The proposed master plan for the Alamo Plaza redevelopment project has been a controversial point of discussion in San Antonio over the past few weeks.
Reactions to preliminary renderings – produced by Preservation Design Partnership (PDP), the Philadelphia-based firm that is leading the project’s design – have been mixed. Residents, architects, and history buffs have criticized plans for a proposed glass wall that would go around the mission’s original courtyard boundary and the large, dirt plaza with no shade cover.
Some members of the City’s Planning Commission, which met Wednesday afternoon, said they’ve heard the same concerns from community members, along with questions about the type of material designers plan on using for the plaza grounds.
Assistant City Manager Lori Houston, who presented the plan to the commission, said officials are working on addressing each of those issues. Concerning the wall, she said, the design team is “focused on making sure we don’t create synthetic history” by constructing it out of stone materials and, thus, giving visitors the impression that a wall of the same material existed there centuries ago. Glass would not cause such confusion.
The glass wall would provide an extra layer of protection for the Alamo while still allowing the public to see the mission. Some have argued that such a structure would limit accessibility to the plaza.
Officials are still analyzing what to do about the potential for muddiness in the dirt plaza, and are considering options to add more shade to the area, Houston said.
The project has been a work in progress for several years. It’s a multimillion-dollar joint effort among the City of San Antonio, the Texas General Land Office (GLO), and the Alamo Endowment.
City officials will present current plan elements to City Council on May 11 for conceptual approval. Council members will review concepts related to “recapturing the historic courtyard,” creating the on-site museum, and creating connectivity between the Alamo and other cultural downtown attractions, Houston said. They also will be asked to conceptually approve two street closures – Alamo Plaza from Houston to Market streets and Crockett Street from Bonham to Losoya streets – the repairing and relocation of the cenotaph to a place “within context,” view shed protection for the area behind the Alamo, and leasing management duties for the courtyard to the General Land Office, she added.
The State would be charged with maintaining the courtyard. Houston said there is some legislation currently being considered that would create a special tax increment reinvestment zone (TIRZ) for San Antonio, where 2% of the hotel occupancy taxes collected by the State in that zone would go toward the Alamo courtyard maintenance – about $6 million to $7 million a year.
Once City Council approves the aforementioned elements, they will then be reviewed by the Planning, Zoning, and Historic and Design Review commissions, pending Council approval.
Citizens can voice their concerns, praise, and any ideas related to the Alamo Master Plan at the final public meeting on the subject Tuesday, May 2, at 6 p.m. at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center, Room 301.
For more Rivard Report coverage of the Alamo Plaza Master Plan, see our archives here.
In regards to this quote: “focused on making sure we don’t create synthetic history” by constructing it out of stone materials and, thus, giving visitors the impression that a wall of the same material existed there centuries ago.
The wall that will cut the plaza off from the city is at least half along Houston St. which is not where a wall ever existed. Not stone, not anything.
Additionally. The Alamo we all know and love is not entirely the same one where men fought and died. That Alamo was a crumbling ruin without a roof and without the iconic campanulate (or bell-shaped facade) we all know as The Alamo.
It’s troubling to me that closure of the plaza was not actually addressed. The response given seems to indicate that closing that plaza and removing the people of San Antonio from their most treasured public space is a forgone conclusion.
Would someone please take a camera downtown and photograph all the glass that has been etched with graffiti? At the same time, take a few photos of all the glass windows that are filthy with dirt. Then send them to these people planning this glass wall. I am out of the city until mid-June or I would do it myself. But among the problems I have always noticed downtown away from the River Walk are the graffiti etched on windows, the dirty windows, and the dark chewing gum spots on all the sidewalks. They combine to make downtown seem somewhat abandoned by anyone who cares.
The rebirth of the Alamo should recreate the Mission the way it was before the Battle of the Alamo in 1836, reflecting the time when the Mission was built to be a home for indigenous Native People, by the Spanish Friars, the Padres,v in the Church’s noble effort to bring Christianity to the Native Tribes. Using Mission San Jose as a model, the original Wall should be reproduced, built of the same rock and material as the original wall, wherever the original wall was located, realizing that back then, , the Mission may not have completely surrounded by a wall. The aceqia furnishing clear, good, cool water, should be restored in its original location and filled with San Antonio River water. The life depicted inside the walls of the Restored Mission should be full, vivid and active, much more so than life outside the walls. And, the public should be drawn into the partially walled Mission to see, learn, observe and appreciate how the Spanish Friars hoped to bring salvation to the Natives when they built the Mission Valero, the Alamo. And the public today should be able to feel and observe, inside the Mission Wall, how the Missionaries wanted life to be for the Natives, beautiful and peaceful, forgiving and full of the love for others that living a Christian Life would bring. To me, this means the courtyard inside the Restored Alamo Wall should be a beautifully landscaped park, a garden where visitors feel the peace and happiness that the Spanish Friars hoped to convey to all who entered the Mission during their time, to live and go to the Solemn Chapel to pray. The restoration of the Alamo should replicate all the reasons Spanish Friars built the Mission along the San Antonio River.
Are there no local firms who could design this project? It seems to me that someone local would better understand the unique circumstances — like the need for shade and not bare dirt during torrential (albeit infrequent) rains, and San Antonians’ affection for simply seeing the Alamo.
Build like it was in 1836 why would anyone want a glass wall this was supposed to be down to show people how it looked in 1836!and there was no glass walls.to let people understand it has to be built during the siege not once again a disneyworld attraction.those stores across the steet need to go and tear down the bank where north wall was build the wooden wall where Crockett was also
Maybe make a cobblestone surface instead of packed dirt and then large cottonwoods planted along the wall line to conceptually show the confines of the plaza. Keep it open for crowds in a great public square.
The existing bldg doesnt look like 1836 anyway, so kust put lots of kiosks around with pictures and explanations.
Save the recreations of different dates for scale models of the grounds in the new museum.
Also have more living history reenactments
San Antonio, especially during the summer, sure could use more trees! Thanks Steve Talbert, I second your proposal for a cottonwood demarcated set of walls. Yes, keep the plaza open for all visitors!
I don’t want fake walls either, but a designer could come up with a way to erect partial-height walls, if necessary to show locations and perimeters, and embed appropriate notices to make it clear, without distracting signage, what is reconstruction, but the closer the material can be to the original, the better to convey the idea of the solidity and the make-up of the original walls. It is a complex project, of course, and I wish the choice had been based on actual plans presented, and people had been allowed a look at the finalist designs and a voice in the selection. Are the citizens of San Antonio comfortable with the state being charged with the maintenance of this very significant part of city-owned Alamo Plaza and Alamo Street — with plans for visitors to be channeled across city property to the state-owned museum, which will charge a fee? What is the view of candidates for city council and for mayor on this plan for the Alamo?
And are the individual views being expressed here and in the Express and at the meetings being seriously considered at all by anyone? The presentation to the commission as described in this article makes you wonder. Excellent historians have spent years researching the history and archaeology of the Alamo, and yet this plan prompts an almost immediate impression of inappropriateness and artifice. It shouldn’t be too late to ask for something that people who care deeply about the Alamo and who know the history will find worthy.
No damned glass walls! No muddied-when-wet, hot-and-dusty-when-dry non-shaded plaza! Don’t move the old oaks!
Historical visuals in context can be reproduced in the minds of visitors through virtualized and tour guide presentations, with supplemental text from smartphone apps or hardcopy, and more well-placed historical markers.
I hope, if nothing else, that the plaza will be left open (with subtle but strong vehicular barriers for possible terrorist attacks at appropriate spots) for out-of-town and residential visitors. The arguments made here against the glass walls seem to far outweigh the perceived need for them. Thank you, Erik Olsen, Dansk Tex, Robert Rivard, et al., for speaking up. I won’t be able to attend the May 2nd meeting, so I hope again that the experts and powers-that-be change their minds about those damned glass walls (or other-material)
—- I thought the heavy, non-original chapel roof and A/C were the biggest damagers of those walls. Could the heavy roof be taken off, and the inner chapel shaded for visitors and protected from the elements, with strategically placed shades and sun-and-wind blocks (motorized and/or mobile, and painted the same color of the walls)?
Cooling and first aid stations could be located outside the chapel. I’m wondering, though, how the chapel will be protected during a strong thunderstorm. Maybe we can 3-D print a lighter, stronger roof?
Once the vehicular, including VIA bus, traffic has been banned, doesn’t that take away most if not almost all of that detrimental vibration damage? Do these proposed glass walls still have to stop and redirect wind, which eroded the Alamo (chapel and Long Barracks) walls? I’m beginning to suspect that some designers are just in love with the idea of glassing off an area for “historical accuracy”, and do not care about San Antonians who have breathed life into this area throughout the decades. Yeah, it belongs to Texas, but we San Antonians have made it part of our home. So GLO, if you must have a 2% set-aside of SA hotel taxes in a TIRZ, give us our Christmas tree and all our other cultural trimmings! —-
I also hope, but have little faith, that a second large-enough cenotaph will be erected for the indigenous peoples on the Alamo grounds. And hopefully the Cenotaph, when moved, will be visited at the funeral pyre area. It is big enough, so I’m hoping that more large-enough historical markers detailing lives and events of Texians, Mexicans, and indigenous peoples will dot the approaches to the Alamo grounds. Maybe this 2nd cenotaph will be placed nearby Coppini’s tribute?
I still look forward to this new UNESCO World Heritage Alamo! Viva San Antonio!
SO let me see if I understand this. …….”The State would be charged with maintaining the courtyard. Houston said there is some legislation currently being considered that would create a special tax increment reinvestment zone (TIRZ) for San Antonio, where 2% of the hotel occupancy taxes collected by the State in that zone would go toward the Alamo courtyard maintenance – about $6 million to $7 million a year.”……..
Um …..ok ….so you are telling me that the City of San Antonio wants me to fund some Yahoo from a “Philadelphia-based firm…..” who has no idea what it is like to be a Texan…….so this idiot can go about screwing up the Alamo and the mission grounds she sits on??? Are you freaking kidding me???? Ok, turnabout is fair play….. we the city of Dallas, Texas will now institute a 60% tax increase of people from San Antonio who come here for Hotel / sporting / convention / etc events to help fund the Medical treatments we the citizens of Dallas will be encountering due to us laughing so hard at the idiots down there in San Antonio h bent and determined to destroy what is left of our cherished San Antonio de Valerio.
Someone needs to get a grip! The plans STINK. Bottom line. Hire a firm. And hire people who have a brain. Tourists from all over the world visit the Alamo. A plan that BAKES people in the hot Texas sun, is NOT a good idea… that should be a no-brainer! Seriously! Let the citizens of San Antonio vote, dang it!!