UTSA has committed to a bold — and expensive — plan to revitalize and expand its downtown San Antonio presence. Destination Downtown, UTSA’s downtown expansion plan, seeks to bolster San Antonio’s economic development by providing local businesses access to educated, ready-to-work UTSA graduates.
UTSA has made impressive strides toward this goal in the past five years alone. In 2022, UTSA acquired the Southwest School of Art. In 2023, UTSA opened San Pedro I, which now houses the School of Data Science and the National Security Collaboration Center. San Pedro I is also UTSA’s first LEED-Certified facility. Additionally, UTSA broke ground on San Pedro II in 2023 — another addition to UTSA’s Southwest Campus.
UTSA’s latest move in its conquest for downtown real estate was the announcement of the purchase of One Riverwalk Place, a high-rise office building previously occupied by USAA in the heart of downtown San Antonio. As of 2019, the property was appraised at a valuation of $22.25 million. UTSA has not disclosed how much the university intends to pay for the property, but the university is not permitted to pay more than the building’s market value.
However, this multi-million dollar purchase only represents a small portion of the huge investment the university has made into expanding its downtown presence — with San Pedro I and San Pedro II costing a combined $215.8 million.
While this rapid expansion by UTSA is impressive, it also highlights a huge oversight by the university in its funding priorities — the Main Campus.
When the Main Campus opened in 1975, it housed the John Peace Library, the Flawn Science Building, the McKinney Humanities Building and the Multidisciplinary Studies Building. All of these facilities are still in use. The university has since expanded the Main Campus, with the newest academic building — the Science and Engineering Building — opening in 2020.
However, despite the limited construction of new academic buildings on the Main Campus, UTSA admits that the original buildings that comprised the Main Campus in 1975 — ] still in use today — are in desperate need of renovation, or complete replacement.
According to the UTSA Campus Master Plan, “Building conditions vary. Facilities of the first generation, except for those which have been recently renovated, are generally reaching the point where uses and needs have changed sufficiently to require substantial updates. Some, such as the Convocation Center, have life safety and conditions challenges which may mean that replacement is more cost effective than repair and expansion to meet current needs.”
While the construction of Blanco Hall — Main Campus’ newest dorm facility — is a much-needed addition to the outdated and dilapidated housing system, the next project being floated around for Main Campus expansion is a new, multi-million dollar athletics facility. More needs to be done by UTSA to renovate and expand the academic facilities on Main Campus.
