An anti-displacement sign made by tenants stands near the Soap Factory Apartments’ pool on Monday. Credit: Adam Doe

Tenants at the Soap Factory Apartments — the low-cost downtown housing complex slated for demolition — who have already moved out will get their long-awaited $2,500 relocation stipends before the new year, city officials confirmed Thursday afternoon.

The city’s release of a timeline for the payments may draw to close months of questions Soap Factory residents have posed about the payments.

Some who have already relocated from the complex — which is scheduled to be torn down to make way for a proposed minor-league baseball stadium development — said they expected cash already and need it to cover moving expenses.

In September, San Antonio City Council entered an agreement with real-estate developer Weston Urban under which tenants at the apartments were promised a $2,500 stipend as long as they vacated by September 2025.

Weston Urban, which purchased the Soap Factory in 2023, wants to demolish it to make way for luxury condominiums around the proposed stadium.

Some Soap Factory residents left the complex when their leases expired in the months following council’s approval of the deal. However, neither the city nor Weston Urban contacted them about the payments, those former tenants said.

Then, last week, after months of uncertainty, City Manager Erik Walsh and Weston Urban clarified that they couldn’t make the relocation payments until the San Antonio Independent School District entered into negotiations to sell a 2.3-acre parcel of land wanted as part of the ballpark development project.

SAISD’s board of trustees voted Monday to begin negotiations, finally freeing up the cash, according to city officials. The city’s Walsh wrote in a letter to SAISD Superintendent Jaimie Aquino that the Soap Factory’s management team will disburse the funds.

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This article appears in Dec 11-17, 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,...