A center court view at the Frost Bank Center, the current home of the San Antonio Spurs. Credit: Instagram / @spurs

After almost a year of speculation and rumor, city officials will unveil the details of Project Marvel — a multi-billion-dollar sports and entertainment complex — during Thursday’s City Council meeting.

The project includes a Henry B. González Convention Center expansion, a new hotel, much-needed upgrades to the three-decades-old Alamodome and “potentially a new arena for the San Antonio Spurs,” according to the agenda item posted online last week.

Even so, an array of hurdles stand in the way of the massive project, including its astronomical price tag, skeptical public attitudes and the historic designation of building scheduled for destruction.

Show me the money

The most obvious question is how one of the nation’s poorest cities — and smallest pro-sports media markets — plans to pay for what could be among the nation’s most pricy sports districts.

Indeed, the estimated cost of the entire district is between $3 and $4 billion. The Spurs arena alone is projected to cost about $1.2 billion, as previously reported by the Current.

Although the Spurs are reportedly willing to cough up about $240 million for the arena, the city and county would be left to their own devices to come up with billions.

To help foot the bill, Spurs execs are eyeing revenue from a recently passed city-controlled downtown sales tax zone dedicated to convention centers and pro-sports facilities, the Express-News reports. However, much of that revenue is expected to go toward maintaining the Henry B. González Convention Center and possible Alamodome upgrades.

City staff will brief council on possible financing options during the Thursday meeting, which starts at 10:30 a.m. at 114 W. Commerce St.

It seems highly plausible that a tax increase of some sort would be necessary to finance the project — an idea that won’t sit well with some San Antonio residents.

Public Opinion

In June, most Alamo City residents who responded to a r/sanantonio Reddit post about paying for a new sports arena didn’t seem thrilled by the idea of using public dollars.

“I don’t personally have interest in paying for ANY sports arenas,” Reddit user @Hattrickher0 commented. “I’d pay for affordable housing vouchers for people who actually need money before I’d want to see a single dime of tax dollars for a huge coporation who already has enough.”

San Antonio resident Aminah Francois agreed, telling KSAT this week that if the public is going to pay for something, then the public should be able to use it.

“If you’re going to have me paying for something, it needs to be something that I’m going to enjoy,” Francois said. “Something that’s good for the community. Like, build a garden so that we can have healthy food. I’m not into sports like that.”

Indeed, council’s handling of the San Antonio Missions ballpark project, hastily approved only weeks after being proposed with little public input, also could have left a bad taste in the mouths of some local residents.

The Texas Historical Commission

Early details leaked about the project included building the Spurs arena where the now-vacated Institute of Texan Cultures (ITC) sits. However, last month, the Texas Historical Commission voted 7-2 to designate the 18,000-square-foot structure as a state antiquities landmark that shouldn’t be razed for a “damn basketball arena,” as one commissioner put it.

The designation means the University of Texas at San Antonio – the ITC’s owner – can’t demolish the building unless it gets approval from the commission, which could prove harder than initially thought.

“Everybody likes a fair fight, and I don’t think we’re in one … we stand for Texas History, we don’t stand for the University of Texas or any of its affiliates,” Commissioner David Gravelle said during the October meeting, according to the Express-News. “We don’t fold like tacos. We fight.”

Stay tuned.

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This article appears in Nov 13-26, 2024.

Michael Karlis is a multimedia journalist at the San Antonio Current, whose coverage in print and on social media focuses on local and state politics. He is a graduate of American University in Washington,...