One of the leading groups fighting homelessness in San Antonio has sold its headquarters downtown and bought a vacant medical building nearby that is more than twice the size.
American GI Forum National Veterans Outreach Program, a nonprofit with a mission to help veterans with housing and employment, purchased the 40,000 square-foot former headquarters of the troubled Peripheral Vascular Associates medical group, or PVA, across from Central Library on May 20, Bexar County property records show.
That same day, the nonprofit sold its 1.2-acre, 16,000 square-foot headquarters at 611 N. Flores St., which operates as a “one-stop” service center for veterans, according to its website. The organization had owned the building since 1995.
Sergio Dickerson, president and CEO of American GI Forum National Veterans Outreach Program — which is headquartered in San Antonio but also has centers in Austin, Dallas, Houston and other Texas cities — didn’t respond to phone calls seeking comment.
PVA, which specialized in treating artery and vein conditions, including complications from diabetes, had used the building at 610 N. Main Ave. as its headquarters after launching a $3 million renovation in 2017.
Last year, the medical group was ordered to pay $8.1 million in damages in a Medicare billing fraud case, leading it to lay off 30 of its workers and notify the Texas Workforce Commission that it was “undergoing business difficulties that likely will result in the need to wind down the business.”
This year, PVA announced on its website and LinkedIn page that its providers had transitioned to new practices. Its listed phone number is out of order.
The sales prices for American GI Forum’s service center and the former PVA headquarters were not disclosed. The Bexar Appraisal District valued the PVA site at $8.6 million this year.
The buyer of American GI Forum’s service center was CHSR Interests LLC, which was created in 2022 by the local attorney Carl Oliver. CHSR also purchased a 0.47-acre parking lot between the two sites from PVA.
The heavyweight downtown developer Weston Urban, known for building the Frost Tower and the still-in-progress 300 Main apartment skyscraper, has been working for years to accumulate property in the block bounded by Flores, Martin, Camaron and Kingsbury streets, along the San Pedro Creek Culture Park to build a stadium.
The San Antonio Express-News recently reported that Weston Urban is planning a ballpark for the Missions minor league baseball team there and is seeking to buy the former Fox Tech High School baseball field.
It isn’t clear whether CHSR has any link to Weston Urban. The Bexar County deed recording the sale of American GI Forum’s headquarters notes that Weston Urban is a “predecessor-in-interest” to CHSR and that American GI Forum and Weston Urban had entered a “certain contract for exchange of real property” in April. Oliver didn’t respond to requests for comment left via phone and email.
American GI Forum has been expanding its downtown presence lately. In 2022, the nonprofit won city approval for a four-story dormitory-style residential center at 801 N. Main Ave. at the north end of downtown, which has not yet been completed.
The organization also operates an 80-bed residential center for veterans in the Cattleman Square neighborhood on the near West Side, not far from the Haven for Hope homeless center. It offers several other workforce, housing and wellness programs for veterans.
In 2015, the National Veterans Outreach Program’s then-CEO, Carlos Martinez, told the Express-News that it had changed more than 450,000 lives since it was founded in 1972 to help veterans returning from Vietnam.
