USAA doubled its downtown workforce Monday by adding more than 270 tech employees into One Riverwalk Place, 700 N. St. Mary’s St. The employees join 200 USAA employees already working at the building, which the company purchased in 2013.
Currently, USAA is renovating four floors of the adjacent 28-story building at 300 Convent, formerly known as Bank of America Plaza, to make room for another 380 or so workers that will relocate by early 2019. USAA Real Estate Company purchased 300 Convent last August.
In all, more than 650 employees will be making the transition from the company’s University Park Center location. It’s part of nearly $70 million in investment, the city of San Antonio estimates, in what the company is calling its “downtown campus.”
“When the move from University Park is complete, USAA will have approximately 850 employees at the downtown campus,” USAA spokesman Matthew Hartwig said of the pair of buildings just west of the Tobin Center for the Performing Arts.
The company wants to eventually move 2,000 employees to the campus, but there’s no timetable, Hartwig said.
The shuffle coincides with the 200-space expansion of the six-level parking garage connected to One Riverwalk Place, which will bring its total to more than 500 spaces. The project, which will erase Hangar Arc, an obscure street that makes a T with Navarro Street at Hotel Havana, will be completed by mid-2019, Hartwig said.
The garage will be open to the public after 7 p.m. Monday through Thursday, after 6 p.m. on Friday, and all day on weekends.
In December, the City Council approved an incentives deal in which USAA receives a $4 million Chapter 380 economic development loan and a tax rebate capped at $2 million, or over 10 years, whichever comes first. For its part, USAA agreed to bring in 1,500 more jobs to San Antonio, add more public parking and increase its downtown presence, which it’s doing with these moves.
Previously published:
» USAA expansion means more public parking
Featured photo by Ben Olivo
Contact Ben Olivo: 210-421-3932 | ben@saheron.com | @rbolivo on Twitter
Just curious, when a company decides to relocate this many employees downtown, does the city or county do a study to see how traffic will be impacted? In the 7.5 years I worked downtown – 2010-2018 and living near the same freeway on ramp the whole time – I noticed my commute went from about 10 minutes to about 13. While the time difference wasn’t that significant, the increased stress I felt in the more frenzied freeway traffic was overwhelming and on many days I found myself leaving the house earlier to take a longer route on surface streets just to avoid the stress. But I realize I was contributing to more street level traffic. So I’m just wondering how these things are taken into account.
“Adding more parking…” Agree with Sarah. What’s that about? With higher density comes the need for less parking and more public transit and alternative ways to travel. What a nightmare: a 19th century solution to a city who thinks it can develop in the 21st.