It remains to be seen exactly what will be talked about as conversations surrounding Project Marvel continue.
SAN ANTONIO — San Antonio city leaders are scheduled to receive another public briefing on plans to build a downtown Spurs arena Friday afternoon—marking the first such meeting since Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones and the current council were installed in June.
The special council meeting gets underway 1 p.m. at City Hall.
While the meeting agenda doesn’t include details on what will be talked about beyond “Spurs arena discussion,” the memorandum of understanding finalized earlier this year between the city, Bexar County and the team stipulated that they “lay out their respective contributions for a funding framework no later than the beginning of July 2025, to the extent feasible.”
That has yet to happen – publicly – on the part of all three parties. But City Council in May unanimously approved establishing a new Project Finance Zone (PFZ) which would provide revenues to fund the arena.
The PFZ would consist of creating a three-mile zone around the site area in which the city could utilize some state hotel-associated revenues over the next 30 years to fund local projects, like a new Spurs home. In 2023, City Council created a PFZ to fund projects related to the Alamodome and Henry B. González Convention Center.
The May vote green-lit abandoning that PFZ to establish the new one. It would most likely be centered around the former Texas Pavilion site which housed the Institute of Texas Cultures before demolition work started in the spring; it’s a 13.1-acre parcel of land for which the city holds first dibs to sell or lease.
It remains to be seen how much of the final arena price tag the PFZ revenues could cover. But the city estimates it would bring in $2.5 billion over the next 20 years.
A new Spurs arena, one of the anchor projects for Project Marvel, is expected to cost anywhere between $1.2 billion and $1.5 billion. That’s in line with newer NBA venues.
In a June interview with KENS 5, Peter J. Holt, chairman of Spurs Sports & Entertainment, said the Spurs would contribute their fair share. Additional funding would come from a Bexar County venue tax, which could be put before voters in November, although the clock is ticking for that to be finalized.
“(The) Spurs need assistance and a partnership and collaboration,” Holt said, “to build this new home that will make us thrive for decades to come.”
A difference of opinion?
A significant development since that May vote, however, could play into Project Marvel conservations for the first time in a public setting: The election of a new mayor who often shared transparency concerns about the development dream while on the campaign trail.
“I’m very concerned that a potential multibillion-dollar project was under wraps for over a year and a half due to non-disclosure agreements,” Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones said in a May debate. “Taxpayers shouldn’t be last to know, first to pay.”
Jones and four new council members were inaugurated in mid-June and have only met a handful of times in City Hall since then (the body recesses for most of July before budget conversations ramp up in August). This is the first time they’re convening for a meeting where Project Marvel will be the primary topic for discussion.
But some council members appeared to reference the city’s dream of a downtown sports and entertainment district at a late-June budget workshop, where city staff revealed San Antonio faces the possibility of a $172.6 million deficit by 2027.
In that budget session, Jones asked City Manager Erik Walsh to look into where else the city could address the budget deficit, including “delaying certain projects.”
District 5 City Councilwoman Teri Castillo addressed the multibillion-dollar elephant in the room more explicitly, saying her constituents on the historic west side have inquired about the “parallel” discussions of Project Marvel and a budget deficit.
“That’s something, in preparation for the budget town halls, I hope you all can answer,” she said to the budget team.
The Spurs hope to be downtown when their current lease at the Frost Bank Center ends in 2032.