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Bexar County commissioners on Tuesday voted to move forward on the potential renovation of a building at JBSA-Fort Sam Houston to house 1,000 personnel of the Defense Health Agency (DHA).
They directed county staff to negotiate with the local architecture firm of Chesney Morales Partners, which may be hired to update designs done in 2005 and 2006 to get a better fix on current construction costs. They did those designs and may be the best qualified and most cost effective to do the job again.
Talk of housing the DHA at the fort began back in 2019, and while the city and county each set aside $10 million for the project, another $10 million in unrealized state grants was needed for the project pegged then at $30 million. But those cost estimates are now obviously old, and there are hopes the project can now be revived.
Retired Marine Maj. Gen. Juan Ayala, who serves as the director of the City of San Antonio's Military and Veteran Affairs Department, told commissioners all those medical and medical support jobs would pump a lot of money into the San Antonio economy.
"Those thousand jobs in a five-year period ... these are estimates from DHA, not from us — is a billion dollars in salaries, with a B." he said.
County commissioners debated whether such an expenditure would be wise with all the federal cuts going on under the Trump administration.
Precinct 1 County Commissioner Rebeca Clay-Flores had requested for county staffers to secure a long-term commitment from the federal government about the project.
"To make sure we're not putting all that money into a building," she added, "and then things get cut and then it's empty because the reality is there are basic things that we think, no way that can get cut, and things are getting cut."
Precinct 4 County Commissioner Tommy Calvert, who represents the Fort Sam area, sounded a bit more hopeful that might not happen.
"In this world, I don't want to say anything is cut- proof, but this is obviously a need that is there," he said. "It's always there and healthcare is a growth industry."
The DHA supports uniformed services health care.
