Architects don’t often get to work on a 12.5-acre plot of open land in the urban core of San Antonio, but ford, powell & carson, WestEast Design Group and landscape architects Rialto Studio have been hired to transform the long-vacant Playland Park parcel that lies between Fort Sam Houston and Broadway into a new campus for the Alamo Colleges.
Conceptual massing studies (see featured image and click-to-enlarge image below) were presented to the board of trustees Tuesday to help them better understand land use and development of the new central headquarters. The renderings will be presented a second time this week to the Citizens Advisory Committee (CAC) at WestEast offices on the second floor of the Full Goods buildings at Pearl. The Thursday, 6 p.m. meeting is open to the public.
What committee members see is a campus plan overwhelmed by a suburban-like parking lot big enough to service a Walmart or other big box store. Building a surface lot that could hold 500-600 vehicles might save the district the cost of building a parking garage, but the forfeited land surface would limit architects to designing a suburban-like development.
The Alamo Colleges is fiscally strong and trustees have voted to place a $450 million bond project on the May 2017 ballot, $50 million more than originally anticipated, thanks to the district’s strong balance sheet and low interest rates. The proposed use of the funds would allow the district to expand into Boerne and other growing suburban communities, although inner city trustees are calling for greater investment in underserved communities.
One obvious option not yet considered is allocating an estimated $5-7 million in additional bond funds to the headquarters project, which would allow the design team to produce a denser, mixed-use plan more in keeping with the infill development found along Broadway and at Pearl. Such an approach would incorporate the new campus into the Broadway community, whereas a parking lot dominating the front of the site will leave the campus disconnected from its neighborhood and limit the buildings to the back of the parcel.
A parking structure also could prove to be an added new revenue source for the district, given the demand for parking that now exceeds supply, everywhere from Pearl to the DoSeum to Brackenridge Park.
The former Playland Park site at 2222 North Alamo St. has long been coveted by developers. It opened in 1943 as a homegrown amusement park, best known for “The Rocket,” a popular wooden roller coaster. The park closed in 1980, and the property has sat vacant ever since then. The district purchased the 12.5 acre property for $4.1 million in 2008 with plans to develop a central headquarters there, but internal opposition and the Great Recession put the project on hold for several years.
“It’s one of the hottest properties in the urban core,” said one developer not involved in the project. “A parking lot big enough for 500 or more vehicles would mean a very suburban looking campus totally inconsistent with everything happening on and around Broadway and Pearl. A parking garage would allow for much greater density, something more appropriate to the location.”
Trustees appointed the CAC in May 2015, “to bring a community perspective to (the district’s) work to develop a facility to house the 465 District Support Operations employees…As a dedicated community partner, the Alamo Colleges relies heavily on citizen advice and input…”
That’s exactly what happened. Trustees originally planned on adding a building to its current headquarters located at 201 W. Sheridan St. just south of the H-E-B Arsenal headquarters. Richardson “Dick” Gill, the CAC vice-chair, in particular, pushed district officials to develop a showcase campus on the Playland Park property. He and other committee members pushed for a campus that would elevate the district’s profile as the leading provider of higher education in the metro area with nearly 60,000 students enrolled at its five colleges.
Such a campus, committee members reasoned, also would demonstrate the district’s commitment to sustainability, energy efficiency, and contribute to the city’s momentum in building a more vibrant urban core attractive to new generations of students and workers. The CAC and trustees agreed the cost of building at Playland would not be higher than the cost of building at its present headquarters at 201 W. Sheridan St. On July 16, 2015 the CAC voted unanimously to recommend the Playland site.
Gill and CAC Chair Gloria Ray, a retired senior official at Kelly Air Force Base, declined comment for this article pending Thursday’s presentation of the renderings to the citizens advisory committee. Click here to see the CAC membership.
Two months later in September, trustees approved construction of a new $55 million central headquarters on the Playland site, which will allow 465 district employees now scattered at three different office locations to work at a single location. An events center available for public and private use will generate additional revenue but also will require extensive visitor parking.
Sale of the office properties Alamo Colleges intends to vacate at 201 W. Sheridan St., at 611 W. Houston St., and off Pat Booker Road and I-35 North are expected to reduce the cost of the project by an estimated $10 million, Alamo Colleges Chancellor Bruce H. Leslie said in an interview this week.
“I do credit the CAC members as the ones who recommended we use the Playland site, and now that group will be vetting the renderings, which are more for understanding the site,” Dr. Leslie said. “We are looking for energy conservation strategies, but I don’t think we can afford a LEED Platinum project. We are excited to get to this stage, but as the architects explained in their presentation, we don’t want to build on all 12 acres. One of the issues is parking and how we manage the parking so it doesn’t overwhelm the property.
“There is, however, a fiscal issue here,” Dr. Leslie said. “A couple of the renderings show some below ground parking, but we need 450-500 spaces for employees and we want another 200 for the conference center. The thinking is we could do surface parking now, and if we have to expand the facility some day, we could do a garage later.”
John Mize, the ford, powell & carson principal leading the project, said the conceptual massing studies do not include actual building designs.
“They show how the buildings could be arranged, but we have not begun to design the buildings,” Mize said. “It’s going to be a great project, its so rare to find 12 open acres in the urban core that you can build on, but we are going to need to be as inventive as we can be about the parking. We want to minimize the impervious cover on the site. We are targeting 600 spaces because that is what they’ll need for employees and visitors to the event center.”
Eliminating the massive surface parking would allow architects to be far more inventive in capturing the site’s history, which not only has cultural implications because of Playland Park, but the property’s early use dates back to San Antonio’s founding nearly 300 years ago.
The Acequia Madre, built in 1719, once carried water from the San Antonio River at what is now the Witte Museum south along a route parallel with Broadway to Mission San Antonio de Valero in the 18th century and to the Alamo in the 19th century. The renderings show the original course of the acequia as it entered the property at what is now Cunningham Street, and then wound its way along what is now the property line with Fort Sam Houston before exiting on Josephine Street to the south.
Leslie said the district wants the new campus to include elements of a reconstructed acequia, and some expression of the importance of the site in relation to Fort Sam Houston. The district also owns a collection of artifacts from Playland Park it hopes to incorporate into the campus design. Leslie said district officials are interested in hearing from individuals who might have additional Playland Park artifacts they would be willing to donate or sell.
Leslie and Mize hope the campus is completed in “the next few years.” Finishing in time for the city’s 300th anniversary celebrations in May 2018, they said, will be a challenge.
Other firms involved in the project include Pape-Dawson Engineers doing the civil engineering; Datum Rios doing the structural engineering; Cleary Zimmermann Engineers doing the mechanical, electrical, and plumbing; and Skanska USA serving as construction manager.
Correction: An earlier version of this story stated the Alamo Colleges has five campuses. It has four accredited colleges and one college not yet accredited.
Editor’s note: This story was originally published on July 24, 2016.
Top image: Conceptual massing study by ford, powell & carson shows massive parking lot envisioned as part of new Alamo Colleges central headquarters on former Playland Park site. Rendering courtesy of Ford, Powell & Carson and WestEast Design Group.
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Looks like typical car-centric development that shouldn’t be encouraged anywhere near the Pearl or downtown. Bummer.
Hear, hear!
I too am very disappointed about the urban-sprawl approach of this design. This seems like short-sighted design. In addition, adding more traffic to the intersection of Cunningham/Broadway/Alamo is going to have a huge impact an already poorly designed intersection when combined with traffic from the Ft. Sam gate.
I really hope there is push back to this massive surface parking lot. I would much rather they sell a 1 or 2 acres to a private developer to build apartments or something urban and with that revenue they build the parking garage. Or maybe they could build a pocket park on 2 acres of the land and the department of parks could contribute to this parking garage out of their budget. It seems like there are mechanisms to get this done in an appropriate manner with some inventive thinking.
Looks like amateur hour by all the design teams.
Robert,
An error in an otherwise well written article is that the Alamo Community College District has four independetly accredited COLLEGES (NLC is not yet accredited), not campuses.
“…elevate the district’s profile as the leading provider of higher education in the metro area with nearly 60,000 students enrolled at its five campuses.”
It’s Alamo Colleges, not Alamo College as some in the district offices would like you to think.
CW, Thanks for the correction, which has been made. –RR
How does putting in 600 parking spaces meet the goal of minimizing impervious cover?
Since it’s just outside the Rio-1 overlay boundary, the property seemingly has no restrictions on design. I fear that the ACC will do what they want without any objection from the community. That needs to start now.
Does anyone remember how Broadway used to flood? Take a look at the lay of the land and think about which way the water flows.
Why would you designate retail businesses on such a valuable space as Playland Park .It’s not related to the college and would only increase parking demand. Build the parking garage first. Delay at Tobin Center has led to no parking years after completion.
Great article. When is the next meeting of the CAC? Can the public attend?
I’m an urbanist and all for denser, walkable designs.
That said, I feel like I need to throw out an alternative view here:
ACCD is in the enviable position to have more land than they need.
With rideshare and emerging self driving car technology, in coming years we may see the largest change in transportation culture since the car was invented.
Is this really the time to invest $10-20 million in a concrete storage box box cars?
I find the trustees’ approach to wait to build the garage until they need it makes sense.
By the time they are ready for phase 2, they may find that the market need for parking spaces is not what it is today.
Likewise, the suggestion that ACCD should build a garage as a revenue source for parking shortage “from Pearl to Brackenridge park” seems ludicrous.
First, it is hard to imagine a Pearl customer or park visitor driving so far away for the privilege of paying for parking, when both offer free on-site parking. Second, if that demand suddenly materializes, surface parking is just as easily rented as garage parking.
If this were a private development, it could make sense to do a denser development to maximize the site, but this is not a private developer. This is an entity dependent on tax revenues, and this seems like a more prudent use of taxpayers investments.
I’ve been thinking the same thing about a lot of recent plans, especially ones that are planned to be more than a few years out. Do we really need to build huge, expensive garages that will be all but obsolete in ten years or less? I hope they make the building a few stories tall and build it in such a way that allows them to develop and/or sell off the extra land when it is no longer needed for parking.
I live a block north of this proposed development. So much about this plan will add to the continued stresses on our Westfort neighborhood. What angers me most, I think, is their utter lack of respect for the neighborhood, its history, its residents. They are going to use this giant asphalt area as an income source? It’s bad enough they’d conceive of building it to meet their own needs, but to also deface the area (IMO) to generate additional income seems irresponsible at best, reprehensible at worst – I hope citizens will come to the community meeting noted in the article (Pearl Brewery, Full Goods Building, 2nd floor, 6 p.m. Thursday, 7/28) to express their opinions.
While I’d much rather see a garage than a surface lot, I don’t follow why an income producing lot or garage would be bad or disrespectful? The area needs more parking as new buildings are being built. Urban density is likewise much better for the environment and quality of life.
This is why I’m proud to be a RR member. Many of us wouldn’t even know about this without you writing this piece. We need to do better. How many event centers are there in the surrounding area? The Pearl, Witte, UIW, are just a few off the top of my head. It seems to me like that’s not something that is necessary.
Additionally, I like the thinking above regarding selling off land to fund a parking garage. Continuing that line of thinking, if some land were sold off or ground leased for apartments, perhaps Alamo could stipulate that the parking garage for the apartments have surplus parking spaces that can be used by visitors to the HQ? Disappointed that the stakeholders aren’t thinking creatively.
MS, thank you for this thoughtful comment. We’d like readers to know that whether they agree with my viewpoint they are being made aware of a major development they otherwise might not know about, and they have been alerted to a meeting this week they are welcome to attend that otherwise would go unnoticed and unattended. Speaking for everyone here, many thanks for your membership. –RR
THREE associated architect firms worked on this design and the best we get is a tired rehash. We could pave the county and not solve transport problems. Please tell us how much money the Alamo Colleges have spent on their design so far.
It may be unfair to jump on the architects at this point. As noted in the article, the renderings only represent possible spatial layouts. You would think the architects are providing options per the requirements provided them by Alamo Colleges. If so, it’s not the architects’ fault that SAC is seeking a regressive site plan. That said, you would also hope that the architects are pointing out to SAC how regressive the current possible site plans are and suggesting progressive alternatives.
John
I’d like to add to your message by saying the three design firms involved in the project do quality work, and given the opportunity, surely would design a more sustainable project. These are site renderings, not designs, but the size of the parking lot speaks for itself. If the client demands it, the designers have no choice but to deliver it. I am sure they will suggest alternatives, perhaps more diplomatically than I have done in my article.
For those who believe a revenue-generating parking garage or mixed-use amenities somehow do not mix with the Alamo Colleges public mission, I would suggest a visit to other colleges. The employees certainly would appreciate a good coffee shop or healthy breakfast/lunch spot on their district campus.
A parking garage sited near the Josephine Street property line would be a five-minute walk to Pearl and not much more to the Witte and Do-Seum. It would be useful for everything from farmer’s market days to Fiesta parades. The Alamo Colleges could charge visitors and event center users for parking, just as every UT campus, including UTSA, does. –RR
A parking garage at the Josephine street intersection would by .63/mi to the Do-seum and 1.34 miles to the Witte.
Parking garage or not. Nobody will be walking these distances with any regularity.
I wanted to follow up by saying some 10 Westfort neighbors attended last night’s meeting, were given time to speak, heard the proposed plans, and toured the site with the architects, CAC representatives and ACCD representatives. More Westfort neighbors would have attended had we known about the meeting sooner – many thanks to this report for letting us know about it. The architects, CAC and ACCD reps were very welcoming to us and we’ve arranged to be informed of and attend their subsequent meetings. While we still have significant concerns about traffic issues and other impact issues, I very much appreciated the welcome we received and the indication our concerns will be heard, going forward. I also found many of the proposed plans and features very positive – but as Ms. Ray with the CAC noted to us several times, those are only possibilities at this point. Still, I had a much more positive impression of the plans and intentions for this development following last night’s meeting.
Denise, I, too, attended the meeting and the site visit and will post a follow up story this weekend. I believe the neighborhood interest and especially the input of the Citizens Advisory Commitee, and yes, the Rivard Report coverage, will end up having a by positive influence on the outcome. That already was evident yesterday.
–RR