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The City of San Antonio will hold 10 two-day community workshop meetings across San Antonio to discuss the wide-ranging Project Marvel Sports & Entertainment District over the next two weeks.
Project Marvel is a major downtown revitalization plan centered around a new Spurs arena on the former site of the Institute of Texan Cultures that has an estimated price tag of between $1.2 billion and $1.5 billion.
It also includes upgrades to the Alamodome, an expansion of the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center, a new Convention Center hotel, and a pedestrian land bridge over IH-37.
Each city council district will have a two-day pair of workshops to attend, which will include open houses, focus groups, stakeholder meetings, and evening public meetings.
During an episode of TPR’s The Source on Monday, Assistant City Manager Lori Houston encouraged residents to attend the community workshops. She said Project Marvel would be a boon for more than just downtown.
“This is a transformational project,” she said. “We had Hemisfair, the World's Fair in 1968. This is very similar to that coming up. We're having such a transformation in our downtown that benefits the entire community because you're going to receive tax dollars. It'll be the tax dollars that go into the hotel occupancy tax fund. It'll be tax dollars that go into our general fund from the sales throughout downtown. So this is going to lift the community.”
Tuesday will be the first day of workshops in Districts 2, 4, 5, and 7. They will all begin with an hour-long housing focus group at 1:30 p.m. followed by an hour-long transportation focus group at 3 p.m. and end with a two hour-long community forum and hands-on mapping exercise at 6 p.m.
The districts will have their second day of workshops on Wednesday. Those will have an open house from noon to 7 p.m., an hour-long public community space focus group at 1:30 p.m., and an hour-long local business focus group at 3 p.m.
The District 2 workshops will be held at the Wheatley Heights Sports Complex; the District 4 workshops will be held at the Palo Alto College Legacy Room; the District 5 workshops will be held at Progreso Hall; and the District 7 workshops will be held at the St. Paul Community Center.
Register by 4:30 p.m. the day before the workshops to attend.
The next set of district workshops will take place on June 30 and July 1 in District 3 at the Southside Lions Senior Center and District 10 at Morgan’s Wonderland’s Multi-Assistance Center.
The last round of workshops will be held on July 8 and July 9 in District 1 at the Oblate School of Theology, District 6 at the Darner Parks & Recreation Center, District 8 at the Phil Hardberger Urban Ecology Center, and District 9 at the Walker Ranch Senior Center.
Find your council district here.
