San Antonio’s push to convert the downtown Kress-Grant buildings into a flagship African American museum has shifted into a high-stakes fundraising phase, with organizers calling on residents and local institutions to help carry the project to an anticipated 2028 opening. Plans call for the five-story former five-and-dime to be reshaped into more than 100,000 square feet of galleries, classrooms, a performance auditorium, event space and a small boutique hotel. Museum leaders say the future complex is meant to anchor the city’s cultural corridor and draw school groups, tourists and community programs into the heart of downtown, as reported by SAAACAM.
Inside the big, practical plans for the Kress-Grant complex
The San Antonio African American Community Archive and Museum is proposing a roughly 103,000-square-foot cultural center that includes about 30,000 square feet of immersive exhibit space, a public research library, classrooms and a 400-seat auditorium. Event venues and a 12-room boutique hotel are built into the business model to help generate revenue that can support free programming and long-term sustainability, according to SAAACAM.
Recreating a lunch counter and keeping the first floor free
Organizers plan to recreate a historic five-and-dime lunch counter as an interpretive exhibit and to keep a free-entry first floor for rotating community programming. The broader design also calls for event spaces, a speakeasy and a boutique hotel on the upper floors, as reported by KENS5.
Where the building sits and what it used to be
The Kress-Grant complex sits on East Houston Street in downtown San Antonio, occupying storefront addresses in the 300 block of E. Houston after the Kress and adjacent Grant buildings were joined into a single development. Local reporting notes the site’s history as a five-and-dime whose lunch counter played a role in the city’s civil-rights era and that the move downtown will substantially increase the museum’s footprint, as reported by the San Antonio Business Journal and KSAT.
A big fundraising push
Museum leaders say the project is in a second phase of fundraising and have set a target for the redevelopment to be completed by 2028. Organizers have argued the finished museum would rank among the largest African American museums in the country, and they continue to seek public and private gifts to close the campaign gap, as reported by KENS5.
Why the site matters to the city
Downtown activists and historians point out that the Kress-Grant lunch counter was among those desegregated peacefully in March 1960, a local civil-rights milestone that leaders say makes the building itself part of the museum’s story. That historical context and the archive-first mission have driven collaborations with schools and researchers, according to reporting by the San Antonio Report.
How to follow and support the campaign
Organizers say community support, from small donors to corporate partners, will determine how quickly design and construction move forward, and they list campaign and volunteer information on the museum’s site. For details on giving, events and volunteer opportunities tied to the Kress-Grant redevelopment, see the capital campaign page and contact information on the organization’s website, according to SAAACAM.
