SAN ANTONIO | Continental Apartments | 169 FEET | 16 FLOORS
 

San Antonio Heron

https://saheron.com/weston-urban-continental-hotel/

The City Council voted last Thursday to sell the former Continental Hotel property at 322 W. Commerce St. to Weston Urban, the San Antonio-based developer whose portfolio includes the Frost Tower and more than a dozen properties in west downtown. Construction on an apartment mid-rise on the property could potentially be for “future students, faculty, and staff” at University of Texas at San Antonio’s expansion on Dolorosa across the street south.

The purchase price for the four-story Continental Hotel and the adjacent parking lot, located a half-block west of City Hall, is $4.7 million.

Two years ago, Weston Urban purchased the abutting two-story Arana building and the O. Henry House Museum, which face the 600 block of Dolorosa; all structures including the Continental are bound by West Commerce, San Pedro Creek, Dolorosa and South Laredo. There are no plans yet for the O. Henry House, where American writer William Sydney Porter lived in 1885, said Weston Urban President Randy Smith.

Weston Urban intends to preserve and refurbish the Continental Hotel and Arana buildings, rather than eviscerate them leaving only the facade—a common practice in San Antonio. On the lot between the buildings, a new structure containing 274 apartments rising 8-12 stories will be built. At least half of the apartments will be reserved for people making 80% of area median income, which is $72,000 for a family of four according to preliminary 2020 federal estimates.

“I think it would scale real well with the (Bexar County) buildings, with the Vistana,” Smith said last week. “I do not view that as a high-rise site.”

Last year, the city started the process of finding a buyer for the Continental Hotel building, which has been owned by the city for many years. The late-19th century building last housed the Metropolitan Health District offices until 2016. The campus expansion is expected to add more than 3,000 faculty, staff, and students to the area by 2028.

The development also includes a parking garage with 432 spaces—68 of which will be available to the public during the day.

Construction is expected to begin November 2021, and be finished two years later.

Aside from UTSA’s growth just south, there are plans north of the site to renovate old commercial buildings into a collective retail and restaurant hotspot—the San Pedro Creek project flowing alongside all of it—lead by James Lifshutz’ redevelopment of the Kline’s building.

Proceeds from the Continental Hotel sale will be deposited into the City Tower fund, which supports the city’s renovation of the old Frost Tower at 100 W. Houston St., Kelly Saunders, spokesperson for the Center City Development and Operations (CCDO), said via email.

For the Continental Hotel and Arana project, the city is recommending Weston Urban receive $161,000 in city fee waivers, $1 million SAWS impact fee waiver, and $500,000 in an infrastructure grant from the Houston Street and Westside Tax Increment Reinvestment Zones. Under the Center City Housing Incentive Policy, the project is also eligible for a city property tax rebate for 15 years, the estimated value of which was not provided by the city.

However, Smith said Weston Urban may partner with a public facility corporation, government-created nonprofits, which would exempt the project from paying any property taxes.

The city also anticipates to receive $18,500 a year in sales taxes from the retail portion of the project.

Correction: A previous version of this article implied the apartments for the upcoming project would be built for UTSA faculty and staff. Anyone can eventually live there. Also, the article erroneously stated a condition of the sale.
By Ben Olivo & Benjamin Gonzalez | San Antonio Heron

Nice! Construction a year and a half out. Hopefully, it's pretty!

Cant wait to see it

:cheers::yes::tup:
Hopefully it is 12 stories!!

Bexar County, Weston Urban to partner on apartments at Continental Hotel in west downtown San Antonio

https://saheron.com/bexar-county-wes...inental-hotel/

A nonprofit arm of Bexar County is set to partner with downtown developer Weston Urban on a 250-unit mixed-income apartment project that would preserve at least the facade of the historic Continental Hotel (West Commerce Street) and Arana buildings (Dolorosa) in west downtown.

The roughly $80 million project would be the first developed by the Bexar County Public Facility Corp., which the county’s Commissioners Court voted to create in January. County Judge Nelson Wolff and the court’s four commissioners serve as the nonprofit’s board. On Tuesday, they approved a preliminary agreement with Weston Urban for the apartment development, with plans to set the terms for a final agreement by August.

County sees redevelopment of Continental Hotel as ‘next step’ in Zona Cultural revitalization

https://sanantonioreport.org/bexar-c...inental-hotel/

Cattlemen once preferred the hotel on West Commerce for its proximity to the stockyards and Military Plaza; in those days, it was known as La Clede Hotel.

Around 1926, the vacant three-story structure spanning the length of four lots became the Continental Hotel, the name by which it was known until it closed in the late 1970s, later serving as home to the San Antonio Metropolitan Health District.

This year, the old hotel, an adjacent parking lot, and the 1928 Arana Building on the same block could get a new lease on life as the first housing project approved under the newly formed Bexar County Public Facility Corporation, or PFC

Nice article, right near the San Pedro Creek redevelopment

Really excellent presentation to the HDRC for this project, seriously, if you enjoy good HDRC presentations, check this one out.
https://sanantonio.legistar.com/Legi...tions=&Search=

HDRC recommends approval, and I'm with them. This is a great project.
https://i.imgur.com/0dZsJLf.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/PvVWA4p.jpg

My favorite part is how they've come all the way around on the de la Garza house, from pushing it 40 feet south to making it a little jewel of the development. The O. Henry house is being moved again to an undetermined location. They should put it somewhere near the main library.
https://i.imgur.com/rHkj7eZ.jpg

Alright, this is nitpicky I know because the overall proposal is solid. But it's the O. Henry house. Not the O'Henry house. The historical preservation consultant put that mistake in giant letters on a bunch of slides. I wouldn't fault a random person for making that mistake since it sounds identical when you say it out loud, but if you're being paid a bag of money by a big name developer to know about the history of that structure, you should probably know what it's called, especially if it's called that because a reasonably famous writer used to live there. It's like saying Hemisphere instead of Hemisfair, drives me nuts...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O._Henry

Anyway, great proposal etc. And I too am glad they've come around to keeping the de la Garza house on site and making it a centerpiece. Smart move, though I wonder if they're just going to continue to have it vacant or if they'll try and find a retail tenant.

Haha. Good point. I walked by the house during the June "Fiesta" at Market Square and read the historical marker for the first time. He was an interesting dude like so many people back in the day who wore so many different hats.

More O’Henry, and not enough O. Henry! Its spelled right twice in the picture of the house at least. Hahaha.

A closer look at Weston Urban’s 15-story mixed-use project in west downtown San Antonio

https://saheron.com/weston-urbans-15...d-use-project/

More details have emerged regarding Weston Urban’s $80 million, mixed-use development bound by West Commerce, South Laredo, Dolorosa and San Pedro Creek in west downtown.

The project will refurbish the former Continental Hotel (which faces West Commerce) and the Arana building (Dolorosa). Between them is a large parking lot where the developer plans to build a 15-story, 255-unit apartment building, which will also include a parking garage for 342 vehicles. The Melchio de la Garza House, a small single historic structure, will remain on the property facing South Laredo, while the O’Henry House, another structure of the same stature, will be moved to an undetermined location.

I grabbed the larger renderings from the saheron article, though, the HDRC doc has even larger ones, and one more that the articles didn't publish.

https://i.imgur.com/ami7EOv.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/TSsobTQ.jpg

This definitely is a great project, especially for historic buildings on the site. I am glad they were not abutting into and covering the back wall of the Continental Hotel the way the perspective of the previous rendering had worrying suggested. I am less convinced by the vague private green space between the new apartment building and San Pedro Creek, but hopefully later renderings will show a more fully fleshed out creekside landscape or patio design.

With vow to preserve historic buildings, developer’s apartment tower plans approved

https://sanantonioreport.org/apartme...lans-approved/

A developer’s plans to transform a downtown block of vacant buildings and blighted lots along the reconstructed San Pedro Creek got the go-ahead Wednesday.

The Historic and Design Review Commission (HDRC) gave conceptual approval to an investor group behind Frost Tower developer Weston Urban, to rehabilitate two historic buildings that will bookend a new apartment tower between West Commerce and Dolorosa streets.

Bidding for this is one took place March 29th.

https://www.virtualbx.com/bid-bullet...inental-block/

This is just a really solid development. Repurposing historical structures while adding a little bit of height and density to an area of downtown is definitely my jam. And its a handsome project to boot. :tup:

^^ I agree. I rate this an 8 or 9 out of 10.

Looks good. 169 feet seems short for a 16 story building though. Is that the confirmed height?

Good point, I'm curious too.

the Floodgate is above 200 ft, and that is about 16 to 17 stories. Including the river walk as well.