Another New San Antonio Spurs Arena?
The San Antonio Spurs want to construct a new $1.2 billion basketball arena in the downtown area. Recent reports are circulating that the organization is working with City officials to figure out a plan to finance the project. Writer Madison Iszer, in her 2024 article for The San Antonio Express News, “San Antonio Spurs want to build a new $1.2B downtown arena. Could taxpayers be on the hook?”writes, “Spurs Sports & Entertainment is proposing footing the bill for about one-fifth of the planned arena, say the sources, who requested anonymity. And the NBA franchise owner is eyeing a city-controlled downtown tax zone to help pay for the project.”
San Antonio, particularly in the downtown area, has historically been the nucleus where all revenue generating attractions have been focused. But in envisioning what could help revitalize and regenerate activity and revenue lost due to the COVID-19 Coronavirus pandemic, this has polarized taxpayers.
There have been and still are various iterations of premiere multi-purpose arenas that have been built to help San Antonio compete with other equivalent city arenas such as the Toyota Center and the Astrodome in Houston, the Superdome in New Orleans, and the American Airlines Center in Dallas. There has been the former HemisFair Arena, built in 1968 to coincide with the World Fair. This arena really revolutionized basketball being a revenue machine in San Antonio.
Spurs First 20 Seasons at HemisFair Arena Before Demolishment
According to an archived 2018 San Antonio Express News article, HemisFair Arena once was “…the city’s main venue for big-scale entertainment, including the Spurs’ first 20 seasons.” In a statement from the late businessman BJ “Red” McCombs, “I’ve been involved in a lot of things that were significant for San Antonio,” the local billionaire said. “But when people ask me what was the most important, the answer is easy — the Spurs. It put us on another level, and it wouldn’t have happened without HemisFair Arena…Nobody envisioned the Arena for basketball because nobody here watched basketball in those days.”
The Spurs Move to Alamodome in 1993
The arena was eventually demolished in 1995 after the San Antonio Spurs acquired a new arena built in 1993, known as the Alamodome, constructed at nearly 200 million dollars. From the 1990’s into the 2000’s, the Alamodome served as the cornerstone of downtown activity for the San Antonio Spurs, culminating in five NBA Championships in 1999, 2003, 2007, and 2014, respectively. But the Spurs would soon move on to another new arena, the Frost Bank Center, previously known as the SBC and later AT&T center, respectively. The Spurs then left this arena in favor of the current prospective arena. Is this necessary?
What About The Frost Bank Center $101.5 Million Renovation in 2015?
As Iszler writes, “another big question for taxpayers: What about the Frost Bank Center? The $186 million arena, which can hold around 19,000 fans, opened in 2002 and was renovated in 2015 for $101.5 million. The team hasn’t publicly said why it’s looking to leave the facility, which it leases from Bexar County, though some outsiders have said it lacks the trappings of a modern arena. Hopes that the East Side arena would draw more businesses to the neighborhoods around it never materialized — a fact Spurs and city officials will have to address if they roll out plans for a downtown facility.”
Taxpayers to Face Increased Taxes and Many Additional Challenges
Perhaps the reason why it never materialized is because based on the context of what has taken place over the past nearly 60 years, the San Antonio Spurs has a pattern of constructing a new multi-purpose arena, capitalize off of the fresh and new feeling, and then after a decade or so, moves on to the next big new thing, leaving the incumbent arenas unused, miskept, and eventually, in the case of the old HemisFair arena, demolished. And once again, the taxpayers might not only be footing the bills but dealing with the aftermath of traffic backup due to construction, skyrocketing costs of living perpetuated by the influx of people relocating to San Antonio, and once again, asking the question, “is this a nice to have or a need to have ?” given the struggling economic state of San Antonio communities outside of downtown.
