City officials confirmed during Thursday’s City Fest gathering that the land bridge component of proposed sports-and-entertainment district Project Marvel is indefinitely on pause due to federal funding cuts.
City Manager Erik Walsh broke the news during a panel discussion with small-business owners including chef Johnny Hernandez and Friendly Spot owner Jody Bailey Newman, who expressed concerns construction might impact their operations, according to the San Antonio Report, which puts on City Fest.
San Antonio Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones also told both the Report and City Fest attendees that the land bridge, which was supposed to connect the proposed basket ball arena at Hemisfair to parking garages on the other side of I-37 at the Alamodome, may no longer be feasible under the Trump Administration’s federal funding freezes.
Heywood Sanders, a UT-San Antonio professor emeritus of of public administration, previously expressed concerns about the feasibility of the land bridge during a town hall with District 5 Councilwoman Teri Castillo.
Sanders, who also writes a column for the Current, told audience members at the early October town hall that it doesn’t make sense to approve funding for a Spurs arena without first securing financing for Project Marvel’s other myriad components.
“If folks are going to park on the east side of I-37, my doubt is they’re going to levitate themselves over the highway,” Sanders joked. “So, the big important question is: who’s going to pay for that land bridge? There’s the possibility of federal grants. But, there’s no certainty of those funds.”
In addition to a Spurs arena and a boutique hotel facilitated by the team, the $4 billion Project Marvel is expected to feature a convention center expansion, an Alamodome renovation, a 5,000-seat concert venue and a 1,000-room convention center hotel. Even so, neither the city nor the county has unveiled financing details or funding sources for those projects.
Instead, the city and county have only confirmed that a new basketball arena for the Spurs could be part of the project. However, that depends on whether Bexar County voters approve increasing the county visitor tax to 2% to help publicly finance the basketball facility.
Early voting runs from now through Oct. 31. Polls will reopen between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. on Election Day, Nov. 4. More information about where and when to vote is available at the Bexar County Elections Department’s website.
Sign Up for SA Current newsletters.
Follow us: Apple News | Google News | NewsBreak | Reddit | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | Or sign up for our RSS Feed
