Louis Benavides, retired, was a bank examiner with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, served on the 50-year water plan committee for Taylor County, and was a consultant to the USDA for distressed assets. After 9/11, he focused on STEM and developed a program for college and career readiness.
How many times have the people of San Antonio City Council District 2 heard a council candidate promise to bring development to that side of town?
Too many to count.
What has really happened is outside money bought inexpensive land and housing, and turned it into expensive land and housing. The result is an increase in property taxes.
Thank you for nothing, candidates.
If you drive on Frost Bank Drive and look east from the Frost Bank Center, you see a lot of industry, vacant land and an unattractive golf course.
When the Frost Bank Center was built, the city promised not only the county but, more importantly, East Side residents that it would improve the Willow Spring Golf Course, the municipal course that sits across the street from the arena. That has yet to happen.
READ MORE: City Council balks at giving up golf course for arena funding deal with county
The city of San Antonio did nothing for the long term to support the Bexar County investment in the Frost Bank Center. Now, San Antonio is requesting a nearly $500 million investment from Bexar County from its venue tax revenue to help the city with its Project Marvel downtown dream.
But what is going to help maintain the Frost Bank Center? County Judge Peter Sakai has suggested that the golf course could be used as part of a plan to revitalize the Frost Bank Center and the surrounding coliseum grounds, and to boost the East Side.
This is where the city can finally do its part: Turn over the golf course and other nearby property to Bexar County.
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The county would then have substance for a destination center with a multilevel parking garage, creating a top-of-the-line sports bar and restaurant on the top floor with a sky view, and making it affordable and open to the public.
The golf course would have to be updated, but that could easily be done by creating a challenging course that golfers want to play and conquer. They will return until they feel that they have met that challenge. The course would have to be maintained and challenging holes updated. Additionally, the county could work to develop ties with a first-class hotel nearby.
Bexar County also could develop some of the vacant land into a small outdoor mall to hold other businesses that would support the venues and a hotel 24/7.
City Council members should stop giving lip service to residents on the East Side and make up for their lack of economic development around the Frost Bank Center.
Turning over Willow Springs Golf Course is only a start.
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