On an annual list of real estate markets to watch released in November, San Antonio came in eighth for its overall prospects in 2024, the first time the city broke into the top 10.
In 2023, San Antonio climbed more than a dozen spaces on the list of 80 real estate markets worth noting in the coming year, according to consulting group PWC’s 45th edition of “Emerging Trends in Real Estate.”
“The worst of inflation is behind us,” stated the report, citing a survey of real estate professionals.
Reeves Craig, vice president of multifamily development for downtown developer Weston Urban, said that a combination of factors is putting San Antonio on the map — including “the size of our market combined with its geographic location and all the positive demographic, population and economic growth that our market has seen in recent years.”
Here are a few of the major development projects you can expect to see completed, and some that will kick off, in the coming year:
Merchants Ice Building
The Texas Research and Technology Foundation (TRTF) is wrapping up a complete renovation of the four-story Merchants Ice Building at 1305 E. Houston St. that began in late 2022. Trans Pecos Bank will be establishing its offices there in January.
The adjacent Co-Labs building, which will provide small business incubator space on the VelocityTX campus, is also slated for completion in May, said Brian Peters, director of marketing and communications at TRTF. When that project is done, the bioscience nonprofit plans to embark on construction across Houston Street on the former G.J. Sutton property it also owns on the East Side.
300 Main
Weston Urban expects to have the towering 300 Main residential development complete by summer 2024. The 32-story building rising in the heart of the central business district was designed by the Austin-based architecture firm Page with Rogers-O’Brien acting as general contractor.
The apartment building is taller than the octagonal Frost Tower at 111 W. Houston St. that the developer completed in 2019, the first high-rise built in San Antonio since 1989. Weston Urban also has the Continental Block project under construction with a 16-story apartment building planned and a completion date set for late 2025.
Hospitals
A Baptist Health System campus at Loop 1604 and Wiseman Road is expected to be open in summer 2024. Crews will install major medical equipment starting in January. The 72-acre site includes a medical office building, which is 90% leased, according to a hospital spokeswoman, plus an ambulatory surgical center and an acute care hospital.
The expanded emergency department at Christus Santa Rosa-Westover Hills will be completed in February. A new four-story tower adjacent to the hospital, which opened in 2009, is expected to be completed in March 2025 and will expand obstetric, neonatal and adult intensive care services, creating more than 100 added patient beds.
At Loop 1604 and State Highway 151, Methodist Healthcare’s new campus will be completed in late 2024. The planned four-story structure will house various medical specialties and an imaging center. A third of the 74-acre campus will remain undeveloped as habitat for the area’s natural wildlife.
University Health is planning to open hospitals in the northeastern part of the county, at Retama, and on the South Side, near Texas A&M University-San Antonio, in 2026-27.
Hemisfair
Just days after Civic Park opened to the public, construction began on the second phase of the park in October. It is expected to be complete in late 2024 while the adjacent 10-story multifamily and retail development by Post Lake Capital Partners of Austin and Trube Land Development has a 2026 finish date.
Zachry Hospitality broke ground in November on the 17-story Monarch San Antonio at 222 S. Alamo St. in Civic Park at Hemisfair. It will be the first Curio Collection by Hilton-branded hotel in San Antonio and is expected to open in 2026.
San Antonio International Airport
While the planned new terminal at the airport is not expected to be completed until 2028, work on a new ground loading facility is ongoing.
Pre-construction work, including the relocation of a vehicle access gate and other site work, began over the summer. The ground load facility is expected to be completed in the second quarter of 2025.
Basila Frocks
With a funding agreement renewed by City Council, work on the $3 million project to renovate the historic Basila Frocks building at 502 N. Zarzamora St., should start in late January or early February, said Ramiro Gonzales, CEO of Prosper West.
“We expect the project to be open before the end of 2024,” he said. “Prosper West will relocate its headquarters [to Basila Frocks] as the anchor tenant.”
Overland is the architectural design firm. The general contractor is the DreamOn Group led by co-founder Julissa Carielo working with TBG Partners, a landscape architect and urban planner.
Data centers
Two of the growing number of large and energy-hungry data centers being built in San Antonio are expected to be completed this year.
Microsoft’s SAT40 data center, a $176 million project on the far West Side has a completion date of September, according to regulatory filings, and the $216 million SAT15 in Westover Hills could be done by late March. Microsoft did not respond to a request for more information about the facilities and completion dates.
Housing
A trend toward varied housing types continued in San Antonio in 2023. There were a growing number of build-to-rent neighborhoods, newly built tiny homes, multifamily rentals in the city center, and the start of a permanent, single-site housing community, the first in San Antonio.
As for what to expect in 2024, home prices in San Antonio will fall by over 9%, according to the listing site Realtor.com, but sales will also decline.
The new year should be interesting, said Bryan Glasshagel, senior vice president of advisory for the construction data firm Zonda. “It should be one of transition for the San Antonio [area],” he said. “New home starts should stabilize and increase from the lows of 2023, similar to what we have already seen in other Texas markets like Dallas and Houston.”
San Pedro Creek
In October, two more sections of the San Pedro Creek Culture Park were completed and opened to the public. With Phases 2 and 4.1 now open, the 2.2-mile linear park in downtown San Antonio is set to be fully open in fall 2024.
Crews began work in 2016 to transform a blighted urban ditch into an art-filled linear park and the first segment of Phase 1 opened in 2018. Still under construction are two sections: the third phase, from South Alamo Street past Cevallos Street, and Phase 4.2, which stretches from East César E. Chávez Boulevard to El Paso Street.
UIW Founder’s Hall
The general contractor Joeris has been at work since last summer on the remodel of a building that was built by USAA and later used by Southwestern Bell. The University of the Incarnate Word is transforming the 8-story tower into offices and classrooms. The estimated $70 million project is expected to be completed in late November, according to a regulatory filing.
City Tower
The City of San Antonio’s City Tower interior renovation project wrapped up in late November with minor “punch list” items scheduled for completion in January 2024, said a public works spokesman. Construction began in late 2020.
Fifteen floors of the former Frost Bank building are partially occupied by city staff, as well as a floor below the parking garage. The sidewalk and City Tower entrance on Houston Street reopened in November.
Meanwhile, the city currently has 39 unfinished 2017 bond projects throughout San Antonio, such as street improvements. Of those, 25 are expected to cross the finish line by the end of 2024. Progress is updated on the city’s 2017 bond projects tracking site.
Alamo Plaza
In Plaza de Valero at the Alamo, the mission gate and lunette are expected to be completed this summer while construction on the Alamo Visitors Center and Museum gets going in early 2024 and the lower paseo later in the year. Completion of the museum is expected in 2027.
La Villita and Maverick Plaza
The project to renovate Maverick Plaza in La Villita, which began in August 2021, came to an end in October, said a city spokesman, with only final “punch list” items left to complete. The work to improve the plaza involved adding an outdoor kitchen and kiosk and was done to make way for three planned restaurants.
Pearl
The 1894 former horse stable turned event venue at the Pearl, closed since 2020, reopens as a music performance space in January. Following more than a year of renovations, Stable Hall opens to the public on Jan. 13 with a free show featuring singer-songwriters Rob Baird and Angel White.
Renovation of the former Samuels Glass building at the Pearl is nearly complete. It will open in the spring as a 40,000-square-foot farm-to-market grocery store called Pullman Market. Also planned in the space are four restaurants.
The Pearl’s development division Oxbow also has two multifamily projects in the works. One is at 102 E. Josephine St., and the other, called Coopers Row, is across the river from the luxury Cellars apartments. In 2024, Oxbow plans to break ground on the Oxbow Grove Hotel project opposite the river from Hotel Emma.
