Graffiti App created for City of San Antonio

Posted on February 18, 2011 by - Uncategorized

Below is a press release sent out today describing the new app created on Android to allow for real-time and geo-specific reporting of graffiti sites in and around San Antonio. I just downloaded it for my HTC Incredible and will be testing it out very soon around Southtown. Together we can all help eliminate graffiti. (The iPhone app will be out in about six weeks.)

Release Date: February 18, 2011
City of San Antonio Communications Office: 207-7234
Now reporting graffiti is just an app away

Reporting graffiti in San Antonio just got a touch easier. The City’s Graffiti Abatement Program has teamed up with App-Order.com to create “mySanAntonioTX” smart phone application that will allow residents with Android phones to send real time graffiti information and photos to the department.

Android users can download the “mySanAntonioTX” application for free from the Android Market. Once installed, users simply open the application and follow the prompts to take a picture of the graffiti and then submit the information. Using a built-in global positioning system the application will attach a location to the picture and send the information to the Graffiti Abatement Program. The electronic submissions will then be routed to the appropriate City staff or outside agency. Residents can also choose to receive updates on the status of their request.

“This program will give many residents a new and more efficient way to inform the City about graffiti issues,” said David D. Garza, director, Code Enforcement Services Department. “By making the complaint identification process more convenient, we will be able to rid our neighborhoods of the blight even faster.”

The “mySanAntonioTX” application was created at no cost to the City. App-Order.com develops Smartphone apps with web interfaces for government and private industry customers throughout the United States.

Residents with iPhones are expected to be able to obtain the “mySanAntonioTX” within the next six weeks. For more information on this new program, call Lisa McKenzie, graffiti abatement coordinator, Code Enforcement Services Department at 207-5430.

Express-News spotlights King William Realty

Posted on December 26, 2010 by - Uncategorized

I was recently featured in the Sunday Express-News Real Estate cover article. Several of our listing were also highlighted.

Downtown Houses. Charm, space in urban homes
By Ana Ley
[email protected]
Sunday, December 19, 2010

People seeking the excitement of an urban pad often have to compromise on living space. But there are plenty of places to find single-family homes just south of downtown.

This area is ideal for people who seek a social environment and a central location. Houses there are generally older and have interesting architectural details, and they usually are close to restaurants and the art scene. They’re also roomier than the apartments and condominiums traditionally associated with downtown.

“There’s always something to do, and everything is so close and walkable,” said Curtis Bowers with King William Realty, who has lived in the Lavaca Historic District for the past four years. “It’s unlike anywhere else in San Antonio.”

The King William Historic District offers homes from around the $200,000s to multimillion-dollar mansions. The 25-block area on the south bank of the San Antonio River was the most elegant residential area in the city in the late 1800s, according to the King William Association. Prominent German merchants originally settled the area, which was zoned as the state’s first historic district.King William also has two districts recognized by the National Register of Historic Places, as well as individual properties that are recognized for their historical significance.

The 526 Mission Street home, located in the King William Historic District near the Eagleland segment of the River Walk and the Blue Star Arts Complex, has been remodeled and features a single gar garage with two off-street parking spaces. the home's French doors open onto a large deck and yard. Listing price is $229,000.

This contemporary renovation at 526 Mission St. in King William has two bedrooms and two bathrooms. Built in 1940, it has plenty of natural light and Ikea kitchen appliances.

The Germans who moved to San Antonio began building mansions with various architectural styles, such as Greek Revival, Victorian and Italianate. Ernst Altgelt, the first to build on current-day King William Street, is believed to have named the street after King Wilhelm I of Prussia.

In the 1920s, many of the mansions were turned into apartments, and young professionals eventually rediscovered King William and began a renaissance that continues to this day. The district was expanded in 1984 to include a neighborhood of cottages south of Alamo Street.

“The biggest attraction is the historical homes,” said Zet Bear with the King William Association.

The garden home, at 414 Madison St., has an open-entry gallery with a large side courtyard. The three-bedroom, three-bath house has a large screened balcony off its master bedroom. The home also has high ceilings and polished concrete floors. It has a listing price of $659,000.

This garden home is at 414 Madison St. It has an open-entry gallery with a large side courtyard. The three-bedroom, three-bath house also has a screened balcony.

The Madison Street garden home has high ceilings and polished concrete floors. It has a listing price of $659,000.

Lavaca, just east of King William, is a more affordable alternative. Homes there currently are priced from the $70,000s to about $500,000.

The area is a hub for local artists, and residents say its diversity makes it one of the most vibrant places in San Antonio. Many older houses there have been remodeled by homeowners, creating a collage of individual tastes and colors.

Bowers’ Lavaca home is a yellow Victorian that he and his wife decorated with modern art created by artists from the area.

“We have a friend who’s an art dealer,” Bowers said. “We’ll walk around at night and always run into friends.”

Lavaca’s residential sector is also among the oldest in the San Antonio area that has survived into modern times. The neighborhood is surrounded on the north by East Durango Boulevard, on the south by the Union Pacific railroad tracks, on the east by U.S. 281, and on the west by South St. Mary’s Street.

Architecture in the neighborhood is defined by small 19th-century vernacular houses built primarily by working-class families beginning in the early 1870s. Around this time, San Antonians were building bigger homes nearby in the King William neighborhood. Among the neighborhood’s original residents were carpenters, stonemasons, shopkeepers, clerks, tailors, bartenders, teamsters and butchers.

The houses are mostly one story with some two-story buildings scattered throughout the area. They range from very simple homes to highly decorated ones, from stone cottages to Victorian and Craftsman houses. There also are a few Neoclassical homes in the area.

King William and Lavaca are divided by a region commonly referred to as Southtown, the area’s commercial corridor, which is home to popular spots such as the Blue Star Contemporary Art Center, the Sterling Houston Theater and Mad Hatter’s Tea House & Café.“It has an eclectic lifestyle,” said René Guerrero, former president of the Southtown Chamber of Commerce and King William resident. “And you get to enjoy the quiet part of the River Walk.”

Built in 1920, this four-bedroom home is steps away from the River Walk and has an upstairs balcony with a view of downtown San Antonio. Historic features include a stone fireplace and a coffered ceiling. The house, at 206 E. Arsenal St., has off-street parking with room for a garage. The 2,409 square-foot home is priced at $415,000.

Mike McClain, a former suburbanite, said he enjoys downtown area living because of the area’s contemporary art community. The Dallas native is living at the Pearl Brewery complex while he and an architect design a new home in the downtown area.

“There’s just a lot of wonderful culture,” McClain said. “The thought of having short commutes to galleries and art shows is just so appealing.”

Downtown plan is crucial, contends exiting Convention & Visitors Bureau boss

Posted on December 14, 2010 by - Uncategorized

This is a great article recently written by W.Scott Bailey and posted in the San Antonio Business Journal on November 5, 2010. Scott White and others make the strong case that while San Antonio thrives on tourism we need to be deliberate in creating a more “authentic” feel with greater emphasis on local neighborhoods and local artists in places like Southtown.

Scott White, outgoing director of the San Antonio Convention & Visitors Bureau, says the Alamo City can boost its hospitality industry if local leaders can create a master plan for downtown that better connects and utilizes existing assets and which lures more residents.

White, who is leaving later this month to become president and CEO of the Palm Springs Desert Resorts Convention and Visitors Authority in California, says hospitality industry officials must also work with government officials to integrate tourism with economic development.

“These things are interconnected and I really think the tourism leaders understand that and support that,” White says.

Tourism is a multibillion-dollar industry in San Antonio. But the Alamo City faces increased competition as other markets continue to make investments in their infrastructure and changes to their game plans.

One of the things San Antonio needs if it hopes to continue to grow its hospitality industry, White maintains, is a “master plan for downtown.”

Ben Brewer, president of Downtown Alliance San Antonio, agrees. And he says that plan should call for a “substantial addition” of new residential units. He says that component is necessary for center city revitalization and sustainability and to further reinforce San Antonio as a world class destination.

“Great downtowns are lived in, and ours should be no exception,” he says.

White says San Antonio must address the migration of people and businesses to suburbia.

“It’s happened in a number of cities,” he explains. “The further out you go, the land becomes cheaper. Developers take advantage of that.”

White says its “vital” that San Antonio leaders work to reverse that trend, that they come up with a way to attract residents to the center city.

More authenticity
Robert Thrailkill, general manager of the Hilton Palacio del Rio hotel, says San Antonio does indeed need a cohesive plan for downtown so it can attract more residents and visitors to the city’s center.

“It’s a very important priority,” he says. “We’ve got to do this.”

Thrailkill says the residential component is important because it’s the livability factor which can attract more visitors to an urban area.

“It’s about creating more authenticity,” he says. “That’s what people are looking for in great cities.”

One way San Antonio can entice more of its people to move downtown is to encourage more of its larger employers to move their operations to the center city.

“My hope is that we get our act together and determine what it will take to bring some corporations downtown,” he says. “It’s critical.”

White says San Antonio can grow its hospitality industry by better leveraging some of its existing downtown assets. He points to the Southtown arts district and historic St. Paul Square as examples of urban areas more people, including cultural tourists, would want to explore if they were more visible and accessible.

“What a difference that could make,” White says.

San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro is optimistic that local leaders will find ways to breathe new life into this city’s historic downtown.

In fact, Castro has referred to this as the “decade of downtown,” while pushing for the redevelopment of HemisFair Park and for other infrastructure needed to grow the residential population in the center city.

Connecting the dots
White says Centro Partnership, a new nonprofit corporation tasked with creating public-private support for downtown improvements, could be instrumental in helping bring about necessary changes.

“You’ve just got to create the vehicle that can cut through the red tape,” he says. “Hopefully this (partnership) won’t get mired in politics.”

Hixon Properties Inc.’s Jack Spector, one of the “incorporators” who filed documents with the State of Texas in July establishing Centro Partnership, says San Antonio has lacked a “unified vision” for downtown. But Spector believes the new partnership can be an “agent for change.”

San Antonio has lured millions of visitors annually to its River Walk because of its unique appeal. Local leaders would like to create more foot traffic at the street level.

“San Antonio needs to figure out what it can do at the street level to complement (the River Walk),” White says.

He believes San Antonio should develop more creative spaces at the street level for artists and musicians.

“Visitors are attracted to places that are real and not contrived,” Brewer contends. “By growing the downtown neighborhood, real places that are frequented by locals from the center city and the suburbs will be established. That is where our visitors coming to San Antonio will choose to hang and dine and frequent.”

White believes the Alamo City has the leadership in place that is needed to create and carry out a comprehensive plan for downtown San Antonio.

“The next 10 years for San Antonio are critical,” he says. “There are so many opportunities. The assets are all there. San Antonio just needs to connect them all.”

Renting Downtown

Posted on August 19, 2010 by - Uncategorized

***This post was originally published in August 2010 and has become one of the most read posts of my blog. Due to its popularity I’ve moved it to the landing page on my site. Please click here for the list that I keep up-to-date as a lot more inventory has been developed over the past couple of years. Places to Rent in Downtown and Southtown ***

 

Four years ago I moved from the northern suburbs to Milmo Lofts off S. Flores and Durango. I found it very difficult to track down an apartment as there wasn’t a formal list of places or a website that had everything listed. Also at that time I was just getting my real estate license so I didn’t have access to the MLS or really even know any good downtown real estate experts.
Fast forward four year and A LOT has changed!!! I’m now a downtown real estate specialist, friends with all the other downtown agents, and the demand for downtown living as spawned several new downtown apartment complexes.

Jennifer Hiller at the Express-News wrote this great article.

A few years ago, people who wanted to rent an apartment downtown took whatever they could find because the options were so limited.
Now, however, there’s a bigger variety of housing downtown and renters are more likely to be able to choose between small studio spaces, rental homes or large lofts — without the expense and hassle of making a big down payment on a mortgage.

“You don’t have to buy downtown. You can rent,” said Lisa Schmidt, a downtown resident and real estate agent.

While San Antonio’s downtown still is in the early stages of residential demand compared to other major cities, living downtown is drawing in more and more people who are lured by what the lifestyle has to offer.

Many of the new downtown renters are military people who have been transferred to San Antonio as part of the growth at Fort Sam Houston under the Base Realignment and Closure process, said Debra Maltz, a broker and real estate agent with Centro Properties.

“The BRAC folks have made a difference. A lot of them don’t want to buy because they know they’re here for a finite period,” Maltz said. “They’re used to living in other cities downtown. I think that’s had an effect on downtown. They like the whole concept of living in a closer-knit community, which downtown offers.”

Young singles long have been attracted to downtown rentals, but Maltz said that now empty nesters are selling larger homes and trying out urban living.

They’ll often rent for a year to decide if they like the lifestyle.

Some of the newest large rental properties include the Vistana, a 247-unit Art Deco-inspired apartment building that opened in 2009 on

North Santa Rosa and the 66-unit St. Benedict’s on South Alamo Street, a King William-area project originally planned as condos but converted to a successful rental development.

The San Antonio Housing Authority recently opened HemisView Village Apartments across from HemisFair Park.

Although a handful of the 245 units are set aside for public housing or those who qualify for affordable-housing tax credits, 184 units are being rented at market rate to the general public.

The project includes balconies, a pool, a parking garage, a fitness and amenity center, and many units with big storefront-style windows and views of the Tower of the Americas.

“We’re really proud of the look and the feel,” said Lourdes Castro Ramirez, president and CEO of SAHA.

Market-rate rent ranges from $741 for the smallest units to $1,314 for a three bedroom. And the public housing units are scattered throughout the two buildings, with the idea of creating a true mixed-income community. “It’s definitely the future of public housing,” Ramirez said. “From a financial perspective, it’s the only way you can make project work. From a social policy perspective, you have more role models and an environment where people can socialize across economic groups.”

Although it’s not in downtown proper, new rental units soon will be available at the Pearl Brewery’s new Culinary Institute of America building, just north of downtown off of Broadway. The 25,000-square-foot structure will house several restaurants and be neighbor to apartments, the Twig bookstore, a third location for Bike World and a 1,000-seat amphitheater.

But on the upper floors there are also eight apartment units, including two penthouses. Maltz said recently that five units were pre-leased. “There is a huge demand to live at the Pearl Brewery,” she said.

Architect Jim Poteet, a longtime resident of King William who is known for his modern renovations of historic properties, said that for a long time it seemed that home and condo owners were the only ones living downtown. “I think the rise of rental is the thing that’s now bringing people downtown to test the waters. As a format it can be apartments, lofts, faux lofts or condos,” Poteet said.

And more rentals make sense as part of larger economic trends, he said. “I think the economy has shown people that homeownership, that urge to buy a house or to have a house as the cornerstone of your financial portfolio, was overstated. It feeds into a rental trend,” Poteet said. “It’s all to the good for downtown. We need all kinds of housing. We need ownership. We need infill projects. We need rental.”

And if people want to rent a more traditional home, there’s the historic King William and Lavaca neighborhoods, which have some rental homes and smaller offerings, such as garage apartments. Maltz recently rented a new contemporary house that’s tucked into Lavaca.

“You see infill housing a lot in Houston and Dallas. I think it’s wonderful that we are starting to see it here,” Maltz said. “It’s so expressive and so urban.”

Some of the places where you can rent downtown:

12welve 2wenty1 Loft Apartments – 210.354.1212

235 E. Commerce Apartments

Majestic Towers/Brady Bldg Apartments, 222 E. Houston St. – 210.224.1144

Pearl Brewery, 306 E. Grayson St.

Vistana, 100 N. Santa Rosa Ave. – 210.226.5638

720-724 N. Saint Mary’s Apts.

Blue Star Residences and Lofts, 1410 S. Alamo St. – 210.225.6743

The Brackenridge at Midtown, – 210-822-2500 (Opening January 2014)

Cadillac Lofts, 317 Lexington Ave. – 210.223.5638

Calcasieu Building Apartments, 214 Broadway – 210.472.1262

Can Plant Residences at Pearl, 503 Ave. A

Casa Lavaca, 502 Eager St.

Cevallos Lofts – 866.295.0250

Dielmann Lofts, 710 S. Medina St. – 210.223.1178

Exchange Building, 152 E. Pecan St.

Granada Apartments, 301-11 S. St. Mary’s St. – 210.225.2645

HemisView Village, 401 Santos St. – 210.212.8808

Losoya Building, 221 Losoya

Marie C. McAguire Apartments, 211 N. Alamo St. – 210.477-6378

Maverick Apartments, 606 N. Presa St. – 210.886.9555

Metro House, 213 4th St. – 210.271.0051

Milmo Lofts, 319 S. Flores St. – 210.223.1178

Morris Apartments, 128 E. Main Plaza – 210.225.3188

Palacio del Sol, 400 N. Frio St – 210.224.0442

Refugio Place, 300 Labor St.

Reuter Building, 217-219 Alamo Plaza

Robert E. Lee Apartments, 111 W. Travis St. – 210.354.1611 email: robert_e_lee_apts AT prm DOTCOM

Soap Works Apartments, 500 N. Santa Rosa Ave. – 210.223.9500

The Madison, Madison at Beauregard streets – 210.544.5416

Tobin Lofts, N. Main at San Antonio College Campus – 888-696-3145 (You must be a student of any higher education institution in the US.)

Toltec Apartments, 131 Taylor St.

Town Center Apartments, 601 N. Santa Rosa Ave.

Villa Hermosa, 327 N. Flores St. – 210.477.6611

Whitherspoon Building, 601 N. Alamo St.

 

Source: Downtown Alliance