[SAguy]

SABJ 01/31/23
W. Scott Bailey

Port San Antonio moving on plans for 'iconic' office tower

High demand for limited space at the former military base is driving the push for the multistory structure.

Port San Antonio’s plan to add a roughly 300,000-square-foot office tower as part of the ongoing redevelopment of the former military base southwest of downtown has reached a critical point.

Port officials have issued a request for proposals for prospective designers and builders for a structure that could house multiple tenants, including DeLorean Motor Co.’s San Antonio headquarters, and are now moving to identify potential project partners.

“We're in the process of reviewing the submissions now,” Port San Antonio President and CEO Jim Perschbach said. “I suspect it's going to be teams that are put together that are coming in to put the building together.”

Perschbach first shared with the Business Journal last spring plans for the tower. Despite the impact the pandemic has had on the office market, Port San Antonio officials insist there is a heightened demand for space on the campus, enough to fill the planned tower.

Perschbach is hopeful a design/build team is identified within the next few months and that work on the project can begin before the end of the year.

“There's an awful lot of complexity in terms of down selecting, negotiating the deal and putting it all together,” Perschbach said.

Port San Antonio officials insist the campus is at a pivotal inflection point, gaining more critical mass in the cybersecurity and aerospace industries and more interest from other potential suitors too. Perschbach said that activity opens to the door for port officials to court complimentary companies and industries, such as engineering and accounting firms, even additional headquarters operations. That’s going to require more space.

“We're sitting on a campus where we're pretty close to a 0% vacancy level. But we've got people knocking on our door. We've got a waitlist for what's on the campus already,” Perschbach said, noting that turning those interested parties — and jobs — away isn’t good business.

The hope is that the tower will draw more companies, jobs and economic activity to the port, complementing other key anchors, including the newly named Boeing Center at Tech Port arena, as part of a larger reimagination of the 1,900-acre campus.

“We want an iconic building that becomes the gateway, the front door for the campus, the signature for what we're doing.” Perschbach said