With Major Institutions Changing Across the Community, Attention Turns to What Will Remain and How Elected Leaders Respond
For generations, San Antonio’s East Side has been home to institutions that became part of the identity of the community — schools, youth programs, neighborhoods and the city’s professional basketball arena. Now, several of those anchors are changing at once.
The Spurs are moving toward a future downtown arena. The Eastside Boys & Girls Club faces changes to its operations. Questions remain about MLK Academy and S.J. Davis Middle School as San Antonio ISD reviews major Bond 2020 expenditures. And the federal government is moving ahead with plans for an immigration detention facility on the East Side.
Each situation has its own circumstances, funding and decision-makers. Taken together, however, they are creating significant change for an area that has spent decades fighting for investment.
For East Side residents, the question is increasingly not simply what is leaving or changing, but what will remain — and what will replace it.
The Spurs Prepare For A Downtown Future
For more than two decades, the Spurs’ home has been on San Antonio’s East Side. Now, plans are advancing for a new downtown arena as part of the sports and entertainment district commonly known as Project Marvel.
For the East Side, the larger issue is what happens to the Frost Bank Center and surrounding area when the Spurs eventually leave.
The arena was presented as an investment in the East Side when voters approved its construction more than two decades ago. Its departure therefore carries significance beyond where basketball games will be played.
An East Side Lifeline Faces Changes
The Eastside Boys & Girls Club has served generations of children and families, providing after-school programs, mentoring, recreation and a place for young people to go when the school day ends.
The Boys & Girls Clubs of San Antonio announced plans to pause operations at its Eastside Clubhouse amid financial challenges affecting the organization.
District 2 Councilman Jalen McKee-Rodriguez stepped in with a temporary lifeline, securing $350,000 in city funding through the Inner City Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone. The first portion of that funding is intended to keep the Eastside Clubhouse operating for three months, with additional funding contingent on the organization presenting a viable plan for financial stability.
The intervention gives the Eastside Clubhouse more time, but a temporary lifeline is different from a permanent solution.
For families who depend on the clubhouse, the stakes are immediate. The Eastside Clubhouse has provided young people with mentors, activities, meals and opportunities that may not otherwise be readily available.
Whether that role continues long-term — and what will be required to sustain it — remains to be determined.
Questions Remain Over MLK Academy And Davis Middle School
The future of MLK Academy and S.J. Davis Middle School is also unresolved. Both East Side campuses were included in SAISD’s voter-approved Bond 2020 program.
Both schools were promised improvements under the bond, and as recently as January, SAISD publicly unveiled a redesign for MLK Academy funded through Bond 2020.
Following the Observer’s reporting on the projects, SAISD Board President and District 2 Trustee Alicia Sebastian emphasized that neither school has been selected for closure and that the projects have not been canceled.
Sebastian said the Board tabled consideration of construction expenditures while it seeks additional information about remaining bond funds, outstanding commitments and the cost of completing projects across the district. Sebastian also acknowledged that families deserve clearer answers about what is being reviewed and what happens next, and agreed that the district is responsible for providing a clear accounting of the remaining Bond 2020 money.
Those answers take on added significance as SAISD asks voters to consider another bond while questions remain about projects approved by voters six years ago.
For East Side families, the question remains: What is the timeline for the Bond 2020 projects at MLK and Davis, and what will the district ultimately decide about the future of both campuses?
A Detention Facility Moves Forward
At the same time longtime East Side institutions face major changes, another kind of facility is moving forward. The federal government purchased a warehouse on San Antonio’s East Side and is proceeding with plans to convert it into an immigration processing and detention center.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement awarded a $17.3 million contract for renovation work connected to the planned facility. Plans have called for a facility capable of holding as many as 1,500 detainees daily. The projects are not connected. They involve different levels of government and different decision-making processes. But geography connects them.
While residents are watching the future of schools, a youth organization and the Spurs’ East Side presence, millions of federal dollars are being directed toward establishing a detention operation in the same part of San Antonio.
East Side Representation
The East Side Has Representation
The East Side is not without elected representation as these changes unfold.
At City Hall, District 2 is represented by Councilman Jalen McKee-Rodriguez, who secured the $350,000 lifeline for the Eastside Boys & Girls Club and recently joined the council majority approving San Antonio’s property-tax rate increase.
At the county level, much of the East Side is represented by Bexar County Precinct 4 Commissioner Tommy Calvert Jr. State Rep. Barbara Gervin-Hawkins represents Texas House District 120, which includes portions of the East Side. Within SAISD, Board President Alicia Sebastian represents District 2, including MLK Academy and Davis Middle School.
Those offices have different powers and responsibilities, and no single elected official controls the decisions involving the Spurs, SAISD, the Boys & Girls Club or the federal detention facility. But collectively, they represent communities experiencing these changes.
As decisions continue to reshape the East Side, residents can look to their representatives for answers about what can be protected, what can be replaced and what investments will remain in the community long-term.
Investment Versus Permanence
The East Side has received public investment over the years. Streets have been improved. Schools have received bond commitments. Housing and development have arrived. Parks and community facilities have received attention.
The issue confronting residents today is more complicated than whether money has ever been spent on the East Side. It is about permanence.
- What happens when a major institution arrives with promises of economic activity and eventually leaves?
- What happens when voters approve renovations to neighborhood schools but years later families are still waiting to know exactly what those campuses will become?
- What happens when a youth institution that has served generations can no longer guarantee continued operations?
- And what does it mean for the direction of the neighborhood when a major new federal investment is a detention facility?
No single government or organization controls everything happening on the East Side. But residents experience the cumulative result.
The East Side After The Decisions
San Antonio’s East Side has survived periods of disinvestment, segregation, highway construction, economic upheaval and redevelopment.
It has also produced generations of educators, business owners, athletes, elected leaders, artists and families who have maintained communities despite those changes.
The current transformation will not erase the East Side, but the decisions being made today will help determine what kind of East Side exists tomorrow.
The East Side has representation at City Hall, Commissioners Court, the Texas Legislature and on the SAISD Board. Those officials do not control the same budgets or make the same decisions, but they represent many of the same families.
What happens next will require more than watching each issue unfold separately. It will require communication across those offices, public accountability and a clear focus on what the East Side keeps, what it gains and what replaces the institutions it loses. The people who live there should not have to wait until another institution is threatened or gone to ask what comes next.
Because what happens to one side of San Antonio ultimately shapes the future of the entire city.
