkorn Yaffee Prescott (EYP) Architecture and Engineering in partnership with the San Antonio firm of RVK ArchitectsbizWatch RVK Architects Follow this company to develop the plans. Q: What high-tech aspects of the building have you excited?

A: Perhaps the most exciting component of project is the Innovation Center, a two-story, glass-walled, multifunctional structure prominently located along the southern edge of the entry courtyard. We call it “The Cube,” and it is designed to spark imagination and support collaborative projects among disciplines. It will be our “entrepreneurial engine room.” Our state-of-the-art labs will be beautiful rooms in which to conduct science and will have all the safety features that you would expect in a cutting-edge building. It will be a wonderful place to conduct science as an undergraduate and meld scientific discovery with commercial application. A dramatic entry atrium will include a café and lounge to attract students from across campus and stimulate student/faculty interaction and discourse.

Q: How do you expect the structure to change the learning at Trinity?

AThe Center will allow us to maximize the talents of our students and faculty and help us attract the very best students and faculty. Every aspect of the structure has been designed with a specific purpose. For example, the juxtaposition of biology and chemistry labs reflects the interdependency of scientific disciplines that characterizes Trinity’s teaching mission. Designed for flexibility, the Center will allow professors to move easily between lecture-based instruction and hands-on exploration. It also will be a hub of intellectual creativity and discovery, a place where ideas are examined, tested, and brought to fruition and where Trinity students are propelled to the exciting forefront of interdisciplinary research. It will be a place where all students and faculty, from the sciences, business, arts and humanities, incubate ideas. This interaction is the hallmark of a liberal arts education.

Q: Meeting LEED criteria can be a challenge. To what level is the building aspiring and what have you learned in the process?

A: We are striving to achieve LEED certification at the Gold or Silver level. Because Trinity already has achieved LEED Gold certification on the Miller Residence Hall, we are familiar with the process and are working diligently to make the Center as green as possible. For example, the rooftop will have a green space for plants and the grounds will include a bioswale — a new concept for San Antonio that will capture rain water and shunt it through to a ground-level green area with native plants. This greenbelt will be incorporated into the campus curriculum and show the community how to be responsible in designing a South Texas landscape. When possible, we also will use native limestone and other materials.

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A shopping center in Northeast San Antonio will soon be welcoming a new tenant to its mix: Minneapolis-based retail powerhouse Target Corp.

Cleveland-based Developers Diversified Realty Corp. (DDR) announced earlier this week that it had commenced plans to bring Target to Terrell Plaza, and to a second retail center in Denver.

DDR’s partner in the Terrell Plaza redevelopment is Irving, Texas-based David Berndt Interests Inc.

Thomas Tyng, a principal with Reata Real Estate, is heading up the leasing for Terrell Plaza.

DDR’s announcement marks a major step toward breathing new life into a shopping center that dates back to the 1950s — to a time when Austin Highway served as a prime corridor between Austin and San Antonio.

DDR does not specify when Target will debut at Terrell Plaza, but it appears that work will be getting under way soon.

A request for bids was recently filed with the Builder’s Exchange of Texas — for a project involving demolition and site work at the Terrell Plaza shopping center, located at 1201 Austin Highway. The work is in preparation for the new “Target retail store at Terrell Plaza,” the bid states.

Submissions were due earlier this week.

Those familiar with the shopping center say that Target would be key to turning not only Terrell Plaza around — but to the larger revitalization efforts taking shape along Austin Highway.

“It will bring a lot more business to the area,” says Roger Arias, owner of well-known restaurant Earl Abel’s, which has been a tenant of the center for some five years.

Arias, however, is also looking at the impact Target could have a little closer to home: “It would do wonders for our business.”

According to the site plans filed with the Builder’s Exchange, the Terrell Plaza Target store will span roughly 135,000 square feet.

Those plans also highlight three buildings that are to be demolished to make way for Target.

Target would join a tenant line-up at Terrell Plaza that currently includes Earl Abel’s and Big Lots — which occupy roughly 38,000 and 10,000 square feet in one building, respectively. In the site plans, that building is not scheduled for demolition.

Builder’s Exchange puts the cost of the demolition/site work project at $1.5 million.

A fresh look

Target, says Arias and others, could give Terrell Plaza something it’s been missing for quite some time: A fresh look.

“Target will add a touch of class to an old inner-city (center) in need of more sophisticated shopping,” adds retail veteran Tom Rohde, who used to go to the Dick’s Hobby Shop that was once a tenant of the center, back in the early 1960s.

That sophisticated shopping is crucial to drawing out the consumers in the higher-income neighborhoods that surround the shopping center — including Alamo Heights and Terrell Hills, adds Rohde, who is vice president of locally based Rohde Ottmers Siegel Commercial ;amp Investment Realtors.

“When you look at the demographics of the area, it really pops,” says Mellick Sykes, who is a partner with First American Commercial Property Group.

Three of the major thoroughfares that make up the area, however — Austin Highway, Harry Wurzbach and Rittiman Road — got lost in the sprawl that drew retailers and other services to the suburbs.

But that’s changing.

New retail centers along the Austin Highway/Harry Wurzbach intersection have attracted major players like Lowe’s and Wal-Mart. H-E-B invested to create a newer and bigger grocery store — while the 78,000-square-foot box that it left behind was redeveloped into a multitenant center called Austin Heights.

The area also received a major boost from the 2005 BRAC initiative, which led to the creation of the Medical Education and Training Campus at Fort Sam Houston. Upon its debut later this year, METC will centralize the medical training and education missions of the Army, Navy and Air Force, and will bring some 11,000 new employees to the Northeast Side submarket.

That project has prompted new development along all three highways — including a multimillion-dollar redevelopment of the Sam Houston Center, which spans roughly 58,000 square feet along Austin Highway and Rittiman Road.

A new Target store, says District 10 City Councilman John Clamp, “further enhances the economic development.”

Future focused

The city is also doing its part to spur new development in the area, says Clamp, who has made the revitalization of all three corridors a prime focus of his tenure as a councilman. He points to a plan adopted by City Council in 2010. Known as the Inner City Reinvestment/Infill Policy (ICRIP), this program allows for the use of public initiatives to bring private development to long-overlooked areas of the city.

Among the list of areas singled out for these funds, the Austin Highway corridor.

“It’s a step-by-step approach,” says Clamp. “But when you concentrate on an area, good things can happen.”

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A growing number of San Antonians are learning that yes, indeed, the chicken came first.

In the past three months, Jimmy Manger, daytime manager at Alamo Feed & Pet Supply, has sold more than 400 baby chicks.

“We're seeing a lot more people keeping four or five chickens in the backyard for eggs,” Manger says.

The reasons for keeping feathered friends as pets and producers vary. More than a year and a half ago, Yen Diep and her parents received chickens from friends with the intentions of butchering and eating them.

“We opened the box and inside were the scraggliest-looking chickens we'd ever seen,” Diep says. The chickens were spared from the cutting board, and the Dieps had to figure out what to do with five chickens.

Googling led to some makeshift coop building; a few trips to the feed store later for a cage, food and water trays and feed, and the chickens were situated in their new home.

For Diep's parents, who grew up in Vietnam, having chickens roam the backyard was a part of life.

“My parents were used to that,” Diep said. “The meat from free-range chickens is slightly tougher, but they prefer that, so they'll buy free-range.”

The Dieps learned about keeping chickens through trial and error. After waiting for several months for their hens to start laying, the Dieps asked friends what steps they should take to procure eggs. They learned hens need a special protein-packed feed to reach optimal egg-laying hormone levels.

“After we got them the feed, we had so many eggs, my mom was giving away dozens,” Diep said.

Yes, the eggs are different from the eggs sold at your local grocery store. Different chicken varieties lay different-colored eggs: eggs with spots and flecks, bluish-green eggs, dark brown eggs, tan eggs. Once the harder-than-average shell is cracked, the inside reveals a slightly darker and, at times, bigger yolk.

That being said, there isn't a discernible taste difference between home-grown and store-bought eggs.

Joe Barfield, a Mahncke Park resident, has kept chickens in his backyard since 2003. Barfield has celiac disease and cites health and nutrition as reasons for keeping hens.

“It's a challenge to try and eat whole foods every day, but we try doing it a little bit here and there,” Barfield says. Barfield and wife, Dee, use their eggs in all their dishes, including Shirred Eggs and Raw Egg Curry Dressing.

Barfield keeps his hens in a chicken tractor, or movable chicken coop, he built. This helps protect the chickens from predators while providing a new plot of soil to dig and peck; moving the chickens every other day gives the soil a chance to use the nitrogen-rich chicken waste and flourish.

Even in coops, chickens aren't always safe. Predators such as cats, dogs, raccoons, opossums and even bees can often find a way. The Dieps lost three of their chickens to a swarm of bees.

“They were defenseless,” Diep says. “We're nursing one back to health, but we're not sure she'll make it.”

Barfield shares his backyard hobby with neighbor and Restaurant Gwendolyn owner and chef, Michael Sohocki.

Sohocki built a pyramid-shaped tractor that stands more than 6 feet tall. Each of his hens lays about an egg a day into three bottomed-out plastic buckets that lay on the side closest to the coops door. The tractor is pulled across his backyard daily to give the chickens fresh grass and nutrients to consume.

“I do this because it makes my chickens happy,” Sohocki says. “Happy, healthy chickens will give me eggs.”

His chickens produce about six eggs a day, which he uses in everyday cooking.

Sohocki's approach to backyard chicken-keeping focuses on sustainability and awareness.

“I trust these eggs because I know where they came from,” Sohocki says. “Increasing the social knowledge of seasonal food and benefits leads to a healthier takeaway — the only change is you.”

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San Antonio Continues to Buck National Trend for Home Prices Local average and median home prices continue upswing amid nationwide struggle San Antonio, TX – May 18, 2011 – San Antonio home prices are continuing an upward trend, according to the April 2011 Multiple Listing Service report by the San Antonio Board of REALTORS®. In April 2011, the average home price was $181,016, a 4% increase from April 2010. Median home prices also saw a boost at $147,700, a 3% increase over April 2010.

“We’re glad to see that home prices are holding strong,” said Angela Shields, SABOR President and CEO. “Considering the latest reports on other cities, we’re proud that San Antonio continues to prove itself time and time again as a city that’s making strides.”

Shields cites the recent home price analysis report by Fiserv, Inc. which notes that between the fourth quarters of 2009 and 2010, U.S. home prices fell 4.1 percent. San Antonio’s home prices ticked upward slightly with a 0.7 percent increase during that period and have continued a steady increase since.

News about home prices broke around the same time that San Antonio ranked #4 on Forbes Magazine’s 2011 list of best cities for jobs. Rankings were based on growth trends, employment data, and momentum.

“When coupled with its supportive economic climate, San Antonio is a great place to work, live, and do business,” said Scott Caballero, 2011 SABOR Chairman of the Board.

Caballero also highlights another market factor that’s on an upswing. “San Antonio has not been hit as hard as other cities. We’re glad that homes remain affordable and with interest rates as low as they are, consumer confidence is up. Consumer confidence is another factor about which we remain optimistic,” he said.

The San Antonio Board of REALTORS® is the largest professional trade organization in San Antonio and represents over 7,000 REALTOR® members. SABOR is one of over 1,600 local boards and 54 state and territory organizations of REALTORS® nationwide that make up the National Association of REALTORS® (NAR). Please visit SABOR.com for more information.

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Some Lamar Elementary School students shared stories with their neighbors about a special hands-on project where they unearthed the history, archaeology and botany of nearby Brackenridge Park.

The project was a joint effort between the University of Texas at San Antonio’s Center for Archaeological Research, the Witte Museum and the Brackenridge Conservancy to give students from Lamar and from Hawthorne Academy the opportunity to learn about their world outside the classroom walls.

On Tuesday, May 17, 2011, participants in Lamar Elementary’s Gifted & Talented program presented the results of their project to the Mahncke Park Neighborhood Association. Their presentation included photographs, a slideshow and an exhibit that included buckets filled with materials from their "mock" archaeological digs.

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Families out for a day at the museum or the park stroll along a grand boulevard lined with trees. Cyclists coming from the Farmer's Market push safely past them on the road. Others arrive by streetcar or leave their cars at the curb and meet at sidewalk bistros and boutiques.

These are the images conjured by local developers and city planners who are reimagining Broadway as a vibrant urban stretch that links the downtown to Alamo Heights, creating a new cultural corridor that makes walking destinations of the San Antonio Museum of Art, Pearl Brewery, the Witte Museum and Brackenridge Park.

Branded as Midtown Brackenridge, the area would extend to Josephine Street and across to North St. Mary's Street.

The ambitious 20-year plan, unveiled publicly earlier this week, would transform much of the character and feel of about 458 acres of the inner city.

Along Broadway, the centerpiece of the initiative, the pace of traffic would slow, while courtyards, fountains and a closer connection to the San Antonio River and the park would imbue daily street life with a greater sense of public space.

In place of parking lots and vacant buildings, planners hope to attract mixed-use development with street-level retail shops topped by apartments or office space.

In the most urban areas closest to downtown, building heights would reach up to eight stories.

“Many great cities have these great urban boulevards,” said Irby Hightower, a principal at Alamo Architects, which helped draft the master plan.

“It's a great way to organize institutions in the city. When you're on one of those streets, you always know that you're going to find what you're looking for,” he said.

But if the vision is grand, so are the obstacles.

The initiative calls for an estimated $60 million in public improvements and would require substantial investment from private developers.

The revitalization would have to reverse decades of stagnation and blight, and it requires massive drainage work to remove 11 acres of key commercial land on Broadway from the 100-year floodplain.

To win the support of a mostly suburban population, the project also will need its political champions.

Mayor Julián Castro, who has termed this “the decade of downtown,” seems poised for the role. He said he considers Midtown to be an extension of the city's urban core.

“That Broadway corridor has long been a gem for San Antonio,” Castro said. “So making those infrastructure improvements and making a very strong cultural corridor has been something that's a priority for me.”

To overcome market realities, proponents acknowledge it would take a large infusion of funds to kick start development.

“The biggest obstacle, of course, is money,” said Suzanne Scott, general manager of the San Antonio River Authority, which funded the master plan.

“In this case, you really need a catalytic (public infrastructure) project, particularly, that can get the development started.”

The city began to lay the groundwork for financing the project in 2008 when it bestowed a special designation on Midtown that allows any increase in city property taxes to be pumped back into the area's infrastructure improvements.

Called a tax increment reinvestment zone, or TIRZ, planners initially estimated that it would raise $58.2 million by 2027, just enough to cover the improvement costs.

Most of that money, about $39 million, would fund critical changes along Broadway, which would be narrowed from six tight lanes of traffic to four broader lanes.

The extra space would allow for more generous sidewalks, on-street parking and medians.

But the TIRZ money would build slowly over time, and because of the economic downturn, planners have dropped the original estimate of the funds it would generate to as little as $30 million.

As a result, much of the project's initial success may hinge on how much money it can draw from the city's 2012 bond issue.

Other questions about how the city should spend TIRZ money already have begun to stir controversy.

Last year, the city awarded millions of dollars in incentives to private developers who sought financial help for projects in the corridor, drawing the money from future tax increments that otherwise would have bolstered the TIRZ fund.

A developer of apartments in the Pearl Brewery, Rio Perla Properties L.P., received nearly $2 million over a 15-year period.

And the developers of commercial offices at the old ButterKrust Bakery on Broadway, R.L. Worth and Associates and C.H. Guenther & Son Inc., won about $1.5 million over the same timeframe.

Glenn Huddleston, a member of the TIRZ oversight board and owner of several vacant properties in Midtown, disagrees with spending city dollars on anything other than public improvements.

“You're taking the money away that would implement the master plan and giving it to private developers,” he said. “We've given away our future.”

Adrian Lopez, an economic development manager for the city, defended the incentives.

The financial crisis and tight lending have opened funding gaps in private projects, and Lopez said the spending was necessary to spur growth in land values.

Ideally, the cycle will come full circle when rising land values generate more taxes and eventually fund public improvements, he said.

“The alternative is maybe we don't provide enough incentives and nothing happens,” Lopez said.

If the plan succeeds, the payoff on the city's investment would be substantial.

Planners project the initiative would add more than 1 million square feet of new residential space and 541,320 square feet of retail.

It also would bring to the area more than 774,455 square feet of office space, more than twice the amount of space left by the downtown departure of the AT&T headquarters.

And it would add 2,986 jobs.

Once known as River Avenue, Broadway was built in the 1800s atop a tributary of the San Antonio River.

In the 1970s, car dealerships, fine restaurants and other businesses lined a boulevard that served as a main artery moving people north from downtown.

But San Antonio was growing. In the late 1970s, the construction of U.S. 281 opened a fast route to the far-flung reaches of a swelling city, and the area began to decline.

Since then, not much has changed. Although large and promising new developments have opened along Broadway — the bustling Pearl Brewery complex and the 20-story luxury condominiums at The Broadway — long stretches of the street remain gritty and lean.

Despite the stagnation and a web of codes and regulations that discourage development, Huddleston remains bullish about the possibility of reviving the district.

Today, he and his son, Harper Huddleston, are hoping to renovate a dilapidated building in the 2500 block of Broadway that once housed a Bonanza chain restaurant.

They plan to gut and modernize the location and lease it as a restaurant that would mesh with the “walkable urbanism” envisioned in the master plan.

“We want to heavily landscape it and have lots of outside dining,” Glenn Huddleston said.

The restaurant might benefit from another part of the plan for nearby Avenue B, which runs parallel to Broadway but remains hidden from view.

The vision for Avenue B invokes a bit of European romance and would transform the underused road into what planners call a “woonerf,” a street dominated by pedestrians and cyclists. Landscaped paths would snake around cafes with outdoor patios and funky retail shops.

Although cars would be allowed on the road, drivers would be held to very low speeds, similar to the roads inside the Pearl Brewery complex.

Avenue B would also connect more closely to Broadway and link to a system of running and cycling paths along the river and in the park.

The idea builds on other features friendlier to cyclists on Broadway, including what planners call “back-in parking,” which directs motorists to back into slanted on-street parking spaces.

Used in cities like Seattle and Austin, back-in parking allows drivers to re-enter traffic with a clear view of passing cyclists.

Although much of the vision is designed to appeal to cyclists such as Yvonne Moreno, she's not sure she likes what she sees.

Moreno, who frequently pedals through Broadway, believes that eliminating traffic lanes only would make a difficult road more dangerous. The idea that drivers would stop on Broadway, flip on their blinkers and back into parking spots is unrealistic, she said.

“You're going to have backed-up traffic,” she said. “It doesn't make sense.”

But planners are confident Broadway can accommodate the volume of traffic with four lanes.

In exchange for a main artery that makes room for people on foot and bikes, the pace of traffic on Broadway would slow.

“You don't want a nice, walkable café environment with a freeway in front of you,” said Hightower, the architect who helped draft the plan. “It's not much of a tradeoff — it's just not something most Texans like to hear.”

Those involved in the early planning acknowledge the initiative faces significant hurdles. Inspiring private development and solving the floodplain problem must be accomplished with environmentally sensitive efforts, said Suzanne Scott with the river authority.

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The draft final report on Mayor Julián Castro's SA2020 plan compiles lofty, ambitious dreams and aspirations for San Antonio, but the path to reshaping key elements of the city remains unclear.

The roadmap to 2020, however, will begin to crystallize at a March 19 celebratory event of SA2020, when Castro plans to begin rolling out specifics on projects aimed at achieving the goals San Antonians created during several community meetings since September.

“San Antonians are dreaming big. It's a very ambitious report,” Castro said. “What's great about 2011 and the 2020 process is that we have the destination we need to get to, and the directions on how to get there. On March 19, I'll speak more to what method we'll use to get there on some of these.”

The 82-page report on SA2020, obtained by the San Antonio Express-News, outlines 11 categories — from economic competitiveness to community safety — deemed most important by the thousands of area residents and local leaders who participated in five SA2020 meetings.

In each category, the report states a vision for San Antonio in 2020 and offers baseline data and indicators of where the city is today. The report often specifies target goals, but it doesn't outline specifically how to achieve them.

“There will be, I'm sure, refinement and a narrative given to this,” Castro said. “Right now, this document is somewhat raw and flat. It will tell more of the San Antonio story in a narrative way when it's done. That's the work the public and the steering committee will help out greatly with.”

Castro said his priorities center on education, transportation and revitalization of the urban core. He declined to address specifics but said he'd announce them March 19.

For the plan to succeed, institutions, local governments and residents alike will have to embrace the community's goals and integrate them into their plans, policies and daily lives. Though SA2020 is his brainchild, Castro always has said it only could be successful if the community as a whole embraces it and works toward implementing the plan by 2020.

“What will be essential is for businesses, nonprofits and local governments to take on portions of this,” Castro said. “So all of the concrete answers are not in front of us as of today. Those are answers that, with this roadmap, will come together as a community.”

The report enumerates “potential partners” — from nonprofits and neighborhood associations to local governments and universities — to help devise plans and allocate funding to reach the targeted goals.

The report doesn't tell those potential partners how to reach their goals. That's left up to them.

Though the partners are autonomous and aren't required to adopt SA2020's path, Castro said he hopes they'll see the clear message that has come from the community.

“The level of community engagement in SA2020 was unprecedented in terms of numbers,” Castro said. “And I would hope that other governmental entities, private entities and nonprofits would take this as a signal of the direction the community wants to go in as they consider their own initiatives — as school districts consider what they do, as other local governmental entities consider what they do, as nonprofits make investments in the community.”

Targets for 2020

The mayor has made it clear that his highest priority from SA2020 is education. Castro has said he'll begin backing knowledgeable, strong school board candidates in their elections. He'll direct the same focus on the appointments of superintendents, though not in a political way, and he plans to create a mayor's scorecard to hold accountable the city's urban school districts.

For their part, SA2020 participants want the city to orchestrate “one of the greatest turnarounds in education” across the country. They devised two key indicators — kindergarten readiness and college readiness — to measure current levels.

Last year, 2.8 percent of kindergarten students in San Antonio were held back, according to the report, citing statistics from the Texas Education Agency. Participants set a goal of 100 percent readiness by 2020.

TEA statistics from 2010 for college readiness of San Antonio students show 63 percent were proficient in English, 57 percent were proficient in math and 46 percent were ready in both. The SA2020 report aims for an 85 percent readiness level by 2020.

The report makes clear the importance of better education, stating it would allow for “greater economic competitiveness, improved health and fitness, enhanced family well-being, and an increased appreciation of arts and culture” — all elements of the SA2020 plan.

While the report doesn't suggest how education goals can be met on the institutional level, it suggests a number of ways for people to get involved — from mentoring a child to running for a school board.

Under the community safety section, the report calls for San Antonio to become the safest big city in the U.S. by 2020. Indicators for measuring that success include lowering the rates of recidivism and child abuse.

Some of the recommendations on how residents can help reach those goals seem simple while others will require cultural shifts. One suggestion is to “simply obey laws,” while another will take more collective action: “Form and participate in neighborhood associations. Build coalitions with local law enforcement to communicate the safety concerns of your neighborhood.”

Profound effects

Daryl Byrd, one of the three chairmen who oversee the SA2020 steering committee, said reaching the goals would require the help of tens of thousands of San Antonians.

“I want every businessman, every corporate leader, every civic leader, every schoolteacher, every head of household and every pastor and neighborhood leader to feel responsible for every single one of these,” he said, referring to the report's visions and goals.

Defending the report's lack of specifics on pathways to the future, Byrd said predetermining precise projects and identifying those responsible for implementing them would make the vision “smaller.”

SA2020 is a 10-year effort and a living, breathing plan. Opportunities will present themselves as the plan unfolds, and the community needs to be nimble enough to act on them, he said.

The thrust of SA2020 is aimed at a transformation of San Antonio, though it's likely to manifest itself in a much different way than former Mayor Henry Cisneros' Target '90 plan did. That process led to the creation of the Alamodome, a biosciences research park and the downtown campus of the University of Texas at San Antonio.

Castro's plan, if it succeeds, will have a significant impact on the city, though not its skyline.

“Growing up in this city and now as mayor, what I realize is that our biggest challenges are not just in the realm of building things,” he said. “They are educating more young minds well, ensuring that the health of our families is such that people live longer, creating opportunities for greater jobs.

“You can't necessarily touch that or throw a stone at it, but those are the kinds of advances, if we can make them in the next decade, that will have the most profound impact on San Antonio as a community. It's those big aspirations that I fully intend to pursue in the coming years for our city.”

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When I look around my neighborhood of Mahncke Park, I see many new neighbors moving in. This is always an exciting time, and it gets me wondering: Will these new people be nice? Will they be young or old? Will they have young children like us or — even better — do they have babysitter-age kids?

Historical information indicates the houses in my neighborhood were built between 1920 and 1950. Starting in 1891, George W. Brackenridge gave the city 25 acres of land connecting the water reservoir at the top of the hill near the San Antonio Botanical Garden to Brackenridge Park. He asked that the land be named for his close friend, City Park Commissioner Ludwig Mahncke, and the neighborhood that developed around the park still bears his name and statue.

Mahncke Park has character and a history. Some homes are in excellent shape, having been well- maintained by their owners, while others are in need of tender care.

For many reasons, older owners will sell their homes and move away, and new homeowners will move in. Most of the time, new homeowners come with an infusion of energy and optimism.

More and more, I observe houses being snatched up by buyers who restore or rehabilitate them. Some buyers purchase in order to turn a profit with these homes. Others buy in order to rehab a fixer-upper and create a liveable home for themselves. Their neighbors may lend a hand installing wood floors or painting, creating new relationships and further tightening the bond between neighbor and community.

There's an older gentleman my family runs into on our neighborhood walks. Having witnessed the turnover of neighbors through the years, he is happy to gaze fondly at our small children and recite stories of his own childhood in the neighborhood.

“It sure is nice to have children playing on this street again,” he says with a twinkle in his eye. “I've been here 57 years and have seen this neighborhood grow, decline and come back.” I cannot mistake the nostalgic pride in his manner as he says this about his neighborhood, now my neighborhood — our neighborhood.

He is not just talking about the neighborhood houses, he is talking about the people who make up the neighborhood, and I realize that my mind-set about Mahncke Park has been broadened once again by one of our sage older residents.

The man's words become a lesson when I look with pride at the fine older homes in Mahncke Park and realize that I can put too much emphasis on the materiality of our neighborhood. A collection of houses may make a neighborhood, but it is the people who live in these homes who are truly special and create a community.

David Matiella, Assoc. AIA, is a project manager at Marmon Mok Architecture.

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A 91-year-old, two-story house in Mahncke Park, upon first sight, doesn't appear much different than nearby homes.

But that changes Monday when the Inspire Community Fine Art Center formally opens the doors of its new location, 200 Queen Anne Court, to the public.

Founded by abstract sculptor Susan Montagna in 2005, Inspire is a nonprofit organization that aims to foster an appreciation of visual arts through classes, programs, special events and other means, primarily for north San Antonians.

Inspire previously operated on East Sandalwood near the Alamo Quarry Market. Regarding the former location, Montagna said the site's high rent had become a financial strain, and the immediate neighborhood — while receptive — failed to consistently engage Inspire.

“The location was slightly hidden from the main stream of traffic. People remember us from Sunset Road, but have a hard time putting a finger on where our last facility was,” Montagna explained.

Montagna said Mahncke Park offers Inspire a better chance to thrive, emphasizing its short distance from downtown and Southtown, and its relationship with established recreational facilities such as The Witte Museum, San Antonio Botanical Garden and the San Antonio Zoo.

The new location boasts 2,800 square feet of classroom, studio space and office space.

“Mahncke Park puts Inspire in a more arts-oriented community and central location. The community is very actively engaged with what is happening in their neighborhood and very concerned about keeping it a positive, welcoming place for their own families and appealing to new families,” Montagna said.

When Inspire officials sought a new home, they came across an artist who owned the Queen Anne Court property. The artist taught mosaic classes there and realized the structure's design-friendly elements.

The artist called Inspire, which at the time looked to lease, not purchase, a new home. But after much research and thought, Inspire's leaders bought the property late in 2010.

“With the upcoming development of the River Walk along Broadway, the timing of the purchase seems like a good investment. Owning our facility also offers us more control over future development of Inspire. We are looking forward to staying put for a while,” Montagna said.

“We were of the understanding that rezoning was not an issue, but that turned out not to be the case. We ended up needing to rezone the property as a mixed use,” she added.

The rezoning proposal still could accommodate residential zoning, but city officials stipulated that the land be designated for an art studio.

Inspire ran into resistance. The Mahncke Park Neighborhood Association (MPNA) examined the proposal's desirability and zoning requirements. The group put up opposition, concerned that Inspire's commercial make-up was incompatible with the neighborhood master plan.

MPNA President Bert Hargesheimer and Co-Chair Scott Day spoke on the matter at a San Antonio Zoning Commission meeting last fall. There, Day said there was worry about the impact that an increase in traffic and parking issues might yield

At the zoning session and a subsequent City Council meeting, Hargesheimer voiced concern about setting a precedent for commercial development in a residential area.

Two other residents at the zoning meeting, Steve Walkup and Morgan Price, supported the proposal, saying the art studio's its artistic and educational opportunities would benefit the community.

“We did our homework, studied the neighborhood plan, received guidance and advice from (District 9) City Councilwoman Elisa Chan, and were able to get the zoning changed,” Montagna said.

She added Inspire has been talking with the neighborhood association – communication that has resulted in “a mutually respectful, amicable relationship.”

“We are very respectful of maintaining the integrity of the neighborhood, a conservation district, and have already put in grants to help us fix-up and restore our 91-year-old home,” she added.

“In the meantime since the City Council granted the zoning change, (Vice President) Jess (Garza) and I met with Susan (Montagna) to discuss how the neighborhood can support (Inspire). Now, Jess is working hard with Susan to help them get launched in the right manner and is planning some events with her to that end for the community,” Hargesheimer later said.

Montagna said Inspire's relationship with its new neighbors should lead to an open house, special discounts for area families, and seeking a possible collaboration with adjacent Lamar Elementary School.

“We will be visiting with all the private and public schools in the neighborhood to see how we can collaborate with each of them. We've already spoken with a number of restaurants about supporting our Free Family Art Days and doing some cross-promotions,” Montagna said.

She also looks forward to working with MPNA to gauge interest on forming a neighborhood art association.

Striving to set up satellite areas north of Loop 410, a new location won't slow Inspire's citywide outreach efforts.

Inspire currently offers programs, such as one that sends instructors weekly to teach art classes to residents at Alpha Home, a private nonprofit chemical dependency treatment facility. “

“Art for Growth,” a therapeutic art program, allows instructors to work with temporary resident youth at the Clarity Child Guidance Center.

The Children's Courthouse Art Program is where instructors go to Bexar County Courthouse each week to provide art activities to children and youth in a safe haven waiting area at the Bexar Couty Courthouse.

Inspire instructors also teach art classes to children and teenagers residing at the SAMM Transitional Living and Learning Center twice a month, as well as to children in five North East Independent School District primary campuses. These programs are mostly funded by local foundations and private donations.

There's also the Inspire's on Fire competition, which recognizes new, upcoming and established artists. While recognizing the economic recession, Montagna hopes to modify and expand the “Art for Growth” outreach programs, seeing them as helping to fill a need in the community.

On Feb. 12, Inspire renews its “Passport to Inspiration” Free Family Art Day each second Saturday, focusing every time on a different country and culture.

Montagna said there are plans to add a few monthly or weekly gathering types of classes where attendees don't have to commit to a six- or 12-week course, but instead can pay per session or month.

“The Kitchen Table Collage meets the last Saturday of every month, and there is a Monday morning project class that will meet every week. We are also planning more workshops to add more options for short-term art experiences,” Montagna said.

Inspire has changed its open studio space from private to shared. An artist may rent a locker for $75 a month and work anywhere in the upstairs studio area — 650 square feet of space with many windows.

Montagna noted how certain outdoor and indoor features around the new location are conducive to artistic inspiration and learning. An outdoor space will be converted into a sculpture garden.

“The arts in north San Antonio continue to breathe and grow, because there continues to be a belief among the families in the area that the arts are an integral part of their children's education, as well as a creative outlet for the aspiring artists hiding in everyone,” she added.

Visit www.inspirefineart.org or call 829-5592 for details.

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Looking to cash in on one of San Antonio’s largest construction projects, two household names have set up shop on or near Austin Highway on the city’s Northeast Side.

Culebra Meat Market recently opened the doors to its 26th store in San Antonio, at 2020 Austin Highway. Measuring some 25,000 square feet, the store marks the first Super Meat Market under the Culebra umbrella.

Meanwhile, Longhorn Cafe recently opened store No. 5 at the Sam Houston Center on Rittiman Road — just a few miles from Culebra Meat Market. The locally based restaurant chain will operate out of a 5,600-square-foot space — complete with two big party rooms — in the shopping center.

While both of these home-grown businesses come to the area with an appreciation of the renaissance that has taken place over the past several years, their ambitions are also tied to the immediate future — namely the more than 10,000 people who will be moving to this area of town as a result of the Pentagon’s Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) action in 2005.

At the center of the latest BRAC measures is Fort Sam Houston, which will soon be the site of the new Medical Education and Training Campus. Upon its debut later this year, METC will centralize the medical training and education missions of the Army, Navy and Air Force, and will bring some 11,000 new employees to the Northeast Side submarket.

“This is the largest single construction project in San Antonio,” says Paul Weir, who owns Longhorn Cafe in partnership with long-time friend David Wynn. “What a great opportunity (for us) to feed a bunch of hungry service people.”

It is also an opportunity for Culebra Meat Market to bring its mix of high-quality specialty meats to the area, says Noe Ramirez, owner/operator of the Austin Highway store.

The Culebra store also features a wide array of grocery items — from frozen foods, to fresh produce, to every-day staples like bread and milk. And in an era of super stores measuring 100,000 square feet or more, Culebra’s smaller footprint hearkens back to the neighborhood grocery stores that were once prevalent in San Antonio, says Tibor Ritter, who owns the Austin Highway center that now houses the new Culebra Meat Market.

“I always thought (this center) would be a good area (for Culebra).” And now with METC coming to fruition, Culebra’s potential for success is even greater, he adds.

What goes down

Austin Highway was once hailed as the great corridor of Northeast San Antonio. But as suburban sprawl took hold, major roadways like Austin Highway, Rittiman Road and Harry Wurzbach fell on hard times as retailers and other services left the area.

The tide began to turn for the better in the early 2000s — thanks to new stores by the likes of Lowe’s, Wal-Mart and H-E-B. These developments, Ritter says, helped to give Austin Highway a new image.

Then came the 2005 BRAC initiative, which led to the creation of a new medical center of excellence at Fort Sam. That project simply upped the ante, say experts like Phil Bakke, owner of locally based Bakke Development Corp., and the owner of the Sam Houston Center.

Both Ritter and Bakke have a ready-made market for their centers — namely the myriad of rooftops along Harry Wurzbach, Austin Highway and Rittiman. The BRAC-related development taking place at Fort Sam, however, is going to bring in a whole new wave of people living, working and shopping in the area, say Ritter and Bakke, who have each invested heavily to breathe new life into their centers — both of which date back to the 1950s.

Those investments, say business owners like Longhorn Cafe’s Weir, are already paying off.

“There is still lot of room for growth,” he adds. “But (the area) continues to grow.”

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Christus Santa Rosa Health System plans to spend roughly $25 million to expand an existing building along U.S. Highway 281 south of Loop 410 into a new surgical specialty hospital.

Officials with the nonprofit Christus believe the new hospital represents a major step in the creation of a medical campus for the Alamo Heights area.

“Certainly there is a growing need in terms of population and care sites such as this,” says Christus Santa Rosa Health System President and CEO Patrick Carrier about the planned hospital.

San Antonio’s suburban communities have benefited over the last several years as multiple Alamo City providers have invested hefty sums to construct or expand hospitals or related facilities outside Loop 1604. But Carrier believes there is a renewed interest in San Antonio’s urban communities.

“This gives us a real opportunity to expand and extend our (services) to an area where we have not traditionally had a presence,” says Carrier about the planned Alamo Heights-area hospital.

Last fall, Christus finalized the purchase of a majority ownership stake in Foundation Surgery Center of San Antonio LLC, also known as Physicians Ambulatory Surgery Centers. Two of the facilities involved in that deal are located on Treeline Park near the Alamo Quarry Market.

Christus plans to convert one of those two buildings into the new hospital, which will initially include more than a half-dozen operating rooms and a total of roughly 40 private beds.

The new hospital will also house emergency room facilities and employ approximately 100 people.

The second building on Treeline Park will house an expanded ambulatory surgery center, an imaging center and medical office space.

Dr. Mike Murphy, who is serving as a physician liaison for Christus with its Alamo Heights redevelopment, says the investment by the health care system in a new hospital is significant because it will alter the playing field.

“This will become a major health care campus,” he predicts.

“This (new hospital) will be a very good complement to the outpatient facilities we have at that campus,” Carrier says.

Improve efficiencies

Since 2005, Christus has purchased land in Boerne, acquired an existing hospital in New Braunfels and constructed a new hospital from the ground up in Westover Hills, a suburban community on San Antonio’s far West Side.

All of that activity occurred prior to Carrier succeeding Don Beeler as president and CEO of Christus earlier this year.

Carrier says Christus has recognized that San Antonio had some needs inside Loop 410, closer to the heart of the city, and the health care system wanted to spread its reach.

“A lot of the hospital expansion in this city has (occurred) in the suburbs,” Carrier explains, adding that the area where Christus is developing its new hospital “has been somewhat overlooked.”

Although Alamo Heights itself is a bedroom community, it is located inside Loop 410, and the new hospital will be serving residents in that larger urban area.

The new Alamo Heights-area hospital has been in the planning stages for about a year, according to Carrier. He says it should be completed by late 2011 and operational by early 2012.

Christus will own and finance the construction of the new hospital. But Carrier says the health care system hopes to develop a co-management plan for the facility with its physicians. “We believe this is an opportunity to show how hospitals and physicians can work together to improve efficiencies,” he says.

Allocating resources

Michael Zucker, senior vice president and chief development officer for Baptist Health System, also says there are needs in the inner city.

Earlier this year, Baptist broke ground on a new hospital on the city’s Southeast Side.

The hospital is under construction on a 50-acre site at Brooks City-Base. The cost of that project has not been revealed.

But Baptist CEO Graham Reeve says the investment was significant and timely.

“This move confirms from a business perspective the longer-term confidence that the Southeast quadrant (of the city) has become a more vibrant environment in which businesses — health-care related and otherwise — can be successful,” he told the Business Journal last summer.

“We’ve invested in suburban facilities over the last several years,” Zucker says. “Now we’re allocating resources to other areas.

“There is a need (for health care facilities) in the inner core,” he adds. “That need continues to grow.”

Christus and Baptist each have older downtown hospital campuses, as does Methodist Healthcare System.

University Health System, which is funded by Bexar County taxpayers, is redeveloping its downtown campus.

Others also have invested in new hospital facilities in the inner city. Back in February, for example, Acuity Healthcare opened the Acuity Hospital of South Texas downtown on Lexington Avenue. That hospital is providing long-term acute-care services to its patients.

Richard Schirmer, vice president of health care policy analysis for the Texas Hospital Association, says providers such as Christus are recognizing and attempting to fill health care gaps in urban areas.

He says they are also trying to attract more physicians, and Christus likely could entice more care givers to a new facility in a more affluent area like Alamo Heights.

“It’s about making hospitals more centralized,” says Murphy about the decision to develop a new hospital in the Alamo Heights area. “Patients want hospitals near where they live.”

The new hospital and an expanded health care campus will give Christus a greater presence in a key corridor.

“This will broaden our footprint in San Antonio,” Carrier says.

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David and Katie Evans' red-brick bungalow stands out amid the frame and stucco houses on their quiet street in Mahncke Park. But the choice of building materials isn't surprising when you consider that the house reportedly was built for a brick merchant from Chicago. It even has a basement.

The Evanses fell in love with the 1,890-square-foot Arts and Crafts-style home when they first saw it in 2002. David Evans, a lawyer, was living in a King William apartment while Katie Evans finished medical school in Shreveport, La.

“We knew we wanted a solid brick house with high ceilings and a wraparound porch,” David Evans says. The walls of the house, which was built around 1910, are composed of three layers: concrete, cinder block and brick, he says.

As often is the case with old houses, this one needed some work. It's still a work in progress, but the couple has updated the kitchen and master bath and turned an enclosed section of the back “summer porch” into a cozy bedroom for 7-month-old daughter Sophia Louise. Most of the flooring is the original longleaf pine, and the windows are all original and framed in dark wood in typical Arts and Crafts fashion.

The couple kept the entry room and adjoining living room much the same as they found them, though they repainted the vibrant orange walls in the living room a soft yellow. Original built-in bookcases flank the fireplace.

Behind the living room are the dining room, kitchen and a small office/sitting room. The couple updated that area, but in a style they think works well with the age and design of the house.

The kitchen counters are mottled gray granite, and the cabinets were custom-made from red oak and stained a striking reddish-brown. The owners opened up the walls on two sides of the compact, oblong kitchen to connect it with the dining room and the office/sitting room.

“The previous owners had left a section of wall attached to the ceiling, then an open area to look through to the dining room,” David Evans says. “We took out the upper wall and put the breakfast bar between the kitchen and the dining room. People love to eat there.”

They removed the tub from the guest bath in the hallway so the wall could be pushed back to make more room in the kitchen. That wall is where they have their refrigerator, with a built-in wine rack above, and the oven. The cooktop is on the counter facing the sitting room, which can be seen through a wall opening. The sitting room features leather furniture, a computer desk and a flat-screen TV mounted on an arm that swings around so it also can be viewed in the kitchen.

The master bedroom at the back of the house has a high, Mission-style bed and a large walk-in closet that was created from a section of the hallway. Behind the master bedroom is Sophia Louise's bedroom, which was renovated to include a waist-high changing counter and baby bathtub on one wall.

The main bath connects the master bedroom to the guest bedroom, which opens onto the front porch. The owners updated the bathroom by taking out the tub and substituting a walk-in shower in one corner. Red-oak cabinets matching those in the kitchen provide storage space for linens. There's also room for storage in the 1,800-square-foot basement and the four-car garage behind the house.

“We love it here,” David Evans says. “It's close to both of our jobs, and the neighbors are awesome.”

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Developed by neighbors, businesses, community organizations, schools and other interested groups, the Mahncke Park Neighborhood Plan represents an update to the original plan adopted in 1983 by the San Antonio City Council as a component of the Master Plan. The plan utilizes a strategic planning methodology that focuses on specific issues and action plans which follow the guidelines set out in the Community Building and Neighborhood Planning Program which was approved by City Council in October 1998.

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From the joining of two unexpected, seemingly opposite mates, great pairings can happen. How about Sonny and Cher, bacon cupcakes or Labradoodles?

Well the home design world is adding another great, albeit unexpected pairing to the list: historic home shells with über-modern interiors.

The effect appeals to those who appreciate the charm of an older home in an established neighborhood, but who are also fans of the sleek, modern aesthetic popularized by such stores as Ikea.

Electrical engineer Juan M. Fernandez is one of the many who have started cleaning up the outside of the homes and sticking in ultra-modern interiors.

“I purchase them in fairly bad condition. However, I try to incorporate new trends in style and energy efficiency,” Fernandez said, “I try to consider them a brand new house with a shell that is historic.”

That means knocking out walls, redesigning kitchens and adding bathrooms and closets.

“I try to do it with a more contemporary, more European style in the inside,” he said. “Some of the houses look bigger than the actual size of the house because of the openness and the light.” Fernandez also adds insulation and puts in energy-efficient features like tankless water heaters, state-of-the-art climate control systems.

Since starting in 2005, Fernandez has focused largely on bungalow-style homes. He just completed his sixth, a 1,898-square-foot house built in the 1920s on Mission Street in Southtown, and No. 7 is under way.

The house on Mission Street, which is listed for $399,000, includes Scavolini Italian kitchen design, quartz countertops and a back deck with planters built into the modern benches.

“It looks very contemporary,” Fernandez said. “We built up a wall, and the microwave and the oven are recessed in the wall, so it’s at the same level with the countertop. And it looks really nice with the kitchen.”

Curtis Bowers, a real estate agent for King William Realty who represents Fernandez, said the contrast between old and new appeals to home buyers.

“I think the things that I see that buyers get the most excited about is the juxtaposition of the exterior historic look of the home, and then they walk in,” Bowers said. “They like to see sleek modern kitchens and updated bathrooms that have nice amenities. Walking into a perfectly restored home doesn’t necessarily have the wow factor that the contemporary interiors do.”

He sold a house earlier this year similar to the one on Mission Street.

“What sold this property was really this sleek, contemporary Ikea kitchen that just jumped out,” Bowers said. “It was something you wouldn’t really expect in a little 950-square-foot bungalow.”

San Antonio architect Jim Poteet has designed modern interiors for historic houses in the Southtown area. A house he designed on Guenther Street was featured last year in the home tour put on by the San Antonio chapter of the American Institute of Architects.

“Actually, those old houses lend themselves to a modern lifestyle, maybe slightly better than some Mid-century houses which are now quite popular,” Poteet said. “But those (Mid-century) houses, there’s almost no way to retrofit them with the closets and bathrooms people are looking for today without extensive additions. Those can be accommodated much better in sort of the room patterns you get in these historic houses.”

The trend isn’t limited to Southtown. Tom Tarrant has been remodeling rundown Craftsman-style homes in the neighborhoods along Broadway and giving them contemporary interiors.

Tarrant said he goes to great lengths to preserve the old exteriors of the homes, even when he builds additions, but gives them modern, open floor plans and master suites. “A remodel of this caliber for a homeowner would be enough to cause a divorce,” Tarrant said.

Since 2008, he’s remodeled a handful of homes in Mahncke Park, and currently is working on another on Post Avenue. Tarrant said he usually sells his homes for $175 per square foot.

The homes provide a high-class living option for people who want to live near downtown, said Debra Maltz, a real estate agent with Kuper Sotheby’s International Realty.

They appeal to “mature people that still want to be in the neighborhood setting and yet be close to where the action is,” Maltz said. “They want to be able to walk, and I guess they have the means to pursue living this way.”

Restoring the older homes and giving them ultra-modern interiors creates a unique product in a historic district, Poteet said.

“You really want the exterior to be a real credit to the neighborhood, but the interior really needs to express the personality and the likes of the owner,” he said.

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The two-steps-forward-three-steps-back dance continues for the city’s retail sector, according to a new report by a Phoenix-based real estate firm.

New development is down to its lowest level in 10 years, but the influx of new space that entered the market over the past five years continues to prove a challenge to occupancy rates, reports Marcus & Millichap Real Estate Investment Services in its third quarter 2010 analysis of San Antonio’s retail sector.

Developers are on tap to deliver approximately 710,000 square feet of new retail space to the city by year’s end — an amount that marks the “smallest inventory addition since 1999.”

By comparison, over the course of 2009 — the worst year of this latest recession, industry experts say — nearly 1.1 million square feet of retail space made its debut in the greater San Antonio area.

Despite a rather lackluster amount of pre-leasing activity, the retail sector is expected to end 2010 at an overall vacancy rate of 9.3 percent, down 20 basis points from 2009, Marcus & Millichap reports. Carve out the city’s newest centers, however, and the vacancy figure becomes a bit more troubling.

The analysis shows that as of June 30, 2010, shopping centers built between 2008 and 2009 recorded a combined vacancy rate of 16.8 percent — thanks in large part to the higher rents that these centers are quoting, rents that have put the kibosh to deals by smaller retailers.

For all of its stops and starts, however, San Antonio’s retail sector does have something major going for it: BRAC.

As a result of the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure action, Fort Sam Houston is being repositioned as a medical center of excellence — a project that will create 10,000 new households in the Alamo City by mid-September 2011.

The influx should result in a boost in consumer demand — and likely a boost in shopper traffic in centers around Fort Sam Houston, on the city’s Northeast Side.

The buy side

Marcus & Millichap expects that Fort Sam Houston could prove a boon for the investment side of the retail real estate sector as well.

Given that retail centers in proximity to the Army post are expected to see an uptick in traffic, these are also the properties at the top of the list for investors wanting to buy into San Antonio’s retail market.

While some of those deals could involve multitenant shopping centers, the real focus appears to be on the single-tenant side — with investors on the lookout for quick-service buildings and restaurant properties, the retail analysis finds.

As of Sept. 30, 2010, the median price for single-tenant assets in San Antonio stood at $151 per square foot — down from $195 the previous year, per the latest Marcus & Millichap report.

Median prices for multitenant assets ranged between $100 and $120 per square foot as of third-quarter 2010 — down from a median price of just under $300 per square foot as of third-quarter 2009.

Housing

September home sales were down 20.6 percent nationally, compared to sales activity posted for September 2009, according to a new report by Denver-based RE/MAX LLC. Home prices, meanwhile, were up in 33 of the 54 metro areas covered in the latest RE/MAX report.

Markets posting major price gains included Raleigh, N.C., where home prices were up 11.6 percent between September 2009 and 2010; Pittsburgh, 8.2 percent; and Detroit, which saw home prices rise 7.7 percent between September 2009 and 2010.

Closer to home

The average price of a home in San Antonio stood at $184,276, according to the 2010 Multiple Listing Service report by the San Antonio Board of Realtors (SABOR) — marking a 1 percent increase from the average home price posted at the end of September 2009.

Over the nine months ended September 30, 2010, a total of 13,976 homes were sold in the greater San Antonio area — marking a 3 percent increase from the number of homes sold over the same nine months in 2009, per the latest SABOR analysis.

Happy holidays?

With the 2010 Christmas shopping season sort of around the corner, New York based industry organization the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC) has begun to track how this year is shaping up.

ICSC is forecasting that November-December sales for the country’s chain stores will be up between 3 and 3.5 percent — compared to sales reported for the same two months in 2009.

“The key story is that the retail recovery continues and that bodes well for the upcoming holiday shopping season,” says Michael P. Niemira, chief economist and director of research for ICSC.

An app for that

Cambridge, Mass.-based Kantar Retail is reporting that Woonsocket, R.I.-based pharmacy chain CVS has launched a free mobile application for the iPhone. The app allows shoppers to search for CVS stores, transfer and refill prescriptions, even schedule a flu shot.

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