San Antonio is finally putting real money behind a long-talked-about project on the Northeast Side, signing off on up to $2 million to design the area’s first multi-generational community center and park on an 8.6-acre site near Eisenhauer Road and Midcrown Drive. The plan pairs a roughly 4-acre public park and community building with an adjacent affordable housing development aimed at older adults, a combination city and trust officials say will help plug a long-standing gap in services and green space in a part of town where industrial growth has been steadily eating into public amenities.
The City Council approved the funding at its March 5 meeting, authorizing an agreement with Inner City TIRZ #11 to cover design work, according to the City of San Antonio. Councilmember Jalen McKee-Rodriguez called the move “a pivotal moment for our District,” pointing to a stretch of his district where warehouses have replaced open space. The city notes that the next step is issuing a solicitation for architectural design.
Site, Ownership And The Push To Build
The San Antonio Housing Trust owns the full 8.6-acre parcel at Midcrown Drive and Eisenhauer Road and plans to subdivide the property so the city can build the park while the trust holds on to the housing portion, according to the trust’s developer materials and board records from the San Antonio Housing Trust and related San Antonio Housing Trust. Together, those documents sketch out an approximate program: about 80 low-density senior housing units, a roughly 4-acre park and a multi-generational community center, with supportive services and universal design standards flagged as priorities. Board materials show the trust closed on the land in late summer 2024, listing a Sept. 3, 2024 acquisition date, and describe community engagement that ran from spring through October 2025 to refine what neighbors wanted to see on the site.
What’s Planned
Public outreach and surveys showed strong neighborhood support for older-adult housing and new open space, and reporting notes that the request for proposals points to supportive elements such as case management, mental-health counseling and financial-literacy programming as possible on-site services. The property sits among existing apartments, nearby suburban neighborhoods and the Pre-K 4 SA East Center, and neighbors told local outlets they welcome new park space even as some raised concerns about density and security. On the financing side, the RFP signals that the housing trust will pursue the 2027 round of 9 percent Low Income Housing Tax Credits, while the city could seek construction money in a 2027 general-obligation bond, as reported by MySA.
Timeline And Next Steps
The San Antonio Housing Trust formally posted the developer RFP in February and set an aggressive schedule that pushes finalist interviews and a board vote into March and April, putting developer selection just weeks away and early pre-development work on the near horizon. “The park is unnamed and amenities will be determined through community engagement after an architect is selected,” Denise Hernandez-Borrego told MySA, adding that solicitation and design work could take 18 to 24 months. If selections and funding stay on track, residents could see design and preparatory work move forward this year, while construction financing and tax-credit closings play out through the 2027 funding cycles.
City leaders say the project advances McKee-Rodriguez’s broader push to add parks across District 2 and expand access to city facilities on the Northeast Side, according to the City of San Antonio. With design dollars now in place and an active RFP on the street, the next phase hinges on locking in a development team, completing design and landing construction financing through both the bond program and the tax-credit process.
.jpg){kind=link}