Six years after the people behind the ever-expanding Pearl acquired a parcel of land miles from the redeveloped old brewery, plans for the prime property near Hemisfair are coming to light.
Oxbow is looking to build an upscale residential complex at 141 Lavaca St. with units in three contiguous buildings, a parking garage and restaurants and retail on the main level.
Just don’t call it Pearl 2.0, said Omar Gonzalez, director of development at Oxbow Development Group. The development will be known as Southtown Aldea, a Spanish word for village.
And don’t stop guessing where Oxbow’s next project will spring up.
The Lavaca development might be the developer’s first foray outside of Tobin Hill, but there will be more to come, Gonzalez said: “Our future has to be bigger than this.”
In 2018, a subsidiary of Oxbow’s parent company Silver Ventures paid $14.5 million for 4.7 acres at the corner of East César E. Chávez Boulevard and South Alamo Street it bought from the San Antonio Independent School District.
The property is located within steps of La Villita and Hemisfair, especially the eastern zone of the park where vacant buildings owned by the Government Services Administration and the shuttered UTSA Institute of Texan Cultures are reportedly slated for a future sports-entertainment district.
“We would do this regardless of [code name] ‘Project Marvel’ or not,” said Gonzalez, who previously worked as Hemisfair’s chief of development. “This feels like we’re in a really good location between Hemisfair and Southtown. Anything that happens on the east side of Hemisfair, that’s all bonus.”
At the time of the purchase, Oxbow leaders said they weren’t certain how the new acquisition would be developed or when. So in the past year, the developer focused its efforts on Tobin Hill, transforming a warehouse into a high-end food market, more new apartments and a hotel, all connected to the core Pearl campus with two new pedestrian bridges.
Now the developer has revealed its plans for the Lavaca site, near Southtown, as it goes before a series of city panels for planning, zoning and design approvals.
On Wednesday, the Planning Commission approved a request that allows for a change to the Downtown Area Regional Center Plan adding the land use “urban mixed-use development” to one portion of the mostly vacant site.
On Oct. 15, a rezoning request was approved, amending its zoning code from “high-rise office” to one that suits the proposed and potential future uses. On Wednesday, the Historic and Design Review Commission (HDRC) granted conceptual approval for the plan.
A European design
Southtown Aldea is designed with three mid-rise structures of 250 residential units, a parking garage with 600 spaces, about 40,000 square feet of food, beverage and retail space, and a European-style plaza.
Construction is expected to begin in late 2025 with completion in 2028.
Rental rates are expected to be similar to those in the Pearl’s Southline Residences property, Gonzalez said, which are advertised as ranging between $1,766 and $2,646 a month.
Alamo Architects and architect Don B. McDonald are designing the project; Pape Dawson is the civil engineer, and the landscape architect is Seattle-based GGN, which designed Civic Park in Hemisfair.
Gonzalez said that, unlike the Pearl, which was developed on an industrial site, the Lavaca development takes its architectural cues from the neighborhood and the historic structures on the site.
“Our principal value is that we’re going to design something that fits in the place that it’s being designed,” he said. “This isn’t Pearl 2.0, this is Southtown 1.0.”
The three distinct buildings are designed to sit close together like in a European village, encompassing a plaza accessible to the public and neighborhood residents through several passageways, promoting walkability in the area.
The five-story building that sits along Lavaca Street and a row of existing single-family homes transitions to one-story, casita-style apartments facing the homes.
Plans call for residents and visitors in vehicles to enter the property via E. César E. Chávez Blvd., turning at a widened Matagorda St. to access a garage enveloped by residential units.
For that reason, Lavaca homeowners are pleased with the plans, said Melissa Stendahl, president of the Lavaca Neighborhood Association.
“One of the big things that the neighborhood is happy about is opening up Matagorda Street to César Chávez and blocking off access to Lavaca Street so that people coming into the development are in the development and not entering into the residential parts of the neighborhood,” she said.
Development in Lavaca
Lavaca is one of the oldest neighborhoods in San Antonio and features many historic homes, including two 19th-century structures on the Aldea site that will be preserved. Several buildings that are not considered historic will be demolished.
The Fourth Ward School was built in 1875 to serve as a two-story schoolhouse and fire station, and later adapted and used by SAISD as administrative offices.
The schoolhouse is slated for restoration in a second phase of the project. Gonzalez sees the building as “the gem of the whole site,” and well-suited to become a boutique hotel. It will remain in place while the other historic structure could be moved.
Built in the 1890s, the Muench-Pollok house currently sits west of Matagorda, in a space where the residential tower and parking garage are planned. It was part of the Polish and German neighborhood that existed south of Commerce Street and east of Alamo Street, which was mostly removed for HemisFair in 1968.
Oxbow will ask HDRC for approval to relocate the deteriorating house, brick by brick, to a parcel next to the schoolhouse, Gonzalez said. There, it would be restored and situated to face other historic single-family homes along Lavaca Street.
This story has been updated to correct the spelling of the Muench-Pollok house.
