The University of Texas at San Antonio plans to buy a downtown office building as part of its effort to fill the city center with thousands of students and employees in the coming years.
The San Antonio Express-News reports that the proposed purchase of One Riverwalk Place at 700 N. St. Mary’s St. is part of a plan to have some 10,000 students living, attending classes and conducting research downtown by 2028.
Officials say the downtown expansion is inspired by the transformation in Phoenix after Arizona State University built a campus in that city's downtown.
So far, the University of Texas at San Antonio has brought several thousand students to the area and has more than doubled its downtown real-estate holdings over the past five years.
Its properties includes its campus west of downtown; its Southwest campus near Central Library; San Pedro I, a $91.8 million, 167,000-square-foot building occupied by the School of Data Science and the National Security Collaboration Center; and San Pedro II, a $131 million, 180,000-square-foot building that will be used for technology and science programs and research.
Corrina Green, the university's associate vice president of real estate, construction and planning, declined to disclose what the university would pay for the circa-1981 One Riverwalk Place building.
UTSA’s proposed purchase of the 18-story building comes as the downtown office market is struggling. Owners have expeirenced declining demand for space, plunging property values and high interest rates in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.
USAA moved out of One Riverwalk Place in 2022 and the building’s assessed value has since plummeted 37.3% to $22.25 million.
Along with One Riverwalk Place, the university also is seeking to buy a cluster of dilapidated buildings and parking spaces next to San Pedro I. After both deals close, the university would own roughly 48 acres totaling 2.1 million square feet in the downtown area.
The university would fill six floors of the nearly 265,000-square-foot One Riverwalk Place with academic departments and support services.
Six or seven floors are occupied by businesses and the university would continue leasing out that space, Green said.
The acquisition requires approval from the University of Texas System Board of Regents, which will vote on it later this month.
