The city’s Historic and Design Review Commission has approved a request from the City of San Antonio to build a podcasting studio behind the Plaza de Armas Building downtown.
The Calder Alley “Secret Garden” TVSA project is envisioned as an outdoor podcast studio — a production and community space that will support TVSA programming, interviews, events and other public-facing content, a city spokeswoman said.
TVSA Public is the city’s public access television channel which offers residents a place to create, produce and share non-commercial, educational or entertainment shows at no cost.
Plans for the project at 115 Plaza de Armas call for transforming a former surface parking lot and urban “heat island” into a small pocket park between the historic structures near the Spanish Governor’s Palace.
The studio is planned as a small structure of brick veneer, aluminum clad wood windows, cast stone window sills, metal screening and a steel entrance canopy.
A “living” wall of plants and metal screening will be installed around an existing structure and utility screening on the southwest corner, according to the application.
The site can be accessed from either Dolorosa or West Commerce streets at Calder Alley and the San Pedro Creek Culture Park.
Funding for the project comes from the Public, Educational and Governmental (PEG) Fund, a special revenue account that collects cable franchise fees and is separate from the city’s general fund. The funds can be spent only on capital and infrastructure costs for television channel programming.
With the project in the design and regulatory approval phase, actual costs and a construction timeline are not yet known, the spokeswoman said.
TVSA is currently located within the Plaza de Armas Building behind City Hall and near to the Spanish Governor’s Palace.
Plaza de Armas, or Military Plaza, is a national historic district and city historic district.
The plaza is where the military authorities established the presidio in 1722 to defend the region, according to the National Register of Historic Places entry.
Soldiers from the presidio acted as escorts for officials and supply trains traveling along El Camino Real de los Tejas, and protected residents at the nearby missions. The military plaza served as a training ground and symbol of Spain’s power.
The building housed the interim governor of Texas from 1816-17, and later came to be known as the Spanish Governor’s Palace.
Also at Wednesday’s HDRC meeting, commissioners approved plans for McCombs Enterprises’ retail project on Jones Avenue, renovations to Houston Street as part of the Alamo Plan and a request by Pearl developer Oxbow to demolish a building to make way for new retail structures.
Two commissioners found fault with Oxbow’s request to demolish the industrial building.
Irby Hightower of Alamo Architects explained that it’s “too low, too deep, too separated from the natural grade” of the sidewalks, he said. “After you make all those renovations, there’s really not much left.”
Despite that, Commissioner Isabel Garcia said she understood the reasons but that the architects should “rise to the occasion of a challenge,” and not tear down the building.
The measure passed with commissioners voting 7-2 to approve the request.
