Plans for the city to aid the construction of a downtown minor league baseball stadium took on new political significance when residents of an apartment complex facing demolition came out strongly against the idea days before the expected council vote.
Nearly every member of the City Council turned out to a community meeting at the Soap Factory apartments on Monday night — including three candidates running for mayor next year — where leaders of formidable progressive group Texas Organizing Project lined up with residents of the Soap Factory to oppose the $160 million stadium project.
“This plan reeks of corruption,” said Graciela Sánchez, director of the Esperanza Peace and Justice Center, who rallied with the Soap Factory residents at Thursday’s council meeting. “Those of you running for mayor, we’re watching your vote.”
On the other side of the issue is one of downtown’s most prolific developers, Weston Urban, which owns most of the 11-acre site of the proposed stadium and mixed use development, including the Soap Factory.
Weston Urban founder Graham Weston is also part of the well-heeled ownership group behind the Missions minor league baseball team, which says it must secure a new stadium to avoid being forcibly relocated to another city.
“Let me be clear, the areas that will be redeveloped are privately owned parcels of property,” Mayor Ron Nirenberg, who did not attend the Soap Factory meeting, said of the plan on Thursday.
“In my view, today, we’re securing this public improvement for downtown that’s in alignment with our goals and policies, but also ensuring that residents who are impacted are also assisted in the process,” he added.
In the end four council members — Jalen McKee-Rodriguez (D2), Adriana Rocha Garcia (D4), Teri Castillo (D5) and Melissa Cabello Havrda (D6) —supported a plan to delay the vote until Soap Factory residents had more time to come to an agreement with the developers.
After that vote failed 4-7 on Thursday, two members, McKee-Rodriguez and Castillo, voted against the city’s agreement with the Designated Bidders and Weston Urban.
Council members Sukh Kaur (D1), Phyllis Viagran (D3), Rocha Garcia, Cabello Havrda, Marina Alderete Gavito (D7), Manny Pelaez (D8), John Courage (D9), Marc Whyte (D10) and Nirenberg all voted to approve.
Here’s what the council members, including 2025 mayoral contenders, had to say about the decision.
Councilwoman Adriana Rocha Garcia (D4)
Rocha Garcia, who represents the Southwest side and is running for mayor next year, used her time at the mic to continue questioning city staff and the housing authority about their plans to move Soap Factory residents into subsidized housing.
She expressed regret that the deal was being put to a vote with so many questions remaining. She also said it was hard to understand how the city could have waitlists for its affordable housing, but plenty of space to move Soap Factory residents into subsidized units.
“I know it’s very complicated, but it just seemed like this came together very, very quickly,” she said.
Rocha Garcia supported the amendment to delay the plan’s approval, but ultimately voted in favor of it on Thursday.
Councilwoman Melissa Cabello Havrda (D6)
Cabello Havrda, a potential mayoral contender, sounded enthusiastic about the project when it was first announced but later decided to survey residents for feedback on the issue.
On Thursday, she said she’d been fighting for a better deal for Soap Factory residents this week, and she blasted out a press release outlining some of those changes minutes after supporting the deal.
“I know that this entire plan isn’t perfect… I know that it’s not what you would hope for,” she said to the residents at Thursday’s meeting. “But I can promise you this… I left no stone unturned.”
“I poured my heart and energy into getting what was possible under the circumstances, and I led with my conscience, and I’ll keep doing that,” she said.
Councilman Manny Pelaez (D8)
Pelaez attended Monday’s meeting with residents at the Soap Factory, but on Thursday expressed support for the stadium deal.
“The San Antonio Express-News editorial board got it right when they said that there’s a lot to like about this ballpark,” said Pelaez, a 2025 mayoral contender who attended the council meeting remotely. “There were elements not to like, [but] I think that we have checked off a very, very, very important question, which was, what are we going to do for the people who are displaced?”
Pointing to the city’s relocation plan, Pelaez, who represents the Northwest side, said he believed Soap Factory residents would ultimately end up in higher quality housing.
“I got to tour the Soap Factory, and I’ve got to tell you, folks, it looks like it’s being held together with duct tape, bailing wire and string,” Pelaez said on Thursday. “There are better places that are more dignified for the people living there.”
Though very few downtown apartments are rented at monthly rates comparable to the Soap Factory, city staff has argued that Thursday’s plan will help residents who qualify for housing assistance get into the city’s subsidized housing program. The plan also provides a $2,500 moving stipend for those being displaced.
Councilman John Courage (D9)
Courage, who is running for mayor next year, said the baseball stadium deal was “not fair” to the residents being displaced, but that the good outweighed the bad in terms of economic development the stadium could provide.
In the 53 years he’s lived in San Antonio, Courage said he’s moved 11 times, many of which weren’t by choice, due to rising rent or other variables outside of his control.
“We all face those kinds of challenges sometimes,” he said. “But we need to consider, what is the benefit of all the rest of the community?”
He went on to suggest that the stadium would create hundreds of jobs, and bring entertainment to thousands of residents.
Councilman Jalen McKee-Rodriguez (D2)
McKee-Rodriguez, one of the council’s most outspoken progressives, started the meeting saying he “really wanted to vote yes on this item,” and went to “great lengths” to find a version he could live with.
He ultimately became the project’s biggest critic, however, pushing unsuccessfully to delay the vote until later in the month, and opposing the final approval.
“What I’m most worried about is that we are going to continue another decade of focusing our investment in making downtown a place for the white and affluent to make their money at the expense of working black and brown people.”
Among McKee-Rodriguez’s concerns was the city’s use of federal pandemic relief to support the displaced tenants, which he felt Weston Urban should pay for on its own.
“There’s a waitlist for housing. There are people being displaced. There are people experiencing homelessness. Right now, we could deploy these funds to address problems that are already existing,” McKee-Rodriguez said. “I think it’s trash to use our [American Rescue Plan Act] dollars to try to fix a problem that we’re manufacturing.”
Councilman Marc Whyte (D10)
On the opposite end of the spectrum, Whyte, the council’s lone conservative, said it was “detrimental to the future of this city” to “vilify business people because of the resources that they have.”
He said the investors behind the ballpark were also philanthropic donors, and employers of “hundreds if not thousands of San Antonio residents.”
If the city didn’t follow through with its deal, he said, other developers will be discouraged from coming into San Antonio and fueling the redevelopment much of the council wants.
“These are the people that have brought forth a project where they are risking significant amounts of their capital to invest in this city,” Whyte said. “I’m here to tell you something, if we don’t have folks like this that are willing to risk their capital and invest in the city, we will never get this city to where we want it to be”
Councilwoman Sukh Kaur (D1)
Kaur’s downtown district encompasses the Soap Factory, and she was a part of the negotiations on their behalf.
Though they were still calling for a delay at Thursday’s meetings, Kaur said that if the developers don’t live up to their promises to the Soap Factory residents, there’s still time to hold them accountable.
“This is the first vote. They’re going to come back by the end of the year before the economic development contract,” she said of the developers. “If at any point, this plan and what they have said is not working… there will be no debt issue.”
She vowed to stay in communication with the residents, and asked the developers to learn from their comments about why they chose the Soap Factory in the first place.
“I’m asking you all, because you all are local and you will be here for years to come, to continue to make a commitment that future housing projects will be workforce housing,” she said. “There is a place, I think, for smaller units that are more affordable.”
Councilwoman Teri Castillo (D5)
Castillo, a housing organizer before running for council, rejected the proposal on the basis that it wouldn’t help San Antonio meet its housing goals.
City policy states that projects funded with tax increment reinvestment funds “shall not cause direct residential displacement,” Castillo said. “This goes against every policy that we have in place… What makes baseball the exception to our housing policy framework?”
Aside from the baseball stadium, Weston Urban plans to build thousands of units of market rate housing where the Soap Factory is currently.
“There is no shortage of market rate. What we have a shortage of is workforce housing, which is a housing that’s going to be replaced with market rate,” Castillo said.
Councilwoman Marina Alderete Gavito (D7)
Alderete Gavito came to the council last year from a career in tech, and supported the ballpark plan because she said healthy cities require thriving downtowns.
“We need these private investments to continue to uplevel our city, and to make San Antonio the city we all want it to be,” she said at Thursday’s meeting.
She thanked Weston Urban for going “above and beyond” to help residents who would be displaced.
“This is not something we typically see from developers, nor is it something that’s required when property owners decide to develop their property,” she said.
Councilwoman Phyllis Viagran (D3)
Viagran, who supported the plan, said downtown had already lost out on other development projects that could have brought much-needed revitalization, and many downtown residents were frustrated.
“We could say no to downtown again… but what would that mean? That would just mean that some other part of San Antonio would benefit from this.”
