Hemisfair will soon offer mural bike tours to connect locals and visitors alike to the vibrant public art of San Antonio. Tours are expected to launch later in the year.
Locally owned business Mural Ride Bike Tours will offer guided art bike and walking tours along with local retail, public e-mobility services and rotating artist exhibits at its new headquarters in the downtown park that’s emerged as a destination for tourists and locals alike.
Mural Ride Bike Tours will take over the Hemisfair’s historic Tynan-Sweeney House “as a hub for art, mobility, and community,” according to park officials. The building sits in the Northwest Zone of Hemisfair along East Nueva Street, directly across from La Villita.
Built in 1868 for Irish immigrant James Sweeney and his family, the Tynan–Sweeney House served as a residence and later a rooming house until 1964. During HemisFair ’68, it operated as Pierre’s Interlude, a Cajun restaurant.
Hemisfair announced the property was available for lease in August of 2025 and took applications through the fall before selecting Mural Ride Bike Tours, officials said. In a statement announcing the leasing opportunity, Hemisfair emphasized the downtown property’s selling points, including the fact that roughly half of the park’s visitors are from Bexar County, while 26% come from across Texas and 22% from out of state.
In 2022, the Hemisfair Conservancy won a Community Project Funding grant of $942,997 from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to support exterior and interior rehabilitation of the Tynan-Sweeney House.
Upgrades funded by the grant include roof replacement, exterior plaster repair, window and door reconstruction, and installation of a courtyard-facing glass wall. Mural Ride Bike Tours officials said they have begun additional renovations to move their business into the building.
“The move to the Tynan-Sweeney House is the natural evolution of a mission for us that started on the streets of San Antonio years ago,” said Mural Ride owner-operator Brian Gregory Benavidez. “For years, we’ve been focused on getting more eyes on San Antonio’s street art and showing how cycling is a real way to move through the downtown corridor.”
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