Love it or hate it, the San Antonio Spurs’ new arena will reshape downtown.
The Spurs, the City of San Antonio and Bexar County are spending $1.3 billion on the new arena and building a $1.4 billion sports and entertainment district near the Tower of the Americas right in the heart of San Antonio. The Spurs have already started the project by hiring consultants, contractors and engineers.
“For a project of this scale, the right team includes both national partners with experience delivering complex sports, entertainment and mixed-use projects and local firms with deep knowledge of San Antonio, its businesses, workforce and communities,” said Liberty Swift, a Spurs spokesperson, in an email.
It’s a list that includes developers that have experience with stadiums and entertainment districts for other professional sports teams, like Marquee Development’s work with the Chicago Cubs or Tennessee Titans, and planners with international pedigree, like Sasaki, which has taken on projects on multiple continents.
But the Spurs are also required to hire close to home as their project prepares for liftoff. In the non-binding term sheet the team signed with the City of San Antonio for its $489 million portion of the arena funding, the Spurs agreed to “develop and maintain for the benefit of contractors and subcontractors, a peer-to-peer business mentorship program,” to give small businesses a chance to work on the project.
Swift confirmed this week that 10 of the 18 firms hired so far by San Antonio’s only major sports team have been local.
One of those firms is Pape-Dawson. Tom Carver, a civil engineer for the firm is working on his second arena after the Frost Bank Center.
He said this new arena is in its infancy.
“The Spurs are being very deliberate in this process,” he said. “There’s a concept level for the arena we’re working on now.”
That involves working with planners, architects and engineers before the project can move on to a design phase, where the plans are solidified. Carver said it takes time to make sure the concept for the arena is plausible — everyone from the architect to the construction team has to make sure they can get the job done within budget.
Carver said from the outset, the Spurs have mandated that one-third of his subcontractors are local. Swift said 30% of the controllable cost of the project is being invested locally.
“As planning continues, that local knowledge will help shape the arena, public spaces and connections throughout the district,” Swift said. “It will also help create meaningful opportunities for San Antonio businesses, contractors and workers to participate in a project intended to support the city’s future and reflect its character and identity.”
It was an effort the Spurs showed in their first interactions with the community — listening sessions run by OCI Group, a company based on the West Side.
“We are really proud to be part of the work and capture what the community wants to see,” said Ixchell González, one of OCI’s co-founders.
OCI staff understand San Antonio’s history because they’re from San Antonio, added Anita Fernández, who led community engagement efforts with Ixchel González.
“A majority of us were born and raised on the West Side and the South Side,” she said. “We are part of that community.”
OCI worked with the Spurs to maximize community involvement. That included reaching a younger audience and bringing experts like Carver and other members of the development team into the community engagement process.
Ixchel González said residents had multiple ways to give input — writing down thoughts, sharing in conversations or choosing between different options — and the events were held across the city to improve access.
Bringing San Antonio perspectives to the table was important to MP Studio, the local landscape architecture firm the Spurs have hired to work with Sasaki.
“Being born and raised in San Antonio, we all have our own memories of watching the Spurs,” said Alex Gonzalez, one of the principals at MP Studio. “It’s connected to the broader fabric of what makes downtown great.”
MP Studio staff attended the community engagement sessions and were excited to meet local needs through the landscape architecture process, where they are partnering with Sasaki and Carver’s Pape-Dawson team to design the space outside and around the arena.
Bartlett Cocke, a San Antonio-based construction company, is also partnered with a national construction company, Mortenson.
“When you look at these stadiums and arenas that are built on the professional level they are some of the most challenging and complex projects in terms of just sheer size,” said James Anderson, CEO and Chairman of Bartlett Cocke. “They bring a lot of that experience.”
At the same time, he added, Bartlett Cocke understands the site and the local construction industry. They’re familiar with local laws, infrastructure, neighborhoods and traffic flows that are around the site.
“Understanding the lay of the land, understanding how to build downtown,” Anderson said. “We bring that knowledge to the team. We have deep roots, you know we’re approaching 70 years in business.”
“It’s definitely enriching,” added Cecilia Garcia-Hours, a principal at MP Studio.
MP Studio gets to learn from larger firms, but they also get to teach about local climate, materials and plants, Garcia-Hours said. MP Studio is involved has been involved projects across the city, from the River Walk to Broadway’s revitalization to studies of San Antonio’s tree population.
“You start to see the patterns, how all these things are stitched together and how one project affects the rest,” Garcia-Hours said.
‘It keeps any business in business’
Putting local designers and architects and construction companies in the room doesn’t just keep the project local, it keeps its money local, too.
Carver said that commercial and housing development has slowed in San Antonio after a post-pandemic boom. This opportunity could be important for smaller construction and development companies and subcontractors.
“When you get a big project like this that carries you through a downturn, it keeps any business in business,” Carver said.
“We know what the local industry can provide and try to leverage that as much as possible,” says Anderson of Bartlett Cocke. “At the end of the day, we want to keep this as local as possible, and have as much participation from and keep our dollars here in San Antonio.”
While public funding for the new arena did pass in November’s election, there were plenty of “No” votes. More than 118,000 San Antonians — almost 48% of voters — were against using city and county dollars on a downtown arena. Just last month, city council members considered putting the city’s funding up to another vote.
Many of the San Antonio firms involved in the project still want to hear input from those residents, even if they were, or are, against the idea of a new arena.
González said understanding the context around that election and the history of the Spurs in San Antonio — where they’ve played, how they are beloved and where residents might experience controversy — is an important part of what local groups like OCI bring to the table.
“It was important for us to ensure genuine conversations are being had,” González said. “It’s better to have a seat at the table and have input.”
The Spurs’ development team is open to those conversations.
“Everyone has their own desires and needs. The beauty is that through thoughtful design and collaboration, you can meet some of those needs for the greater good,” Garcia-Hours said.
Garcia-Hours said many of the concerns she had heard during the community engagement process were similar and things she hoped to address during the planning process.
“We have all this input to understand what’s priority,” Garcia-Hours said. “A lot of the messages were pretty similar. There’s history, there’s art and we want some people from all walks of life are welcomed.”
