New renderings for “The Bridge” apartments will be presented to the community Monday, Feb. 5, during a town hall meeting coordinated by District 2 Councilman Cruz Shaw’s office.
The controversial project near the historic Hays Street Bridge has highlighted deep divisions in community attitudes toward development, preservation, and design on the Eastside and beyond.
“Councilman Shaw will be there,” District 2 spokeswoman Celeste Brown said Wednesday, “but this is going to be a conversation led by the community with the developer.”
The discussion will take place in St. Philip’s College’s Heritage Room, 1801 Martin Luther King Dr., from 5:30-7 p.m. For a campus map, click here.
In December 2017, after hours of testimony from community members largely in protest of the original 148-unit project, the Historic Design and Review Commission rejected plans for 803 N. Cherry St. Commissioners cited concerns over the location of parking, the building’s interaction with pedestrian traffic, and – most notably – a plot of land between the building and the bridge that was previously unaccounted for.
That plot is now included in the new design, said James McKnight, a land use attorney representing property owner, Eugene Simor, and developer, Mitch Meyer. “It’s all one piece now.”
Simor had envisioned a restaurant on that lot that would connect to the modern stairway that leads to the bridge, but McKnight said the new proposal designates that lot as “open space.”
McKnight declined to provide renderings or details about changes to the site’s design prior to Monday’s meeting, but said, “generally, what we’re doing is addressing the HDRC’s main concerns.”
The team hired another local firm, GRG Architecture, for the redesign, McKnight said. A+B Architecture designed the previous version.
“I am looking forward to a productive conversation with a focus on design,” Brian Dillard, Dignowity Hill Neighborhood Association president, told the Rivard Report. “From what I understand the developer has gone back to the drawing board and [is] coming with a new project to show us. … I hope they comply with the City guidelines and hopefully they’ve listened to the community.”
Dillard was among the dozens of neighbors who previously criticized the development team for not reaching out for public input on the project sooner, especially given the ongoing legal battle to turn the lot into a public park. That case is pending review in the Texas Supreme Court.
Meanwhile, the debate about how the building would obstruct views of the historic bridge has sparked a citywide conversation, complete with public input meetings and a Viewshed Technical Advisory Committee tasked with formulating policy for City Council to review.
Eugene Simor has been the epitome of a “Wolf in sheep clothing” who has stalked the near eastside for decades. First with his failed attempts and mis-management in the development of the Friedrich Building. Later with his questionable land grab deal that now contain his Alamo Beer and that was not enough. He sat quietly, never showing any interest in the Hays Street bridge until members of the east-side rallied to save and restored the bridge making it one of San Antonio’s most picturesque landmarks. The brewery was just the beginning of his quest for greed, control and disregard for the Dignowity Hills Neighborhood. Why not your River Road back-yard?
I think we should discuss the merits of projects based on their contribution to the comnunity instead of some personal problem with individuals. There are always at least 2 sides to every encounter, but the primary issue is what helps the community without harming others. Who cares if he is a wolf or a sheep?? Or a bear or a snake? ( he looks like bear to me) . Someone has to take the financial risk. Make sure what gets built adds to the neighborhood.
People like B. Wms are more dangerous and loathsome than Eugene Simor could ever be. You’ve probably never risked anything in your boring life and I doubt you know what it’s like to be a pioneer. What are your contributions to the Eastside other than being a professional complainer?
The only reason most people go to the bridge (other than the homeless crowd who urinate, vomit, sleep, sell drugs and defecate on it) is because the went to Alamo Beer first. The main attraction is Alamo Beer. Eugene Simor has been a catalyst for Eastside growth and will continue to be. You couldn’t ask for a better operator and person.
A bit angry but well put, Bobby. I own property nearby and the transition may be scary to some, but we are experiencing some new times. Incremental urbanism is our new future. Densities will increase. Attracting new people into a historically neglected area has consequences.
That brewery could have gone anywhere. It could have been just another big industrial box. It could have been much taller, blocking vies FROM the bridge to downtown. But it attracts families, offers space for events and has become a social hub.
The positive influence of Eugene on the area has not gone unnoticed. He is a good man, and his risks on these properties may someday be rewarded.
I have hope that we can move into a more tolerant and enlightened discussion of the urban realm, with ample considerstion of the public, as well as private, properties in the city.
River Road got lucky and Greedy Fly (aka Eugene Simor) moved to King William. Hooray!!! Good riddance!!! Sorry for what he’s doing to Dignowity Hill……Heads Up, King William.
In his early 30’s my grandfather, a railroad engineer with the Southern Pacific Railroad, with his wife and three children, bought their first house in 1925 0r ’26 on Burleson Street in Dignowity Hill. The house was brand new when he bought it. The neighborhood had already begun to change its’ character from affluent upper class to blue-collar working class. They were happy to find affordable housing so near to his workplace – the SP yards. They lived alongside Hispanic, African-American, Scots-Irish, Czech and German descendants of the original settlers, immigrants all. They were participants in and beneficiaries of what Americans then called Progress, much of it tied to industry. Progress is a term for which we seem to have completely forgotten the meaning or the promise that it embodied in the 19th and 20th Centuries. Yes, it was a rough-and-tumble concept loaded with inequality and abuse, but it still inspired hope and a seemingly attainable dream of relentless social and personal improvement. Now, 100 and more years later we disdain Progress as mean-spirited and dead-end. We hunker down and decry the loss of the Past and hope that “they” will heed our pleas to leave things well enough alone. The concept of Progress is now decried as a muddy swirl of exploitation and unsustainable plundering of people, animals and the very Earth itself. Calvin Coolidge, the 30th U.S. president, led the nation through a decade of dynamic social and cultural change, materialism and excess now called the Roaring Twenties. He took office on August 3, 1923, following the sudden death of President Warren G. Harding, whose administration was riddled with scandal. Coolidge, a former Republican governor of Massachusetts, cleaned up the rampant corruption of the Harding administration and provided a model of stability and respectability for the American people in an era of fast-paced modernization. He was a pro-business conservative who favored tax cuts and limited government spending. Now, instead of progressive public endeavors such as the Transcontinental Railroad (1869), the Panama Canal (1914), Hoover Dam (1931-1936) or the Moon Landing (1969) our public commitment to Progress is to construct a wall between the U.S. and Mexico. Dignowity Hill is changing and no Neighborhood Association will forestall that change. The change will benefit some and hurt others – as change always does. San Antonio may be able to direct the change along paths of perceived desirability, but in the process its’ citizens should never forget the Law of Unintended Consequences. We are not half the prescient planners we imagine ourselves to be – and in another 100 years a gaggle of Turks will storm the historical barricades seeking to tear it all down or encase it in mothballs, in favor of their self-anointed vision of “Progress” or “Stasis” as the case may be.