City To Offer Revitialization Incentives for the Urban Core/Inner City

[sirkingwilliam]

Click here.

It passed today unanimously.

Hoping to spur more economic development in the inner city, San Antonio city leaders are preparing to vote on several incentives to entice developers and investors to bring their business to the city's urban core.

On Thursday, the city council will vote on a new ordinance that will waive city fees, including SAWS, public works and development services fees, for developers who plan to build in the urban core.

City staff have also proposed a 10-year, 100-percent tax abatement in the inner city.

[UrbanTrance]

Shall we celebrate?

[texboy]

Bout time! GO SA GO! Giving me more reason to move back to SA, than have to move to Austin to get the lifestyle I want!

[Boquillas]

Woohoo!

[oldmanshirt]

Great news, but how would this compare with incentives developers are getting to develop in the suburbs, both from SA and neighboring cities. Remember, downtown isn't just competing with the Rim and Stone Oak, they're also competing with New Braunfels and Seguin, which have gotten very aggressive in pursuing new developments in the past few years.

[Paul in S.A TX]

How big is this?

[sirkingwilliam]

Originally Posted by oldmanshirt

Great news, but how would this compare with incentives developers are getting to develop in the suburbs, both from SA and neighboring cities. Remember, downtown isn't just competing with the Rim and Stone Oak, they're also competing with New Braunfels and Seguin, which have gotten very aggressive in pursuing new developments in the past few years.

Well, within SA, the difference for lets say a 10 million dollar development will be $200,000.

A developer will save $200,000 building in the inner city than in the suburbs.

That number will increase once CPS gets on board.

[KevinFromTexas]

Great news. That's very encouraging. It'll be exciting to see what happens from here on. A downtown grocery store would be fantastic.

[UrbanTrance]

I hope we get some good projects out of this soon.

[jaga185]

Finally! I really hope the big kids here, if they decide to expand or anything, they will consider downtown.

[KevinFromTexas]

This is the first time I can remember San Antonio taking a serious look at its core and realizing it needs work. With every new article that comes out that addresses these issues and brings them to light, I become more excited and encouraged that things might be looking up.

Web Posted: 02/11/2010 7:21 CST
Filling in urban S.A. not so easys

By Jason Buch - Express-News

The city expanded a waiver program to encourage development downtown and on the East and South sides. But developers say that those incentives will not be enough to launch a rebirth of these neighborhoods.

Building in the urban core is more expensive than building in other parts of town. But even if costs are somewhat offset by the incentives, it's still a challenge to attract development to an area that has a lack of parking, a lack of public transportation and decaying infrastructure — issues not faced by new development across the northern reaches.

"It's still just too easy and too lucrative to go out to the edge of town and develop something in a greenfield,” said developer James Lifshutz.

...

http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/loc...ncentives.html

[UrbanTrance]

Great article. The inner city can grow, it just needs to come across a few hardships, but I have faith that it will happen. Glad the mayor is looking at the problems.

[alexjon]

Downtown SA doesn't lack parking, they're building infrastructure and they're working on the incentives. So far, so good.

[KevinFromTexas]

Yeah, parking has never been an issue for us when we come down to San Antonio. My mom and sister go to the dog show at the convention center every summer, and we always find a spot. We used to park in the small convention center garage. Of course that's gone now, so we either park at the Hyatt, or one of the garages just up Commerce Street and walk. We even found a spot 2 years ago at Christmas. I swear man, every Texan was there and downtown was literally gridlocked, but amazingly, we found a space in a small lot on Nueva Street. We park there too, in the summer sometimes, since it's only a block up from the convention center.

[jaga185]

I think people just use parking as an excuse to not come down. No one likes to pay for parking, so perhaps they actually complaining that it's not free.