On March 16, 1960, the Kress department store allowed Black customers to be served at its lunch counter for the first time. Other stores would follow, including Woolworth’s.
In December, more than six decades after that historic day, a nonprofit dedicated to collecting, preserving and sharing the African American cultural heritage of the San Antonio region became owners of the entire Kress building and the adjacent Grant building on East Houston Street.
The San Antonio African American Community Archive and Museum (SAAACAM) plans to turn the vacant buildings into a cultural center and archive that will be free and open to the public.
When the Kress store opened in 1939, it was segregated, with Black workers and shoppers permitted in certain spaces only, said Deborah Omowale Jarmon, CEO and director of SAAACAM.
Now the organization has an opportunity to share African American history in a space where once they were denied full access, she said. “That’s so exciting.”
SAAACAM leaders announced plans in June to renovate the vacant buildings, turning the upper floor spaces into a new cultural center featuring history exhibits. The Grant building would function as the center’s entrance, according to the renderings, with a two-story entry hall featuring a café and gift shop.
The organization closed on the property on Dec. 15 with a contribution of $6.25 million from the Houston Street Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone, and $5 million from Bexar County.
The remainder of the total $14.3 million cost to purchase the building came from financing through the previous owner, a limited liability company that includes the San Antonio developer, GrayStreet Partners.
The organization still needs to raise $50 million to redevelop the buildings, Jarmon said. A capital campaign kicks off on Jan. 12.
Built in 1939, the art-deco-style Samuel H. Kress Building once housed a store belonging to the former nationwide chain of “five and dime” retail outlets.
From 1995 to 2015, the San Antonio Children’s Museum, now known as The DoSeum, occupied the building before moving to its current location on Broadway.
The museum’s new home will allow it to expand into 23,000 square feet, the space needed to offer a better experience for museum visitors, establish a research library and display documents and other collections now in storage.
Among the items that could go on display is the bill of sale for seven persons owned in the 1800s by Thomas and Tabitha Grayson, donated to the museum by the Graysons’ great-great-granddaughter last year.
Another is the original sign from the Keyhole Club, a 1940-50s-era dance hall that welcomed all races, Jarmon said.
Jarmon said her organization plans to approach the project in two phases with completion set for 2026. The design phase already has begun with architecture firm Overland Partners.
The Kress building is in “great shape,” she said, though standing water from a leak in the basement has led to a mold problem and will need to be remediated.
The museum has been housed in about 715 square feet at 218 S. Presa St. in La Villita since 2021. SAAACAM was founded in 2017 by landscape architect and preservationist Everett Fly and George Frederick, owner of the organization’s first home on Cherry Street.
But Fly said he is disappointed in the choice to make Kress the home of SAAACAM versus a site that has more direct ties to African American history and culture.
There are other places in San Antonio “built and operated intentionally to serve the African American community,” Fly said. “They were built to operate and serve a broad spectrum of every religion, history, religion, education, voters’ rights, civil rights. The Kress chain, if you look at civil rights history, is more associated with resistance to integration and civil rights.”
Fly said he was not included in the selection process.
Jarmon said the organization worked with the San Antonio City Council District 2 office to identify a location that was meaningful to African American culture and history, but did not find a place that offered the space or revenue-generating opportunities that the Kress did.
The Kress building puts SAAACAM on a solid footing by making it less reliant on grants and donations, Jarmon said.
“The challenge with museums in general, and especially museums that appear to be a specialized history, is sustainment,” she said.
Because most nonprofit philanthropy tends to support programming, funding for operations — like salaries and administrative costs — is harder to come by. Last year, the organization experienced significant drops in funding from traditional donors.
“From a business standpoint, the Kress building allows us spaces to earn revenue,” Jarmon said.
In addition to an auditorium and exhibition space, the building will provide event space for rent and an elegant terrace atop the Grant building. The upper floors of the Kress building could feature a small boutique hotel and the first floor also offers space for lease to another tenant.
The organization’s leaders are looking at the Smithsonian Anacostia Community Museum in Washington, D.C., as a model for the San Antonio Cultural Center, and have visited similar museums in Dallas and Kansas City for ideas.
On Jan. 27, SAAACAM will host a meeting to solicit community input, Jarmon said. “We have very concrete ideas of the stories that we want to tell, so we want to check in with the community and [find out if] we are on the right track.”
This article has been updated to clarify that $6.25 million of the money used for the building’s purchase came from the Houston Street Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone.
