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The City of San Antonio named Shanon Miller, its director of historic preservation, the new chief overseer of downtown development and operations.
As chief downtown officer, Miller will be responsible for major ongoing large-scale projects, especially those shaping both the east and west ends of the core. Most notable is the sports and entertainment district known as Project Marvel next to HemisFair and the development of an upcoming baseball stadium near San Pedro Creek. Previously former assistant city manager Lori Houston was in the role. She retired from the city last year.
Miller has been in the historic preservation role since 2008. Previously she had worked in a similar position in Franklin, Tennessee.
In her new role, Miller said much of it would focus on bringing in all the people and city departments that have an impact on downtown development.
“We want to make sure that we're truly coordinating and kind of maximizing the benefit that we can have from all these projects,” she said. “This role will really serve, in a lot of ways, to help make sure that we're all rowing in the same direction and focusing on the same priorities.”
Over the last 15 years, downtown San Antonio has seen a dynamic shift with a focus on making it more livable.
Former San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro had declared the 2010s the "Decade of Downtown," promising investment to create a more livable and workable downtown. That decade saw massive changes to the city’s central business district including the addition of Frost Tower, reimagining and development of HemisFair, convention center reconstruction and more. Frost Tower was the first skyscraper announced in 25 years when the plans were launched in 2014.
Castro was mayor until 2014 when he was tapped by the Obama administration to be the secretary of housing and urban development. Who followed him was Mayor Ivy Taylor who served for three years and then Ron Nirenberg until he reached his term limit in 2025.
The downtown growth continued into the 2020s. Even through the COVID-19 pandemic, UT-San Antonio’s expansion into the downtown core, new apartments units via the ‘68, The Continental, 300 Main, a new federal courthouse, and the San Pedro Creek development, to name a few, were established.
Now in the second half of the 2020s, Miller said the focus would be on housing, development of the Spurs arena and entertainment district, the baseball stadium, more UT-San Antonio students, the multimillion-dollar redevelopment Alamo, and Riverwalk.
"We just recently launched the Riverwalk Strategic Plan process, which will take place this calendar year and really help to set priorities for our investment in the Riverwalk,” Miller said. “...Obviously the riverwalk is hugely successful already, and it is such a draw for people coming to San Antonio, but we know there's always room for improvement.”
Miller’s new job took effect last Monday, Feb. 23.
