Behind privacy screening bearing a City of San Antonio logo and the words “vibrant and thriving,” a red-brick building with arched windows on a busy street corner downtown sits implausibly vacant.
Wrapping The Savoy Building at the corner of Houston and Soledad streets, a parcel with the Book Building on Houston and its companion structure facing Soledad features prime River Walk frontage.
In addition to its unbeatable location, Romanesque architectural details and historic significance dating back to the Texas Revolution, the property offers storefront space and 76,500 total square feet on three levels.
It has not been occupied since 2015.
The city could soon take action against the owners who have failed to meet requirements of the Vacant Building Program Inventory.
Soledad House LLC, a company affiliated with Austin-based AMS Commercial Real Estate, which owns the property, signed a compliance agreement in 2024, according to a city spokeswoman. The city recently filed a case against the owners for not registering the property on schedule.
If not resolved, the owners could be fined up to $500 for the Class A misdemeanor.
Reached twice by phone, an AMS representative said someone would be in touch and the next time abruptly ended the call.
The property was previously listed by commercial real estate brokers CBRE, but First Vice President Andrew Price said the firm is no longer marketing the asset and he is unaware of the owner’s plans.
In 2018, the city’s Historic and Design Review Commission granted a certificate of appropriateness for a request to restore and redevelop the buildings into an 83-room hotel with ground-level retail space.
Former palace
Dating to the turn of the 20th century, the cluster of five buildings includes the Book, Clegg, Veramendi and Kennedy buildings, and courtyards along the River Walk.
The Book Building is named for Dwight Dana Book (1869-1955), who built it in 1906 on land previously occupied by the Milburn Wagon Co., according to a report citing a 1938 newspaper article. The new building was intended to house the fraternal organization Order of the Elks, but was never used by the group.
In more recent times, the building has housed a Mexican coffee chain, a pop-up wine shop, art installations, boutiques and a nightclub.
The Soledad building is a former palace built by Fernando Veramendi (ca. 1743-1783), a Spanish merchant and public figure, according to the Texas State Historical Commission. He served in the city’s militia and as an alderman.
His success allowed him to build an opulent house, Veramendi Palace, as it came to be known around the time of the Texas Revolution.
In modern times, the palace served as a furniture store and part of Solo Serve, a department store demolished in 2017 to make way for a new hotel.
The Book/Soledad parcel shares the block with The Savoy building, also vacant and deteriorated when it was bought in 2016 by the development firm Weston Urban. The limestone-block former hotel built in 1912, now restored, houses Royal Blue Grocery, Bunz Handcrafted Burgers and the tech firm Scaleworks.
Across the River Walk from the Book Building sits Acenar Mexican Restaurant, and in the next block, the Majestic Theater.
The Book/Soledad parcel was most recently appraised at $14.8 million, according to county tax records.
‘Great narrative’
Centro San Antonio President and CEO Trish DeBerry, who once had an office in the Book Building, thinks the development potential there is “magnificent,” given its location, history and aesthetic.
Instead, “that whole block is dark and a bit desolate right now,” she said, despite being what she called a critical piece of real estate.
“When you look at what’s happening with UTSA opening, and then you look at the Continental Residences, baseball, I mean, it’s a key component, really, of the development in that district,” DeBerry said.
“There are some good things that are happening, but would I rather see a lot of energy and people and restaurants and mixed-use there? Yeah.”
Centro, in fact, had concerns about vagrancy at the property about a year ago, she said, and met four times with the city’s Development Services Department over the issue. But these days, she’s more optimistic for the property’s future.
“I mean, there’s so much history and a great narrative to be able to tell, even when it’s redeveloped.”
