SAN ANTONIO – Tenants at a low-cost apartment complex want the San Antonio City Council to delay a vote on a proposed downtown baseball stadium that would force them out in waves over the next five years.
Council members are scheduled to vote Thursday morning on the broad strokes of a plan between the city, Bexar County, San Antonio Missions, and downtown developer Weston Urban for a $160 million minor league stadium along San Pedro Creek. Weston Urban’s co-founders, Graham Weston and CEO Randy Smith, are also part of the Missions ownership group, Designated Bidders.
The project hinges on redeveloping the area around the 4,500-seat ballpark to create new tax revenue that can help pay off the stadium’s construction costs.
The Soap Factory’s 381 units, spread among three clusters of buildings at the intersection of North Santa Rosa Street and West Martin Street, would be demolished between October 2025 and September 2029 and be replaced with new mixed-use, multifamily development, Smith said.
The news has left the tenants worried that affordable, downtown living may slip from their grasp. And though Weston Urban and city officials have plans to help displaced residents find new apartments, the tenants aren’t convinced.
“The residents haven’t been a part of it. Then why should they have the vote at all?” resident James Boscher asked a cheering crowd during a “community forum” Monday night outside the complex’s leasing office.
It was a change of tune for Boscher, who had previously spoken to KSAT alongside his girlfriend, Brooklyn Ramos, on Friday.
The couple said they only learned about the plans for the Soap Factory’s demolition after they moved into their 360-square-foot studio apartment in late August. Though the space is small, they say they pay less than $800 per month, including utilities.
Boscher and Ramos told KSAT on Friday that they didn’t expect to be able to stop the stadium project, but they wanted guaranteed housing in the area at similar rates and money to help move.
Boscher’s opinion shifted after taking part in a Sunday meeting that included Randy Smith and three city council members. It seemed clear, Boscher told KSAT on Monday, that council members didn’t have enough information and that Weston Urban “didn’t have any actual guarantees.”
Also in the crowd on Monday, listening to Boscher and other frustrated residents, were eight of the 11 members of the city council, City Manager Erik Walsh, and representatives from the Missions and Weston Urban.
Smith briefly addressed the residents, noting the complex’s redevelopment would be a “long process.”
He did not go into the specifics of the displacement plan during his remarks. However, he was part of a detailed media briefing with city officials earlier in the afternoon where it was laid out.
Residents who would be pushed out in the earlier development phases would have the option of temporarily moving into other Soap Factory units, which would eventually be demolished as well.
They would also be offered spots at the Continental Block, another Weston Urban complex that’s expected to be finished in late 2025 or early 2026. The building includes 145 income-restricted units.
The group Building Brighter Communities would also provide “housing navigation” help to residents who don’t want to move into the Continental.
Opportunity Home, formerly the San Antonio Housing Authority (SAHA), also says it has about 380 openings at its mixed-income properties across the city.
Weston Urban would pay for moving expenses, but only within the Soap Factory or to other properties it owns.
Though the Soap Factory is technically market-rate housing, Smith says the units’ small size and the condition of the complex has allowed monthly rents to stay low.
The Soap Factory’s website in late August listed rent for studio apartments as low as $682, one-bedrooms starting at $765, and two-bedrooms starting at $1,245.
Meanwhile, the average rent for downtown is $1,590, according to the website Rent Cafe.
However, Smith says the buildings are approaching functional obsolescence and have not been well maintained. Smith said. They also wouldn’t be able to be built in the same style today.
“This is a property that needs to be redeveloped,” he told KSAT.
“We have been the owner for, as you know, a very short period of time. And the redevelopment of these into the density that the city requires, is something that we believe is best.”
Smith says a site like the Soap Factory would need to be designed with more than 1,000 units. The stadium development as a whole, across all properties, could create 1,500 housing units.
NOTE – A broadcast version of this story incorrectly stated the council vote is scheduled for Wednesday. It is actually scheduled for Thursday. The error has been corrected in the web story above.