A limestone quarry that stopped operating sometime in the 1980s after nearly six decades of mining is once again at the center of a San Antonio redevelopment push, this time with developer Bitterblue Inc. asking a city tax zone for $6.5 million to help fund infrastructure and other improvements at the 650-unit, $159.2 million project. The ask, tied to the long-discussed Longhorn Quarry site in northeast San Antonio, comes as the Northeast Corridor Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone has roughly $1.9 million on hand.
A Request Still Waiting for a Vote
According to San Antonio Express-News reporting, Bitterblue is seeking the $6.5 million from the Northeast Corridor TIRZ for infrastructure and other improvements at the site, and the zone's board has not yet taken up the developer's application. The firm's plans call for 650 residential units and 32,000 square feet of retail, with an estimated project cost of $159.2 million according to the firm's own plans. Bitterblue also hopes to land federal historic tax credits to help pay for renovating existing structures on the property.
Public financing records back up at least part of the picture: a Tax Increment Financing budget presentation shows the Northeast Corridor TIRZ closed fiscal year 2026 with an ending balance of $1,903,046, generated $1,659,525 in projected annual increment and interest, and recorded $4,385,217 in expenses for the year, according to a Tax Increment Financing budget presentation. That same document lists Longhorn Quarry Redevelopment among the zone's upcoming project considerations, alongside already-approved work on the Morgan's Wonderland parking lot, sports gym and entry monuments, the Longhorn Quarry Road Extension, and the Villages at Perrin Beitel affordable housing project.
Decades in the Making
Longhorn Quarry began operating around 1929 and stopped extracting and processing limestone in the 1980s, per the Express-News account. Bitterblue's involvement in trying to overhaul the property dates back to the 1990s, and the company has already worked with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to clean up the site. By 2023, the firm was preparing to start residential projects there, and company representative Laddie Denton has called it a catalyzing project for the northeast corridor, saying in the Express-News piece that the project had become a holy grail and the firm wanted to reach its end. Denton expects the redevelopment to take five to seven years.
Not every ambitious plan for the site has panned out. A previous proposal for an arena at Longhorn Quarry collapsed after North East Independent School District balked at contributing tax revenue toward financing it, and Bexar County ultimately built the Frost Bank Center on San Antonio's east side instead, according to the same Express-News report.
What's Already There, and What Isn't
Longhorn Quarry today isn't directly off Interstate 35, despite its proximity to the highway corridor, and the area already includes soccer and football stadiums, the Morgan's Wonderland campus, a Starbucks, gas stations, mixed-income apartments and vacant land still waiting on development, per the Express-News. The Morgan's Wonderland campus itself includes a theme park, sports complex and multi-assistance center, and founder Gordon Hartman is adding a hotel, daycare and a Boring Co. tunnel to that campus, the paper reports. San Antonio has also devoted bond dollars to upgrading trails and Beitel Creek near the quarry.
Lucas Eckert, cited in the Express-News story, said visitors to Toyota Field, Heroes Stadium and Hartman's facilities currently drive to the Forum or another shopping center when they want to shop or eat, underscoring the retail gap Bitterblue's plan is meant to fill.
A Quarry That Changed Hands and Shapes
Earlier accounts of the site show how the ownership and acreage picture has shifted over time. A 2017 report found that a partnership led by Bitterblue had bought 97 acres of vacant land across the highway from Morgan's Wonderland and Toyota Field, with Beitel Creek Ltd. closing on the purchase on Oct. 31, 2017, for land spanning between Wurzbach Parkway and Interstate 35 on both sides of Thousand Oaks Drive, according to mysanantonio.com. That outlet also reported that most of the property sits in a flood plain, per the Bexar Appraisal District, and that Bitterblue's partnership had borrowed about $2.6 million from MMNG Investments LP, a Hartman-controlled entity, to buy a 19-acre chunk of the land.
A separate 2021 account described a different figure: an Opportunity Zone fund that bought about 70 acres of undeveloped Longhorn Quarry land to spur more development and eventually restore landmarks such as the site's iconic smoke stacks, according to bizjournals.com. Jackson Walker counseled Bitterblue Investments on forming the Bitterblue 2020 Fund I and the Longhorn Quarry Opportunity Zone Fund, which began deploying capital to continue development of the Longhorn Quarry commercial property near the intersection of Interstate 35 and Northeast Loop 410.
A Regional Destination, on Paper
San Antonio's own planning documents treat Longhorn Quarry as a linchpin for the broader northeast corridor. The site carries a Regional Mixed-Use designation under the NE I-35 and Loop 410 Area Regional Center plan, a category meant for residential, commercial and institutional uses at high densities, according to the city's compplan site. The quarry is already under redevelopment and contains a variety of recreational, entertainment and medical uses, the plan notes, and one multifamily community, the Upton, has already been built there, with more planned. City planners describe the site as having the potential to catalyze commercial and residential revitalization, with the Regional Mixed-Use designation meant to let it evolve into an important regional destination.
That ambition lands at an interesting moment for San Antonio's apartment market. Roughly 5,400 multifamily units were absorbed across the city in 2025, and 2026 apartment completions are forecast to drop 21% year over year, with vacancy expected to tighten by 90 basis points, according to northmarq.com. Analysts describe the shift as a move away from rapid supply growth and toward rebalancing, which could work in Bitterblue's favor if its hundreds of planned units eventually reach the market. The Express-News piece also notes that the pandemic upended the broader multifamily market in the years since Bitterblue first eyed residential construction at the site.
Money Already Spent, and What's Still Unsettled
This isn't the first time Bitterblue has drawn on the Northeast Corridor TIRZ. The company received $1.65 million from the zone in 2021 to upgrade David Edwards Drive, per the Express-News reporting. Whatever happens with the new $6.5 million request, it will need to clear a board that, as of the Express-News report, had not yet considered Bitterblue's application. The zone's own fiscal year 2026 ending balance, pegged at $1.9 million according to city staff, suggests any large infrastructure award would require careful budgeting alongside other approved and upcoming projects in the corridor.
