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The Robert E. Lee Apartments tower is a low-income 72-unit apartment building in the heart of downtown. It’s being targeted for purchase by major real estate developer Weston Urban, which has offered $4.35 million for it. Tenants in the building have formed a union and said they don’t want to leave their homes.
Weston Urban and the building’s owner, RELEE Partners, already have a contract of sale written up, but because Robert E. Lee was built with the support of low-income tax credits, tenant or qualified nonprofit organizations have a right of first refusal and can make a bid for the building by May 15. If the bid is for the building’s fair market value, RELEE Partners must sell to them.
The president of the Robert E. Lee tenants' union, Megan Navarro, said that is an option she and her fellow tenants are considering.
“It’s something I’ve definitely researched, and I’ve reached out to different avenues to see how we could make that come into fruition,” she said.
Weston Urban has offered to pay $2.65 million for the building and take on an old $1.7 million loan from the City of San Antonio the building had.
Because of the tax credits the apartments were built with, it must continue to serve residents making under 60% of the area median income until 2026, regardless of ownership.
Weston Urban owns much of the land surrounding Robert E. Lee, including the Frost Tower in the block southwest of the apartment building, Legacy Park in the block south of it, the new 300 Main apartment tower the block east of it, the commercial building at 425 Soledad St. in the block northeast of it, and the Soap Factory Apartments two blocks west of it.
Weston Urban plans to raze the Soap Factory to make way for a new San Antonio Missions ballpark and $1 billion of connected private development surrounding it. Official contracts for Weston Urban to purchase the last of the land they need for the ballpark and begin developing the area around it have not been finalized.
Navarro said Robert E. Lee tenants don’t want Weston Urban to purchase the building because they believe they won’t be allowed to stay.
“If you look online of what [Weston Urban CEO] Randy Smith has said his vision for downtown San Antonio is, he wants it to be essentially a playground for bankers,” she said. “So the people at Frost Tower, which Weston [Urban] also owns, lawyers, people in tech, people that are not the people that live here. So that’s what we’re going off of right now, is it’s definitely not going to be affordable housing.”
She said many of the tenants are elderly and live on fixed incomes; many tenants are also recently homeless. Navarro moved into Robert E. Lee in September of 2024, but said in that time has been able to get the majority of residents in the building to sign up to be part of the tenants' union.
In a statement to the San Antonio Express-News, San Antonio Housing Trust Executive Director Pete Alanis said they were looking to put in a bid for the property, and that if they were to purchase the building it would remain affordable.
Navarro said the tenants' union was planning to make a response to Weston Urban’s purchase offer to the building soon, but did not say whether they would make a formal bid to purchase the building.
Weston Urban did not respond to TPR’s request for comment.
