Third Time’s the Charm? Project Marvel Panel Discusses Pros and Cons
Writer & Photographer: Nick Blevins
The front entrance of Shotgun House Coffee Roasters
Community members of all stripes filled the long, narrow hall of the West Side’s Shotgun House Coffee Roasters on Wednesday morning to listen in on a panel discussion over the transformative downtown development proposal on everybody’s minds, Project Marvel, presented by urban growth think tank the Better Futures Institute. At stake is voters’ decision in next Tuesday’s elections over Proposition B — whether or not to allow for the development and construction of a new downtown stadium in the city center for our basketball team, the San Antonio Spurs — and what that will truly mean for San Antonians, both in the near and long term.
As the tastefully curated selections of DJ Novasoul pumped throughout the room, attendees took their seats, and the Better Futures Institute’s President and CEO, Dr. Alberto Gomez, introduced the proceedings. Centro San Antonio Chief Strategy Officer Eddie Romero followed, contextualizing Project Marvel’s prospective impact for the city. He nodded to vocal pushback over the true cost of the proposal, acknowledging that “there was mistrust in the community,” but pointed to the potential benefits of tools like CBAs — community benefits agreements — to help bring transparency and an enforceable, long term framework to the project.
Paneled by Centro San Antonio President and CEO Trish DeBerry, Weston Urban Development Manager David Robinson Jr., attorney and recent city council candidate Susan Strawn, and Director of Corporate Communications for the San Antonio Spurs, Liberty Swift, many of the opinions expressed revolved around the why of an ambitious proposal like Project Marvel. In response to moderator, BFI co-founder, and recent mayoral candidate Beto Altamirano’s question over the necessity of utilizing public funds as opposed to exclusively private funds to fund development, Robinson Jr. likened Texas to a solar system: “And then you have Austin as this massive… sun, sucking everything into it,” he illustrated, warning of the dangers that a lack of investment in our city core poses. “And that gravity pull is away from San Antonio, right?”
DeBerry agreed, underscoring the need to support both Propositions A and B, and arguing that San Antonio is at an “inflection point,” with the construction of the multi-use sports complex representing an investment that will allow the city to compete with likes of other cities that “continually invest in themselves.”
The panel’s lone dissenter, Strawn highlighted the opaque, unenforceable nature of the deal’s funding elements, alleging “The only way for the city to enforce that agreement [if the Spurs chose to renege on their development commitments] is to back out of the deal.” The community benefits agreement for Project Marvel accounts only for the construction of the venue itself, she argued, leaving a major question mark as to who picks up the rest of the bill. “It doesn’t deal with anything that happens after construction.” Pointing to much broader CBAs enacted in other cities, she argued San Antonians could be receiving much more in exchange for their sign-on.
Early voting ends this Friday, October 31. After that, your final opportunity to make your voice heard is 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Election Day Tuesday, November 4. ◼︎
