By Ben Olivo | @rbolivo | Heron editor
Oxbow Development Group is moving forward with plans to build a 9-story mixed-use structure, which would include 250-275 market-rate apartments, on a full city block bound by East Josephine, Isleta, East Grayson and the San Antonio River.
On Jan. 1, Oxbow split off from the Pearl; Silver Ventures is now the parent company of Pearl, Oxbow and Potluck Hospitality. [ *** See correction below. ]
It would be the fifth apartment development by Oxbow since it completed the 293-unit Can Plant in 2012, while significantly expanding the Pearl’s footprint north of East Grayson.
Currently, a 34,500-square-foot industrial building sits on the property at 102 E. Josephine St., on the other side of Velvet Taco (formerly Tacoland) on the Museum Reach stretch of the river.
The company received approval without discussion from the Zoning Commission on Tuesday to rezone the 2.2-acre property from a general industrial designation to High Density IDZ that permits a bar/tavern and multifamily usage at 140 units per acre.
The ground floor will be a mixture of office and retail, Omar Gonzalez, Oxbow’s director of development, said after the meeting.
“We want to do some commercial retail that the neighborhood has been asking for and make this area feel a little more like a neighborhood,” Gonzalez said of this section of Tobin Hill and East Josephine, where nearly 3,000 apartments are either under construction or in the planning stage.
Gonzalez said the building will also include a rooftop bar with “amazing views over the river, and with Pearl in front and downtown behind.”
He also said the building will include parking for its residents, but also for the general public.
“We’ll have around the range of 250 public parking spaces that would accommodate, not just the uses in the building, but also folks who want to go to some of the amenities at Pearl or beyond Pearl,” Gonzalez said.
Construction is expected to start in the first or second quarter of 2024, and take 2½ years to build, putting completion date in late 2026, said Kristina Good, Oxbow’s development manager.
The public is expected to get its first look at the unnamed mixed-use building sometime early next year, possibly in February, when Oxbow plans to present its design concept to the city’s Historic and Design Review Commission.
Oxbow has tapped the team of Don B. McDonald (San Antonio) as design architect and Kirksey Architecture (Houston) as architect of record for the project; McDonald also designed the Credit Human and Oxbow mid-rise office buildings on Broadway, among other Pearl-built or Pearl-led structures.
“The architecture will look complementary to Pearl, but it also wants to feel like it’s a neighborhood amenity,” Gonzalez said. “Because we are kind of separate from the critical mass of Pearl, kind of on the other side of Grayson, I think it will feel a little bit different, too.”
Gonzalez said Oxbow is not pursuing incentives from the city or county at this time. It’s worth noting that the company has received tax subsidies in the form of tax rebates from the city of San Antonio on all of the Pearl’s multifamily developments.
In September 2020, Silver Ventures purchased the full city block from Illinois company Glenmorangie LLC.
[ Heron archive: Pearl developer Silver Ventures buys full city block on Museum Reach | Nov. 16, 2020 ]
The areas of Tobin Hill outside Pearl’s traditional footprint are bustling with construction activity.
Oxbow is currently building a 265-unit, 7-story apartment building on East Elmira Street, on the other side of the river from Pearl, which will join its other projects Can Plant, the 122-unit Cellars at Pearl (opened 2017), and the 223-unit Southline Residences (opened 2019).
About a block west of this property, across from Nathaniel Hawthorne Academy, The Lynd Co. and Opportunity Home San Antonio are partnering on a 259-unit mixed-income apartment building with no retail, which is currently under construction. Behind the academy, Embrey Partners is nearing completion on its 338-unit Tin Top Flats building.
Up Josephine, where the street meets the St. Mary’s Strip, California developer Jake Harris is planning a 1,000-unit, mixed-use development on nearly six acres of land, an ambitious project for its size and also its heavy retail components.
*** Correction: An earlier version of this update misstated the relationship between the Pearl and Oxbow Development Group. They, along with Potluck Hospitality, are owned by Silver Ventures.
Oxbow East Josephine development
» Address: 102 E. Josephine St.
» Developer: Oxbow Development Group
» Property owner: Oxbow Development Group
» Type: Residential mixed-use
» New or reuse: New
» Status: Planning stage
» Height: 9 stories
» Land size: 2.2 acres
» Rent or buy: Rent
» Total units: 250-275
» Market rate: 250-275
» 80% AMI: None
» 70% AMI: None
» 60% AMI: None
» 50% AMI: None
» 40% AMI: None
» 30% AMI: None
» Student Units: None
» Section 8: None
» Retail: Yes (square footage unknown)
» Office: Yes (square footage unknown)
» Hotel: None
» Parking: 250 spaces
» Construction start date: Early 2023
» End date: Late 2026
» Architect: Design architect Don B. McDonald (San Antonio), architect of record Kirksey Architecture (Houston)
» Cost: Unknown
» Investors: Unknown
» Financing: Unknown
» San Antonio Incentives: N/A
» SAWS Fee Waivers: N/A
» City Fee Waivers: N/A
» City Loans: N/A
» Est. City Property Tax Rebate: N/A
» Tax increment reinvestment zone (TIRZ): N/A
» Bexar County incentives: N/A
» Texas incentives: N/A
» Federal incentives: N/A
» Total public subsidy: N/A
» Cashflow/ROI: Unknown
» Affordable housing fund (City of San Antonio) contribution: N/A
Timeline
Nov. 15, 2022
The Zoning Commission approves the rezoning of the property at 120 E. Josephine St. from a general industrial designation to High Density IDZ that permits a bar/tavern and multifamily usage at 140 units per acre. The item is passed on the consent agenda.
September 2020
Silver Ventures purchases 2.2-acre property at 102 E. Josephine St. from from Illinois company Glenmorangie LLC. Read more.
“We have no plans for the property and won’t likely for a few years,” Bill Shown, Silver Ventures’ managing director for real estate, said at the time. “In the meantime we’re using it for storage, office space and parking.”
Heron Editor Ben Olivo has been writing about downtown San Antonio since 2008, first for mySA.com, then for the San Antonio Express-News. He co-founded the Heron in 2018, and can be reached at 210-421-3932 | ben@saheron.com | @rbolivo on Twitter
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