The roughly 11,000-square-foot warehouse, 1606 N. Colorado St., near Culebra Road, is “a beautiful building,” with an exterior of D’Hanis brick, he said in a phone interview. Adelman declined to say which brewery he's talking with.
On September 24, he purchased the property, whose last occupant was a company called AB Foam Concrete Supplies, through a shell company, county deed records show. In October of last year, he bought an adjacent property at 1618 N. Colorado St., which is home to a 3,000-square-foot commercial building he will likely seek to demolish, he said. Together, the properties amount to slightly less than 1.1 acres.
Adelman, known for building trendy downtown projects such as The ’68 apartments at Hemisfair and refurbishing the Maverick Apartments on East Houston Street, has shown a predilection for planning new developments in former industrial areas not far from downtown. In May, he and a partner bought a warehouse at 410 Probandt St. with plans to capitalize on the development of the adjacent Lone Star Brewery.“If you try to go into [an existing] neighborhood, that can be disruptive and challenging,” Adelman said. The area around his recent purchase, on the other hand, is “industrial, so no one is going to complain. The G-word isn’t going to come up.”
The “G-word,” or gentrification, will likely be more of a problem for the 122-unit apartment building that he and a partner, local businessman Barclay Anthony, hope to build at 900 W. Houston St. in west downtown. The area separates downtown from the near West Side and isn’t heavily populated, but much of it comprises the Cattleman Square Historic District and has become the battle ground for West Side preservationists who are trying to save the old commercial buildings from being razed to make room for new construction. A wave of development is already begun from west downtown toward the Alazan Creek and the near West Side since the University of Texas at San Antonio announced three years ago it was going to expand its downtown campus, which anchors the area.
Adelman and Anthony are asking the city’s Historic and Design Review Commission (HDRC) for permission to tear down two historic buildings that currently occupy the West Houston site. The case is currently under review and has not yet been scheduled for an HDRC meeting, according to the website of the city’s Office of Historic Preservation.
For the North Colorado site, Adelman touted its proximity to downtown and San Antonio College, which he mentioned had recently won the Aspen Prize for Community College Excellence. The Fredericksburg Road commercial corridor is only a couple of blocks away.
He hopes to begin renovation work as soon as he can bring in a tenant. The building is in “reasonable” condition, he said
“It’s a little bit of a blank canvas over there, obviously,” he said of the area. “I hope to see the neighborhood continue to evolve.”
The Five Points neighborhood has been getting attention from entrepreneurs lately. The San Antonio Express-News reported earlier this week that local chef Michael Sohocki is planning to relocate his River Walk eatery Restaurant Gwendolyn and his ramen shop Kimura to the building at 1017 N. Flores St. formerly occupied by 5 Points Local.
The San Antonio Heron is a nonprofit news organization dedicated to informing its readers about the changes to downtown and the surrounding communities.
