One of downtown’s most iconic buildings — created for HemisFair ’68 — will be torn down in the summer of 2025.
During the World's Fair, it was the Texas Pavilion. After the Fair ended, it was turned into the Institute of Texan Cultures. The building remains one of just a handful of HemisFair-era buildings left standing in the nearly 57 years since the World’s Fair shut down on Oct. 6, 1968.
About 6.3 million visitors visited HemisFair since it opened on April 6, and the Texas Pavilion anchored the World’s Fair’s southeast corner, surrounded on three sides by massive berms and water features.
After HemisFair closed, the entire 96-acre property was given to the UT System, which was expected to build the University of Texas at San Antonio there. Instead, a 600-acre land donation on the city’s Northwest Side moved the university there, leaving the grounds of HemisFair in a development limbo in the decades since.
The Conservation Society of San Antonio has had the ITC placed on the National Register of Historic Places, but that designation doesn’t protect it from demolition. Kathy Knarvek with the Society explained last January that the designation opens up funding for tax savings.
“By doing that, it allows that building to become eligible for 45% tax credits,” she said. “It means that if they have a $50 million project, they only have to scare up $27.5 million.”
Apparently, those kinds of savings weren’t enough to induce UTSA to save the ITC building. They said that it has not aged well, and that its location away from most tourist areas, plus its maintenance problems, render the building unsustainable. They want to sell the property it’s on, but first they want to demolish what currently occupies that land.
UTSA Associate Vice Provost Monica Perales explained the collection housed in the building will be moved into the Frost Tower temporarily, and that site will open to the public in May 2025. A new Institute of Texan Cultures will then be built in one of two downtown spots they have chosen.
“We will be embarking on a plan to move the ITC into a new space as we begin to envision a new permanent home for the ITC so that we can continue to serve the public and audiences who love Texas history and Texas culture going into the future,” she said.
Those two sites are at either ends of downtown. “There are currently two potential sites where the ITC might find its permanent home. One is the Crockett site, located near the Alamo,” she said.
That site is right across Bonham Street from the Alamo grounds, and next door to the Crockett Hotel.
“The other location is near our Southwest Campus, which also has many advantages, being connected to the wonderful arts resources there and the School of Arts at UTSA and the downtown public library as well,” Perales explained.
That second location is directly across from the former location of WOAI TV at Navarro Street.
One of UTSA’s stated objectives in moving the ITC was to increase traffic to view its collections and exhibits, and it’s likely that either location would increase visitors to the ITC, which Perales said had been a problem since day one. “It really is difficult for visitors to up and find where we are,” she added.
The move to tear down the old ITC will no doubt be met with some shock and resistance from some quarters. The City of San Antonio and the Conservation Society of San Antonio declined TPR's requests to speak on the record.
There may be some light at the end of the tunnel for those who hate to see the ITC come down. Perales said there’s a possibility one of its most enduring aspects may, in some iteration, return: The Folklife Festival.
“We're definitely talking about ways to do that. And that is really going to be a part of, of the vision moving forward. I think that we are for sure working toward that,” she said.
There is talk about a new Spurs or San Antonio Missions stadium to be built on the 13 acre site, though nothing has as yet been announced.
