It seemed fitting that the fifth edition of CityFest began with a panel titled, “The Future of Downtown,” staged at UTSA’s Downtown Campus, with opening remarks delivered by UTSA President Taylor Eighmy.
The future of San Antonio’s downtown seems inextricably linked now with the future of the UTSA Downtown Campus. If local leaders have often said, “great cities have great downtowns,” they now frequently add, “great downtowns have great universities.”
Speaking about Eighmy’s commitment to attract 15,000 students to its downtown campus, San Antonio Assistant City Manager and CityFest panelist Lori Houston said, “Having so many (students with) backpacks downtown is going to be a game-changer.”
Centro San Antonio CEO Matt Brown agreed: “A university is the heartbeat of downtown.”
Texas 2036 Executive Vice President and event moderator A.J. Rodriguez, a lifelong downtown resident, posed an interesting hypothetical question to panelists as the Tuesday morning conversation neared an end: Imagine, if HemisFair 2068 is staged 100 years after the original world’s fair, what will locals and visitors alike find to be the most transformative development downtown?
“This might be controversial, A.J., but I would like to see a reimagined River Walk for locals,” Greater:SATX CEO Jenna Saucedo-Herrera responded, who earlier in the program said the San Antonio workforce lacks the skills needed in a 21st century economy.
Weston Urban co-founder and CEO Randy Smith didn’t hesitate to say that it will be the expansion of the UTSA Downtown Campus.
“My answer would be a massive student body. Taylor has committed to 15,000 students downtown. … That has to come to pass,” Smith said, adding that a downtown alive with students is the “missing ingredient” for San Antonio.
Many of them undoubtedly will be drawn to the university’s new School of Data Science, scheduled to open in January 2023, an addition spurred by Weston Urban Chairman Graham Weston’s $15 million gift.
Eighmy caught my attention when he said there will be a November announcement regarding another new Downtown Campus building to be located along San Pedro Creek, a development that appears unrelated to UTSA’s recent acquisition of the Southwest School of Art and its historic campus.
But Eighmy saved his biggest announcement for a Main Campus press conference on Thursday, when UTSA went public with its current capital campaign. Eighmy announced a $500 million goal by 2027, a deadline I bet Eighmy beats, with $311 million in gifts and pledges already in hand.
Big gifts have helped drive UTSA’s “Be Bold for Our Future” campaign, the most ambitious in the university’s 53-year history. In addition to the Weston gift and the planned November announcement, Carlos and and Malú Alvarez donated $20 million for the university’s newly-renamed Carlos Alvarez College of Business in March 2021.
Months later, billionaire philanthropist MacKenzie Scott donated $40 million for student scholarships, followed at year’s end by former Valero CEO and Chairman Bill Klesse and his wife Margie‘s donation of $20 million to the newly named Klesse College of Engineering and Integrated Design.
Three major gifts in the space of nine months.
In the years I attended UTSA as an undergraduate, the broader metro area and the city’s leading philanthropists did not embrace UTSA as the city’s public university. That has changed, beginning under former President Ricardo Romo, and accelerating under Eighmy. Leadership has been key, but so has the arrival of the Division I football program.
I was a naysayer when creation of the football program first surfaced in 2006 and finally happened in 2009. I have never been so wrong. You don’t have to be a football fan to recognize the school spirit and Roadrunner culture created by the now-winning program. Home games at the Alamodome attract tens of thousands of students, alumni and local fans.
I was shopping at a Home Depot on Thursday, wearing a UTSA Alumni Association T-shirt, when the cashier asked me if I was going to Saturday’s game. Her whole family was going, including, she noted with visible pride, her granddaughter, the Southside family’s first college-bound student.
Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff, who I interviewed at a CityFest VIP event held Wednesday at the Tobin Center for the Performing Arts, lighted up the audience when he described what football has done for the university and San Antonio.
“Austin has a professional football team and it’s called UT, and San Antonio now has a professional football team and it’s UTSA!” Wolff declared, drawing sustained applause.
This column has been updated to correct a reference to the new Downtown Campus building along San Pedro Creek.
