Top Bexar County leaders say they’re committing new county revenue from the Spurs’ proposed downtown sports and entertainment district to be used for redevelopment projects on the East Side.
County Manager David Smith told the San Antonio Report Friday that the result could be about a $70 million to $80 million for amenities that East Side residents were promised — but never received — when the county initially agreed to build the Spurs’ current arena in the early 2000s.
“Judge Sakai has a working group that is helping advise on what they think [that redevelopment] should look like from their point of view,” Smith said. “But what I’m saying is, they’ll have a budget, and that’ll be a direct community benefit back to the East Side.”
Plans for the new downtown sports and entertainment district, known as Project Marvel, entail filling the area around Hemisfair with $1.5 billion worth of new housing and mixed-use development — anchored by a new $1.3 billion Spurs arena.
Bexar County is poised to put up $311 million for the arena’s construction, through a venue tax that critics say should be used on more pressing community needs.
Unlike the city, however, which is using tax reinvestments to help pay for the arena, Bexar County is poised to add that new development onto its tax rolls.
“We are not part of the Hemisfair TIRZ,” Smith said, referring to the Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone the city is planning to use to repay arena bonds. “So those annual incremental property tax benefits will flow to the county just like any other property tax.”
Smith came up with the revenue estimate himself — based on development promises laid out in the Spurs’ term sheet.
He said the county hasn’t paid for its own economic analysis, and it doesn’t plan to use a formal reinvestment mechanism like the TIRZ, which ensures new property tax revenue is directed to a specific purpose.
“We wouldn’t need to,” Smith said. “They have to pay their property taxes, and the judge is pledging to use it to provide seed funding for East Side redevelopment.”
Sakai is currently on an economic development trip to Japan and was unable to comment on the plan.
The East Side’s own Project Marvel?
Revenue from the new downtown redevelopment could take years to generate — perhaps longer than Smith or Sakai are in their current roles.
Smith has about 15 months on his county manager contract, and Sakai is running for a second four-year term in 2026.
But talk of new promises to the East Side come as both men are eager to show the public what they think the area could be.
The county is asking voters in the Nov. 4 election to approve $191.8 million to turn the Frost Bank Center, Freeman Coliseum and surrounding grounds into a year-round stock show and rodeo district. It’s known as Proposition A.
Renderings show county fairgrounds with live stock barns and exposition halls for 4-H competitions, professional bull riding and trade shows — all in place of parking lots currently guaranteed to the Spurs in their lease with the Frost Bank Center.
To facilitate those year-round events, the county hopes private developers will add a hotel, restaurants and other amenities that would breathe new life into an industrial part of town.
It could even use its own TIRZ to help things along, according to an 18-page request for qualifications that the Coliseum Advisory Board issued in June.
‘We are going to do our best to deliver on the promised economic development when the original [arena] was built, that never happened because people go there, show up and they leave,” Smith said.
Parallel developments
Just weeks out from early voting, Smith conceded the public knows little about the broader development plans for the East Side — a potential challenge when courting support for Proposition A.
The vision came together in just a few months, after the county assessed needed repairs on existing facilities and worked with the rodeo on a plan to repurpose them.
Renderings for the fair grounds were presented at Commissioners Court for the first time in late May, and the Coliseum Advisory Board is still weeks away from choosing a “master planner” to craft plans for what the surroundings could look like.
Over at the city, leaders preempted concerns about sharing their vision with the public, but wound up with a different set of challenges.
More than a year of behind-the-scenes planning for Project Marvel produced stunning renderings that frustrated some members of the public who felt in the dark about their own city’s future.
At an April meeting with District 8 residents, Assistant City Manager Lori Houston explained that the city had learned from past mistakes when it didn’t have a rendering, and couldn’t show the public what they were voting on.
Houston is now retiring at the end of the month, amid much criticism of her final project.
On Friday, Smith said he regretted the fact that the county’s East Side developments and the new Spurs arena were being looped in with city’s Project Marvel development, which has become so divisive.
“People are trying to make November a referendum on Project Marvel, and I want to try and explain why that’s just not true,” he said. “From the moment the county found out that the Spurs were not going to renew their lease at the Frost Bank Center, it became irrelevant to us where their next arena was located.”
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