Billionaire Graham Weston’s real estate firm and Frost Bank are proposing to use a public-private partnership (P3) for the construction of a highrise office tower that will transform several blocks in downtown San Antonio.
"It’s a little bit of musical chairs. The proposal states that Frost Bank will sell the city its current building." said Lorenzo Gomez, executive director of the 80/20 Foundation.
"The Weston Urban team will build the new proposed tower, which is adjacent to the current Frost property. Frost Bank will move into the new tower, as the anchor tenant. Once they vacate the current building, the city then will consolidate several leases into Frost’s old building."
Weston Urban produced a proposal in August 2014 to construct a 400,000 sq. ft high-rise office tower, as part of a plan to accelerate development in downtown San Antonio.
The office tower would be the new headquarters of Frost Bank and the first highrise to be built in the city for more than 25 years.
The City of San Antonio will buy the existing Frost Bank Tower and the adjacent 700 space parking garage.
The Frost facilities are located across the street from City Hall and the City Council Chambers in the Municipal Plaza Building. An underground tunnel provides direct access between the Frost facilities and the Municipal Plaza Building.
The three-way deal allows the city to centralize and consolidate its downtown operations, which are currently spread out over at least five separate downtown buildings. The proposal involves the acquisition of five city-owned properties by Weston Urban, which will make a source of money available to the city to help buy the existing Frost Bank facilities.
In addition, Weston Urban is seeking to buy other Frost properties for the redevelopment, revitalization and repurposing of underutilized real estate in the downtown core.
At least 300 multi-family units will be constructed on the city real estate and the additional Frost properties.
The SABER Institute conducted a study of the project, which estimates direct spending will lead to an overall economic impact of $329 million. It also estimates the construction-related spending and indirect impacts will create 2,629 jobs.
Real estate firm Primera Partners submitted a competing proposal to the city of San Antonio in October 2014, which involves an offer to sell its 20-story building called Riverview Towers. The city rents about half of the 248,000 square feet of office space in the tower.
Primera Partners doesn’t consider its offer to be in direct competition with Weston Urban’s plan, and suggests the city could purchase Riverview and still proceed with Weston Urban’s proposal.
If the P3 deal is finalized, Weston Urban will proceed with designing the new tower and securing all necessary approvals. Weston Urban will select a qualified general contractor to undertake construction.
Graham Weston is a billionaire, who made his fortune as the co-founder and chairman of a San Antonio-based high-tech company called Rackspace. The company developed an open-source operating system for the cloud called OpenStack. Rackspace serves more than 300,000 business customers in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia and Hong Kong.
Weston Urban was established in 2012 to invest in development projects that will transform downtown San Antonio.
To support this objective, Weston also established the 80/20 Foundation and Geekdom to create conditions that are conducive to the growth of an entrepreneurial high-tech community. Weston Urban acquired the historic Rand Building and converted its upper floors as the new home for Geekdom, which is a collaborative co-working space where entrepreneurs, technologists, developers and members of the start-up community help each other build businesses.
Geekdom provides 45,000 square feet of modern workspace to two hundred startups, each with access to $25,000 in seed funding.
The 80/20 Foundation is a non-profit organization that supports downtown development, an educated workforce and an environment of innovation.
The foundation operates under the principle that 80 per cent of business growth and innovation can be stimulated making strategic investments in 20 per cent of the city’s customers and innovators.
Weston was listed in Forbes magazine in 2013 as the #1161 billionaire in the world and has an estimated net worth of $1.25 billion.
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Billionaire Graham Weston started Weston Urban in 2012 to invest in development projects that will transform downtown San Antonio, while supporting education and a high-tech community. Above, the San Antonio Children’s Museum, is an example of a new educational facility, which is opening in a new location with a new name. Do Seum will teach kids critical thinking and problem solving.
Photo: Lake
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