Site plans and renderings for CPS Energy‘s new headquarters on the San Antonio River were approved by the Historic and Design Review Commission on Wednesday. The commission also approved plans for the Frost Bank Tower and separate office buildings near the Pearl.
The CPS Energy and Pearl projects were batch-approved alongside several other items without commissioner discussion.
The Frost Bank Tower was pulled from the consent agenda and some commissioners had several questions for the tower’s architectural and development team. Read more about the project here, and see our updated coverage of the discussion here.
The CPS Energy project that would renovate two connected office towers received preliminary HDRC approval in November of last year. CPS Energy plans to transform the beige, circa 1980s buildings into modern, sustainable, LEED Gold certified structures to house about one-third of its total 3,200 employees. The new parking garage will feature solar panels, a “greenscreen” trellis system, and retail space.
CPS Energy’s design team, which includes architects from Dallas-based firm Corgan, collaborated with the San Antonio River Authority to improve the property’s interaction with the River Walk.
The buildings at 530 McCullough Ave. were vacant for several years and formerly housed AT&T and Valero Energy Corp. The more than $100 million project is expected to be completed by 2019.
HDRC also approved plans for two new office buildings and one parking garage within the Pearl Brewery complex’s growing footprint.
The 10-story and six-story buildings will add about 344,000 sq. ft. of commercial office space to the burgeoning Broadway Corridor.
Silver Ventures Managing Director of Real Estate Bill Shown told the Rivard Report after the project was approved that a large financial company will be moving into most of the office space and that there is space for other commercial entities on the ground floor, including two restaurants.
The property will include patios and plazas, Shown said, that will interact and “mesh wonderfully” with the proposed $43 million bond project aimed at revitalizing more than three miles of Broadway Street. He hopes the Pearl can “set an example” for how private entities work their projects into the multimodal vision for Broadway. The $850 million bond package will go before voters on May 6.
The existing warehouses and buildings near 1801 Broadway are considered non-historic and will be demolished for new construction. The office buildings will be constructed to partially wrap around the 950-space parking garage.
