Tagged: urban revitalization

Federal officials visited San Antonio's East Side this week to guage how reinvestment dollars are shaping housing and education needs.

The city received federal funding in the form of two grants: the Choice Neighborhood Grant, awarded in 2012, which targets housing, and the Promise Neighborhood Grant, awarded in 2011, which focuses on education.

Mayor Julián Castro's movement to re-energize downtown is at the heart of dozens of active projects, and one of the goals of the mayor's transformation programs, SA2020, is to attract people to the city core by building 7,500 apartment units.

One of Castro's confidants is Henry Cisneros, who leads CityView, a company that works with builders to create homes priced within the range of average families.

San Antonio is adding yet another urban living project in the downtown area, but this time a significant number of units will be designated for students.

The project, located at the old Birdsong Peanut Factory site on S. Frio on the near West Side, will have 98 lofts., with 30-50 percent of them for student housing.

The official groundbreaking on Wednesday marked the beginning of a 19,000 square foot facility. Mayor Julián Castro, who has pushed for urban living and has said this is the "decade of downtown," said he was surprised by a peanut factory in San Antonio.

The San Antonio Children’s Museum will be moving from its downtown location to Broadway and Mulberry, once construction on the massive-scale project is complete.

The project comes at a time when city leaders have focused their attention on revitalizing the urban core, but executive director Vanessa Lacoss Hurd doesn’t see it as leaving downtown.

“We see it about providing a more holistic campus and experience for what we want to accomplish with our mission,” she said.