All around the River Walk, major changes are taking place.
The Alamo Visitor Center and Museum is under construction, part of the $400 million Alamo redevelopment. At Hemisfair, the second phase of Civic Park is underway, an $18 million investment on top of roughly $21 million spent on phase one. La Villita’s Maverick Plaza got a $5.6 million glow-up.
Now some River Walk business owners are gearing up to see if they can get more investment in one of the city’s top tourist destinations from the City of San Antonio, which is just beginning discussions for the next budget cycle.
Walloped by the pandemic, and still dealing with the ongoing challenges it wrought, several longtime business owners last year convened the River Walk Business Group. They want to freshen up the River Walk and make it a place for locals, too.
“There is a lot more competition for people’s money” these days, acknowledged Sam Panchevre, CEO of the Aztec Family Group, which owns the Aztec Theatre. “We need to reinvent ourselves, or make ourselves better” to attract not just tourists and conventioneers but locals who bring with them the potential for repeat business, he said.
But Visit San Antonio, which in 2021 absorbed the River Walk Association and now oversees events and parades along the river, pushed back on the notion that one of Texas’ top tourist destinations is stale.
“Our River Walk is thriving,” said Marc Anderson, president and CEO of the tourism marketing agency, in a statement. He described a destination filled with “lush foliage, century-old trees and vibrant public art.”
“Any other public commentary,” his statement continued, “is counterproductive to the increased marketing and media spending we are investing in.”
‘No beef’
The River Walk is a complicated place. A city-owned historic park, it is governed, funded, protected and promoted by a complex intersection of city departments, zoning overlays and not-for-profit organizations such as Visit San Antonio, the San Antonio River Authority, Centro San Antonio and the Conservation Society of San Antonio.
Terry Corless, owner of Mad Dogs British Pub, On The Bend Oyster & Cigar Bar and other restaurant properties, serves as the business group’s chairman. He was careful to emphasize that the business owners have “no beef” with the work done by Visit San Antonio or any other organization and are grateful for the role each plays in the River Walk’s success.
“We want to work with them,” he said — not least because the group’s first priority remains “the survival and running of our businesses.” He noted the recent closure of one longtime restaurant, Rio Rio Cantina, after 35 years in business and named a couple of places he has had to close, including Maddy McMurphy’s Irish Sports Bar, which saw its lunch and happy hour business evaporate during the pandemic.
But new restaurants are going in. Corless and Panchevre are partners in Casa Catrina, a Day of the Dead-themed restaurant set to open right before Fiesta in the old Fig Tree location in La Villita along the River Walk. Corless opened Prost Haus in 2021.
Visit San Antonio’s Anderson, in his statement to the San Antonio Report, noted that more than 10 new restaurants and bars — including Corless’ — plus two hotels have opened along the river since the pandemic.
Corless said he’s gratified to see new businesses and stressed that he and his fellow business owners are simply trying to think big and think long term. “Protect the golden goose,” he’s fond of saying.
Beyond physical upgrades, the group is also interested in potentially updating the ordinances, rules and even zoning that govern the River Walk, to take advantage of advancements in technology, help increase security and allow for more vibrant programming.
While the group has yet to promote any concrete projects it would like to see funded, Corless said increased shade and perhaps some type of misting system should be a priority as summers in San Antonio continue to get hotter.
Panchevre points to a recent lighting investment as an example of the kinds of low-lift improvements that can still pack a punch. He sits on the River Walk Improvements Advisory Board, which recommends ways to spend the money the city collects from businesses leasing the River Walk’s patio spaces.
Finding the money
That revenue stream amounts to about $700,000 annually, and the fund has a current balance of roughly $1.2 million, said John Jacks, director of the city’s Center City Development and Operations Department, which oversees River Walk maintenance and operations.
Last year the advisory board recommended, and City Council approved, spending roughly $500,000 to install lights on certain trees along the River Walk that would shoot colored light into their canopies. The goal, Panchevre said, was to offer an ambience similar to what the River Walk’s famed Christmas lights offer, but all year long. Lights were also added under several bridges and to illuminate two murals, according to CCDO.
At the most recent advisory board meeting, Panchevre praised the project and said he has heard great feedback about the lighting. He asked about changing the colors of the lights with the seasons — could they be made red and pink for Valentine’s Day, or green for St. Patrick’s Day, for example?
The lights are Wi-Fi enabled, but the River Walk, because of its subterranean nature, doesn’t get a consistent signal from nearby towers. Jack said CCDO is looking at how Wi-Fi infrastructure might be unobtrusively installed.
In the past, the income from patio leases has been used to leverage $30 million worth of Americans with Disabilities Act-compliant upgrades to the River Walk, such as replacing stairs with ramps and adding elevators and more lighting.
Apart from that pot of money, CCDO has almost $6.8 million in the fiscal year 2024 budget for downtown operations, most of which is spent on River Walk maintenance and operations. That’s up more than 30% from 2019’s budget of roughly $4.7 million.
At the last River Walk Improvements board meeting, Jacks encouraged Panchevre to have the business group get involved in the budget process soon. While City Council doesn’t approve the budget until September, identifying spending priorities and advocating for them early is important.
“Stakeholder input is helpful,” although it may not always result in projects getting into the budget, Jacks said. He said bond programs are another place where big capital projects can get funded.
Trish DeBerry, executive director of Centro San Antonio, said she’s had “robust” conversations with members of the group and understands their concerns. While Centro mainly focuses its cleaning and security work at street level downtown, it has a contract with CCDO to clean the River Walk. She said Centro is working closely with Visit San Antonio, the San Antonio Police Department and the city to get help for homeless people downtown and increase security.
She agreed that activations, the newfangled word for events like Centro’s Holidays on Houston, really help bring visitors downtown. That event, she said, drew 450,000 people “and there was definitely a migration down to the River Walk.”
Visit San Antonio added the Bud Light Pride River Parade to its lineup in June 2022, Anderson said in his statement, and will announce its “exciting new River Walk program” soon.
Like Anderson, DeBerry cautioned that recent talk from the group about a “dead River Walk” is not helpful, pointing out that it remains one of the top tourist destinations in the state, drawing in excess of 11 million visitors annually.
Corless said the group is hoping to launch a survey this month around perceptions of the River Walk, the results of which it would use to bolster its lobbying efforts on its behalf.
This article has been updated to clarify the amount of money available from River Walk patio leases.
