Note to students The stock market is treading water at a wave two high after its fall in 2022. It is fitting that confidence has returned around DJIå 33 000- 34,000. Big projects occur at market mania tops. This has happened before. In 1929 the largest theater in Texas openned here, the Majestic. The Tower Life building was completed at the same time. The Depression cancelled the rest of the planned Tower dlevelopment. Hemisfair featured the Tower of Americas in 16968, again near the then all time high of DJIa around 1,00. But the planned success of the fair never really caught fire after it closed. Today the Tower Life building is being converted to residenrtial, offices are half empty. Hemisfair is undergoing a 50 year make over. Ironcially the Port buillding will house, yes, the DeLorean Motor Company. History may not repeat but it sure does rhyme.
Port San Antonio on Thursday unveiled plans for a futuristic wing-shaped office tower aimed at attracting new tenants and solidifying its status as the region’s largest technology center.
“This is a building that looks like nothing else on the planet and the final is going to look even cooler than this,” said Jim Perschbach, the Port’s president and CEO. “We want it to be shorthand, not just for the Port, but for San Antonio.”
The Port’s 10-member Board of Directors approved a nearly $2 million agreement with Dallas-based real estate firm Trammell Crow Company to complete pre-development work for a new structure, which is expected to house DeLorean Motor Co. and other tenants at the main entrance of the former Kelly Air Force Base.
Over the next few months, the Port will negotiate an agreement with Trammell Crow and work with Pelli Clarke and Partners, a design architect in Connecticut, on the development’s final design.
Port officials first announced intentions to build an office tower, a “vertiport” and research facility last year.
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Port San Antonio unveiled this conceptual rendering of an office tower it hopes to build at its entrance.
Photo Port San Antonio – Pelli Clarke and Partners.jpg
RELATED: New multistory tower at Port San Antonio to house DeLorean Motor Co.; to be completed in early 2025
On Thursday, Perschbach told the board the tower could be from 12 to 15 stories and include at least 300,000 square feet of space for current and new tenants.
“Right now, we have the very enviable position of having more demand than we have space for,” he said. “We also wanted to continue to drive the real and perceived value of this campus.”
Pointing to renderings of the tower, he said it will serve as a symbol of the tech and science work being pursued at the Port, which now has more than 80 tenants and 17,000 employees. He said the goal is to replace the former Air Force base’s infrastructure, all “painted creech brown,” with new buildings that are more reflective of its current workforce.
In an interview before the board meeting, Perschbach said the pre-development phase will determine the exact size and cost for what will become the first office tower in Southwest San Antonio.
“It will be in all likelihood, on a per-square-foot basis, the most expensive building in San Antonio, on par with some of the nicest buildings being built in big cities across the country,” he said. “We don’t have a problem pushing toward what will be some of the highest rents in San Antonio, because we want to attract people who are willing to compensate people at a level commensurate with those rents.”
Perschbach acknowledged there is a possibility the Port’s board could decide the tower isn’t feasible during the pre-development phase.
“I would be shocked if that happens,” he added, describing how the board of directors would vote again after the pre-development period on whether to proceed.
Perschbach declined to identify potential tenants other than DeLorean. The original iteration of the Port’s plans included providing a space for the reborn automaker, which is establishing its new headquarters in San Antonio. Beyond DeLorean, he noted that “some of the usual suspects” in the aviation and technology industries could be at home in the tower, along with consulting, financial and law firms.
The project is “running a little bit behind,” Perschbach said. Still, he hopes to build the tower “as quickly as possible” so it could become operational by 2025.
“What I want is for this tower to be known around the world,” he said. “I’d love to see it just kind of organically go out when people think of the symbols of San Antonio. You’ve got the Missions, you’ve got the downtown skyline, you’ve got the Alamodome, you’ve got this tower.”
The Port is also looking to build a research complex focusing on aerospace technologies that includes a simulated lunar terrain and a “vertiport” for passenger and cargo electric vertical takeoff and landing vehicles — a futuristic cross between fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters.
Perschbach said he expects the vertiport to be built near his office on the North Side of the Port campus and the research complex to be adjacent to the massive high-tech concert and esports venue known as Boeing Center at Tech Port. The projects are on different timetables and require input from research groups and the Federal Aviation Administration, he said.
The Port is pursuing the three new projects after opening the $70 million, 130-square-foot Boeing Center at Tech Port.
In January, after hosting musicians, gaming competitions, robotics events and cybersecurity and military networking conferences, the Port changed the original name of the Tech Port Center + Arena to reflect its commitment to Boeing Co. It’s one of the Port’s oldest tenants, has the largest staff on campus and remains a top employer in San Antonio.
RELATED: Boeing buys naming rights for Port San Antonio’s concert and esports venue
Perschbach said he believes expansion brings more opportunities for the Port, which has built and leased more than 700,000 square feet of new facilities and rejuvenated more than 6 million square feet of renewed and expanded spaces since 2017. In that same time frame, tenants have added more than 7,000 jobs to the campus — which has become the largest tech employer in San Antonio, he said.
The sprawling campus is now home to fast-growing San Antonio companies such as Plus One Robotics and Knight Aerospace, Boeing, defense contractor Northrop Grumman, Accenture Federal Services and the U.S. Air Force.
In 2021, DeLorean received more than $1 million from the city of San Antonio and Bexar County in exchange for establishing its global headquarters at the Port. The agreements called for it to hire 450 workers and invest $18.5 million there over four years.
Perschbach said the Port is poised to become a more vital part of San Antonio’s economy as it continues to attract some of the world’s largest aerospace firms onto campus.
“We don’t like bragging on ourselves, but that doesn’t get you very far in the world where people want to go where there’s something exciting,” he said. “For us to capture and retain the talent, we have to show that our people are every bit the equal to everybody else.”
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