Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones was the lone nay vote on both measures after taking issue with leaders’ decision to delay an overarching briefing on project updates.
SAN ANTONIO — San Antonio city leaders approved more than $6 million in contracts Thursday aimed at keeping the ball dribbling on Project Marvel, the city’s downtown sports and entertainment district dream anchored by a billion-dollar new Spurs arena.
City Council voted to hire international consulting firm Accenture Infrastructure and Capital Projects, LLC to oversee management of the sweeping development project, which includes the NBA arena and several other surrounding anchor projects.
Ben Gorzell, the city’s chief financial and administrative services officer, touted Accenture’s “strong, relevant experience” and “well-defined governance structure that really stood out.” The firm scored the highest by a wide margin with city evaluators, who considered the proposed plans, qualifications and backgrounds of eight companies.
Accenture’s contract is for five years with five additional one-year options. It’s valued at $6 million for the first phase, lasting until next spring, though city officials said that cost is expected to grow as planning continues.
Gorzell highlighted Accenture’s experience with other large-scale entertainment and development projects, including work tied to developments in Hawaii and Georgia, as well as the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago.
The other big vote was for a $350,000 study examining several things, including the cost of traffic and security needs during district events and the possibility of additional revenue sources tied to Project Marvel.
“We want to better understand what potential cost impacts there are for having a whole bunch of people go to that part of downtown that doesn’t exist now,” City Manager Erik Walsh said.
The approvals come six months after voters approved allocating tens of millions in county tax dollars to a new Spurs arena, triggering terms of an earlier agreement between the city and the team that constitutes the funding framework.
The Spurs is set to pay $500 million to build the arena, while Bexar County will chip in $311 million via venue tax allocations. The City of San Antonio will contribute up to $489 million through bonds repaid future lease payments from the Spurs, state hotel revenues and the downtown Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone. The Spurs would be on the hook for cost overruns.
“The voters have spoken, now it’s time to get to work,” said District 7 Councilwoman Marina Alderete Gavito said.
Even with Thursday’s approvals, planning tied to Project Marvel and its various components – including a convention center expansion, transforming the Wood Federal Courthouse into a music venue and modernizing the Alamodome – remain ongoing.
City Council was set to receive an in-depth briefing on the latest timelines for each project Thursday, but leaders decided to delay it until June. Councilwoman Phyllis Viagran, who made the motion, said the community would be better served by having the full briefing at that point, after Thursday’s votes had been finalized and gears set into motion.
The presentation is nonetheless publicly available online. Among other expectations, city staff reported that a requested appraisal for the former site of the Institute of Texan Cultures – where the Spurs arena will eventually rise – should be done this summer; an updated feasibility study on the convention center expansion will be presented in September; and recommendations for the Alamodome’s future will be finalized in August.
The city is also reporting that the Spurs are providing $30 million for the city to be able to buy an old federal building adjacent to Hemisfair, as well as two nearby lots, where mixed-use development associated with the arena will be created in the future.
Negotiations surrounding the proposed Spurs arena are also continuing, with city officials hoping to finalize many major agreements by the end of 2026.
The two contracts passed with a 10-1 vote. Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones cast the lone vote in both of them after earlier criticizing the council’s decision to delay the broader briefing on Project Marvel.
“The process by which we inform the public is very important,” Jones said. “There may be questions about why we would not talk about the overall project when we’re talking on contracts related to the projects. It’s a transparency issue.”