This story has been updated.
Dan Markson, who, as NRP Group’s executive vice president of development, lead the creation of more than 8,000 apartments in San Antonio the last 16 years, including some of the downtown area’s most recognizable dwellings, died Saturday morning. He was 59.
Cleveland-based NRP Group announced his death in a statement Sunday. No cause of death was announced.
“San Antonio lost a man who cared deeply for the city and its people,” Travis Sheffield, NRP Group’s vice president of development, said in a brief statement to the Heron.
Markson co-founded NRP Group’s Texas office in 2003. In recent years, with Markson at the helm, NRP Group built apartment projects Cevallos Lofts in Southtown, The Baldwin at St. Paul and the Tobin Lofts at San Antonio College, among others. The company in recent years also partnered with the San Antonio Housing Authority for the three-phased redevelopment of San Juan Homes on the West Side into San Juan Square and the Gardens at San Juan Square. Currently, preliminary construction work has begun on The Flats at River North, a massive 283-unit apartment complex along the growing Broadway corridor at Jones Avenue.
“In his career, Dan was responsible for the production of as many affordable housing units in our city as anybody that I am aware of,” David Adelman, local developer and founding chairman of the Urban Land Institute San Antonio, said in a statement. “He was also responsible for so many more market rate units as well.”
Ten years ago, under Markson, NRP Group began partnering with an city-created nonprofit called the San Antonio Housing Trust Public Facility Corp. on the Cevallos Lofts—a deal encouraged under an obscure state law that provided NRP Group with a full property tax exemption in exchange for lower-income rents.
“Dan Markson was a pioneer in developing affordable apartment communities,” Mayor Ron Nirenberg said in a statement. “Dan was a visionary. He was a businessman, who incorporated a commitment to public service in his work. The Dan Markson I will remember was still in a neck brace when he was pushing his son during the Martin Luther King march a few years ago.”
In a statement, state Sen. Jose Menendez said Markson’s impact would be felt through NRP Group’s apartment developments throughout the city.
“All of these residential communities have provided the foundation for greater public and private investment, which has led to more high quality, sustainable, affordable communities that have strengthened the neighborhoods in which they are found,” Menendez said.
This morning, a graveside funeral service for Markson was scheduled to be held at Temple Beth El cemetery.
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Contact Ben Olivo: 210-421-3932 | ben@saheron.com | @rbolivo on Twitter