A dusty parking lot owned by the San Antonio Independent School District is the latest hurdle faced by the city and developer Weston Urban in their quest to bring a minor league baseball stadium to downtown San Antonio.
School board members were scheduled to discuss the sale of the key piece of land during the executive session portion of a school board meeting Monday, but assured attendees that no decisions would be made that day. Superintendent Jaime Aquino was not at the meeting.
The discussion comes as residents of the Soap Factory apartment complex, which will be demolished by the ballpark, made an impassioned appeal to the school board during a public comment session asking trustees to join their cause in opposing the project. Residents asked them to “play hardball” and “uplift tenant demands” with the San Antonio Missions ownership and Weston Urban, which owns the apartment complex.
If the project moves forward, the residents will be displaced from the Soap Factory in phases starting in October 2025.
Board President Christina Martinez said the board would not be taking any sort of action until after a community meeting is held.
“I want to assure you that the board will take no action on this matter until we have had a community meeting to gather additional public input,” she said. “Our governance structure has goals and guardrails that holds us accountable to the community, and so we do plan to have a district-coordinated public meeting early in October, and we hope that everyone will come out and speak up.”
The meeting pushes close to an Oct. 15 deadline set by the MLB for the new ownership to show the league that there is a plan in place to build a new stadium for the Missions, according to Hope Andrade, one of the team’s owners and a former Texas Secretary of State.
“The MLB told us — they put us on notice — If we don’t build a new stadium, they will pull our license,” Andrade said last week. “If we run so close, we might not make the deadline, even if we deliver the letter personally. So that’s our concern. Everything else we can work out.”
The Schools Our Students Deserve Coalition, which includes the San Antonio Alliance of teachers and support personnel union echoed the residents requests.
Alejandra Lopez, the president of the San Antonio Alliance gave a nod to recent school closures in her public comments.
“We know that there’s an affordable housing crisis in our district, and that crisis is one of the contributing factors that led to school closures last year,” she said. “We also know that knocking down some of the only affordable housing that exists downtown and building a baseball stadium is only going to further exacerbate this issue.”
It is unclear how much of an impact the displacement would have on school enrollment, however.
SAISD Officials said during the meeting that while six students attended district schools from the Soap Factory address last year, there are no students enrolled this year. A more detailed enrollment history will be provided at the community meeting.
Still, coalition member Sofia Lopez said the district should leverage the position it finds itself in.
“San Antonio ISD happens to own land that is extremely lucrative in the eyes of Weston Urban,” she said. “The board must prioritize the needs of Soap Factory tenants, the need for affordable workforce housing downtown and a deal that allows our San Antonio ISD community to materially benefit after the lack of funding and support from the State of Texas.”
During public comment, Lopez also read comments from a Soap Factory resident, who struggled to find affordable housing prior to the complex. Now, that resident is dreading the possibility of restarting the search in the coming months.
According to San Antonio Chief Financial Officer Ben Gorzell, all properties for the ballpark site have been acquired, with the exception of the SAISD properties, “and those negotiations are ongoing.”
During a city council meeting at the end of August, Gorzell said a program is in the works for students to receive “internships, access to the facility and stakeholder days,” adding at the time that the plan was in “very early stages of conversation.”
The parking lot sits at the southern end of the proposed blueprint for the $160 million stadium project, which would create a new home for the San Antonio Missions minor league baseball team.
Combined with other residential and commercial projects, Weston Urban estimated the total investment to be $1 billion.
Some residents during Monday’s SAISD meeting called for a moratorium on demolitions until a “collaborative and comprehensive relocation plan has been developed.”
Last week, the developer pledged $250,000 toward a $500,000 relocation assistance fund for residents, some of whom could receive $2,500 each and free first month’s rent in subsidized housing.
Despite the pushback, city council members voted 9-2 to approve plans for the city to aid the construction of the stadium last week.
In order for the plan to move forward, SAISD has to give it the green light by selling the lot.
The gravel parking lot was a source of frustration for employees last school year, after they were forced to park there instead of a covered garage owned by Bexar County due to changes in the location of some central office departments.
After frustration was shared with the administration and garnered media attention, some employees regained access to the covered garage.
It is unclear where employees from the three SAISD high schools that share one campus would park if the sale is completed.
A district spokesperson didn’t respond to a request for comment on the matter Monday.
San Antonio Report reporters Iris Dimmick, Andrea Drusch and Shari Biediger contributed to this report.