Concerned Citizens

This past weekend the Express-News wrote about the possible demise of the River North Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone No. 27, the TIRZ set up to help fund infrastructure improvements within an area that straddles the recently developed Museum Reach of the San Antonio River. The purpose of the TIRZ was to channel any property tax increases resulting from redevelopment in the area back into the area to help improve streets, drainage, and other infrastructure elements. However, the management of the TIRZ and the lack of any redevelopment may have resulted in a situation that questions the effectiveness of it. So does this mean River North may be just a good idea without any chance of redevelopment? Read more…

Today I happened to notice on Ben Olivo’s Downtown Blog an entry with a video of the construction of The Vistana, a time lapse series of photos taken by the webcam perched on the roof of the Christus Santa Rosa Hospital. It’s a great view of how this building that has been lauded as a new start of urban core development came to be, sitting on a half block of property across from Milam Park. At this point the building is at about 96% occupancy and is growing into its own community of urban dwellers, a collection of doctors, lawyers, government employees, military personnel, downtown business owners, and just plain old folks looking to take advantage of living in the urban core. But it’s also a vision of what could be downtown. Read more…