Downtown
May 16, 2009 - Rivers, rhubarbs, and a renaissance
Today I spent the morning wandering around the urban core of San Antonio. I contemplating moving downtown into The Vistana and decided to check things out some more while going through the application process. It's a big move for someone like me who was born and raised in the rural area and suburbs of Arkansas and who has lived outside the loop my entire life in San Antonio. What I found was surprising and enlightening. The journey took me around ... Read more »
May 19, 2009 - Downtown and around
It's finally official or at least after signing more papers than I can count it should be. I'm moving downtown after many years in the suburbs. After touring The Vistana, the new mid-rise across from Milam Park, I decided to take the plunge and become a true urban core resident. What better way to figure out how livable downtown really is than to experience it. The move doesn't happen until mid-July but I'm already scoping things out to see how it ... Read more »
June 14, 2009 - River taxis, ducks, tourists and good food
Last night I met a friend from Austin who came down to explore the newly opened section of the San Antonio River. To explore the stretch to the fullest we decided to meet at the Pearl Brewery and ride the River Taxi down to the Riverwalk for dinner. That started what turned into quite a unique experience as we discovered and rediscovered parts of the river and downtown. My friend is originally from San Antonio and attended Central Catholic High School ... Read more »
July 30, 2009 - Two downtowns
I've been in the new place for about three weeks now and have started discovering some of the interesting aspects of downtown as I live here. It's really an interesting place to live and one that I'm looking forward to explore as things develop. Right now my best source on what is happening downtown is Ben Olivo of the San Antonio Express-News who writes the Downtown Blog and tweets daily as @mysa_downtown. Part of the living experience is to see ... Read more »
August 3, 2009 - Downtown transit - an interesting experience
One of the things I did to help me in my move downtown was to purchase a VIA monthly pass so I could leverage public transportation as much as possible. The pass is reasonable at $30 and allows you to jump on any VIA bus or trolley without any hassle. It makes the entire downtown area accessible and easy to traverse. That's a great thing considering there are three trolleys that run past the building (Red, Yellow, and Purple) and Commerce/Market is ... Read more »
August 13, 2009 - A tale of two city parks
Recently I made my annual trip to Houston to watch the Astro play. It's become a yearly road trip I do with a good friend of mine. We all do them and we all have fun. Our ritual is to drive up on Friday during the day, check into the Hilton of the Americas and hit Astros games on Friday and Saturday night. Saturday we check out local things in Houston and just chill out. To get to Minutemaid Park from the hotel we walk the four blocks beside the George ... Read more »
October 17, 2009 - Downtown's great when the weather's not unbearable
It's been a while since blogged about living downtown so maybe it's time for an update. After last Saturday's fun and the great weather this weekend it's been the perfect time to enjoy the experience downtown by getting out. Last weekend started off with Chalk It Up sponsored by ArtPace. It's a collection of artists, students, and children who use Houston Street from about Main Street to Alamo Plaza as their canvas. Lots of kids got to have some fun ... Read more »
October 19, 2009 - Vision for River North revealed tonight
Tonight the City of San Antonio's Planning and Developments Services Department revealed the vision for River North and started a rezoning process that will involve a series of public meetings and hearings. Early in 2010 City Council will vote to rezone the area to prepare for the expected redevelopment of the area into mixed use that will hopefully spark a collection of condos, shops, restaurants, and offices. It is a part of the goal of many to ... Read more »
March 28, 2010 - Downtown living - something San Antonio is still working on
Over the past few weeks several people have talked about downtown living here in San Antonio. Ben Olivo recently wrote a blog entry about people who live and walk to work downtown. In it he interviewed several residents of my building, The Vistana. It highlighted the fact that people are making downtown living happen and enjoying the benefits of it. I am still into my one year experiment with living downtown and have found new and interesting things ... Read more »
July 25, 2010 - Downtown development starting with my building
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 ... Read more »
July 25, 2010 - Can River North really be redeveloped?
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 ... Read more »
December 10, 2010 - Embassy Suites and Lüke extend Houston Street
Last night I attended the grand opening of Lüke, the latest addition to San Antonio's downtown dining experience. The restaurant is locate beside the new downtown Embassy Suites hotel on Houston St. While in the same building as the Embassy Suites it's not associated with the hotel. Lüke is a creation of famed Chef John Besh from New Orleans and brings a lot of the Cajun seafood flavors to the mix. Steve McHugh is the executive chef, having moved ... Read more »
December 20, 2010 - Where should San Antonio's residential focus be?
As many of you probably know I'm a resident of downtown San Antonio and have been for over a year now. I moved into the urban core as an experiment to see how living downtown might be. It's been a good experience so far but, after living here for a while, I'm starting to see where the real focus of residential living should be for downtown and it's probably not in the core. While San Antonio has aspirations to be a big city like many other urban areas ... Read more »
December 22, 2010 - Madison Square Park would make a great walkable neighborhood
After I posted my blog entry on pedestrian-oriented neighborhoods a friend of mine commented that it was a shame parks like Madison Square Park and Crockett Park had lost that neighborhood feel due to business development around the parks. While I agree with him regarding Crockett Park, Madison Square Park actually has potential as a neighborhood park. It really only has limited business development surrounding the park which is probably not a bad ... Read more »
December 23, 2010 - Why wouldn't a city redevelop it's core?
I've been blogging lately about the focus of redevelopment in and around the downtown area of San Antonio. To start the conversation I focused on whether the development should be in or around downtown, feeling that developing around downtown might be a better choice. Following that I looked at the area around Madison Square Park as one of the neighborhoods that might make a good choice for redevelopment focus. In doing so, I started to realize that ... Read more »