Downtown developer David Adelman is again seeking to demolish the historic but derelict Rich Book building in Cattleman Square west of downtown, saying that the cost of rehabbing it would pose an “unreasonable” hardship.
He and his business partner, local restaurateur Barclay Anthony, are asking the city’s Historic and Design Review Commission for permission to demolish the Rich Book — built a century ago, in 1923, as a clothing and department store at 900 W. Houston St. — and a smaller building next door known as the “Office Building,” dating to 1909. The HDRC is set to consider their request on Dec. 6.
In 2021, they made a similar request but withdrew it when it became clear HDRC would deny it, Adelman said last week. This time they are determined to go through to the end, he said, possibly by bringing the request to City Council if HDRC says no.
His “strong preference” is simply to sell the property, which sits in the city’s Cattleman Square Historic District, he said, adding that he wishes he had never bought it in the first place, in 2014. He and Anthony are losing more than $100,000 a year on the site due to the costs of cleanup, property taxes and mortgage interest, he said.
According to documents included in his demolition request, he and Anthony have made numerous unsuccessful attempts to find tenants in recent years. Problems with homelessness in the area have driven tenants away, according to a letter written in September by their attorney, James McKnight, to Shanon Miller, director of the city’s Office of Historic Preservation. In 2018, the San Antonio Police Department and the Texas Department of Public Safety raided the Rich Book to break up a drug ring, the letter said. Last year, there was a fire.
The letter argues that it would cost $6.1 million to rehabilitate the building to make it desirable for tenants — an amount that couldn’t be recouped by leasing out its space.
“I’m distressed by the conditions of the neighborhood and place,” Adelman said. “The only way forward that I can see is demolition and reconstruction. I am waving the white flag of surrender. If anybody has a better idea, please come forward.”
His request is likely to run into opposition from the West Side’s well-organized preservation community, which has struggled for decades to preserve the area’s dwindling number of historic buildings in the face of disinvestment and urban redevelopment projects.
In 2021, the Yuen King Lim family, which owns the Golden Star Café, a Chinese restaurant across the street from the Rich Book, butted heads with preservationists as it sought to demolish the Prohibition-era Whitt Printing Building, saying that restoring it would be cost-prohibitive. In the end, the HDRC approved a partial demolition that would keep the façade standing.
Graciela Sánchez, director of the West Side’s Esperanza Peace and Justice Center, said in an interview that she strongly opposes demolishing the Rich Book. She expressed a concern, shared by others on the West Side, that the city has been more permissive in allowing demolitions in their area than in other near-downtown neighborhoods such as King William and Tobin Hill.
“It doesn’t seem like it’s a structural issue so much as an economic issue,” she said of the Rich Book. “I don’t think that Adelman and his team have proved that anything has changed to justify tearing down this building.”
As part of their 2021 request, Adelman and Anthony unveiled plans to replace the buildings with a five-story, 122-unit apartment complex with ground-floor retail, wrapped around a 269-space parking garage. Despite his desire to sell the property, Adelman said the plan is still in place.
Adelman — who is responsible for rehabbing historic buildings such as the Maverick Building, on Houston Street, and the Creamery, in Tobin Hill — said he is “in love with preservation.” Yet he questioned whether Cattleman Square should have been made a historic district in the first place, arguing that it doesn’t have the volume of historic buildings that justifies a district, such as St. Paul Square on the near East Side, where he and several partners have been investing in an effort to create an entertainment district.
His view is that tearing down the Rich Book and constructing something in its place would be good for the neighborhood. The area’s density of vacant buildings has contributed to its problems with crime and neglect, he said.
“I always say, cities evolve … Sometimes you preserve what you can and when you can’t, you move on,” he said.
Sanchez, on the other hand, sees the Rich Book as a precious reminder of the neighborhood’s half-forgotten history as a cattle route — hence its name — and a Mexican American barrio full of print shops and other independent business.
“There’s just a lot of rich history, and we’re just barely scraping the surface trying to learn,” she said. “So these buildings are important to preserve; once they’re gone, no one’s going to be trying to tell the history anymore.”
Adelman said that he and Anthony, CEO of the group that owns the Sea Island Shrimp House restaurants, bought the property in the hope that VIA Metropolitan Transit’s construction of its Centro Plaza transit hub across the street would turn the neighborhood into a walkable, transit-oriented community. In his view, that hasn’t happened.
Lately, several projects have been in the works with the potential to bring new life to the neighborhood. The Alamo Community Group, a local affordable housing nonprofit, plans to build Cattleman Square Lofts, a 138-unit apartment complex with a learning center and other amenities, only a block east of the Rich Book.
About a block to the north, VIA is working with the private developer DreamOn Group to redevelop the Scobey industrial complex into residential and commercial space. The transit agency has its headquarters down the street from the Scobey, across from Centro Plaza.
Last year, the Austin firm Sabot Development bought the historic National Grocery Company building at 421 N. Medina St., just down the street from the Scobey. The firm has not yet said what it wants to do with the site. Another developer, Dix Densley, told the San Antonio Report last year that he plans to restore the Estrada Hardware Building in the heart of the neighborhood with retail and commercial space on the first floor and 10 residential units on the second.
For years, UTSA has been working on ambitious plans to grow its campus on the West Side with more pedestrian thoroughfares and affordable housing.
“We want to row with them,” Adelman said of UTSA. ““Everybody who knows me knows I don’t want to go into a fight. I want to do things that the community appreciates. That’s my reputation, and I want to maintain that.”
David Adelman’s Area Real Estate is a financial supporter of the San Antonio Report. For a full list of business members, click here.
