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About 50 dignitaries, officials from Pearl, residents and passersby milled about on Pullman Market’s large porch on Wednesday morning to dedicate two new walking bridges built across the San Antonio River. The new bridges are meant to improve the access between the original Pearl shopping and residential campus and the new development projects on the other side of the water.
Silver Ventures’ Omar Gonzalez stepped up to the mic to begin the ceremony. “Thanks for coming out on a on a hazy, misty day. I'm thrilled to announce that today we're here to really honor and celebrate the bridges that have been built in the last year or so,” Gonzalez said.
In a statement, the Pearl explained that the "first bridge, a 105-foot painted steel structure with western red cedar decking, will link the current Pearl district to a planned 166-room hotel and ground-floor commercial space including two restaurants. The second bridge, a 165-foot bowstring truss design, will connect the Coopers Row apartment building and adjacent Texas-style Icehouse restaurant/bar to the Pullman Market area."
New San Antonians may not know that 20 years ago the area contained the abandoned Pearl Brewery, and its neglected buildings sat behind a tall fence with razor wire. Oxbow Development’s Bill Shown remembered that time, when the Pearl campus was not an area that the Chamber of Commerce took out-of-town guests to.
“This was one of the most dangerous places in the city to be. And again, it's so hard to imagine that now, when you look at it,” Shown said.
The Pearl development spreads out almost entirely on the east side of the San Antonio River, but its success has inspired multiple developers to build several large projects on the river’s west bank.
That expansion may in time double the Pearl community's footprint.
Before these new bridges were built, only one footbridge several blocks north gave residents access to Pearl’s shopping and restaurants.
District 1 City Councilperson Sukh Kaur said Pearl has become a real hub of community, and the new bridges will only encourage that community to thrive.
“This area truly does bring a lot of people from the community together. And I think that bridge metaphor of connecting community is real,” Kaur said.
Pearl CEO Mesha Millsap celebrated the potential to better integrate the community growing around the Pearl shops, restaurants and apartments. “I think that when we can open up bridges to our neighbors, like metaphorically and physically, it gives people a better sense of belonging and a sense of community,” Millsap said. “And I think that's so much of what people are really longing for, is that sense of community and being a part of something.”
Aside from the business reasons for creating them, she noted the aesthetics of bridges over water.
“There's something about standing over water, too, that's also kind of fun!” she said with a smile.
