Renderings of a new proposed urban park known as The Link depict a colorful outdoor oasis where musicians perform under string lights, a woman walks her Dalmatian under a waterfall and plantscapes rivaling the San Antonio Botanical Garden offer a reprieve from the summer heat.
At roughly a quarter-mile long and 60 feet wide, the project has formal cost estimates that have come in at roughly $120 million, and closer to $150 million when factoring in inflation.
That number, along with the stunning video renderings of the proposed urban park from engineering firm Vickrey & Associates, was revealed April 2 in a preliminary engineering report compiled by the San Antonio River Authority (SARA), commissioned to determine whether the project is possible and, if so, what it might cost.
“The short conclusion is: We’ve got a project. It’s a viable project. It is a real project. And that is the message going forward,” Bexar County Commissioner Tommy Calvert (Pct. 4), whose Eastside precinct includes the proposed project, said to roughly two dozen attendees at the report’s unveiling this month at Central Library.
In a city known for its iconic River Walk — one of the most popular tourist destinations in the state — Calvert believes The Link is the natural next step in a progression of celebrated river features built out over the last century.
As the 2.2-mile San Pedro Creek Culture Park, which runs parallel to the River Walk’s Mission Reach segment downtown, nears completion, The Link would connect the two by digging a four-block channel along what is now Savings Street.
The park was dreamed up by Al Groves, a civil engineer who died in 2010 and who was known for designing one of the River Walk’s first major extensions, connecting it to what is now Hemisfair and the Henry B. González Convention Center in 1968.
Groves “had an incredible vision, and I’m really happy that so many people have gravitated to his work,” Calvert said in an interview. “It’s actually quite timely, because tourism is down in San Antonio and I’m really concerned about it.”
Also included in the report were a full vision at the nearly $150 million price tag, plus two cheaper, scaled-back versions of what The Link could end up looking like.
In a community where nearly half of residents can’t cover basic necessities, however, early efforts to fund the project have been met with trepidation by many at Bexar County and the City of San Antonio.
The newly estimated price is nearly half the cost of the eight-times-longer San Pedro Creek project — green-lit more than a decade ago as a flood control initiative — and would require serious feats of civil engineering.
To create The Link, “You’re actually excavating down about 18 feet, you’re building retaining walls, you’re creating underpasses of existing roads and essentially building bridges under downtown,” said Shaun Donovan, manager of environmental sciences for SARA.
It’s also unclear how much money the project would generate in tourism dollars. An economic impact study has not been completed for the project, according to SARA.
Bexar County already set aside $41.1 million for The Link in September 2021, and Calvert lobbied hard for the City of San Antonio to include the project in its 2022 bond.
The city ultimately declined, and last year Bexar County Commissioners Court members were divided on whether to fund the preliminary engineering study needed to get it started.
“I think it would be really exciting. I also think it’s outrageously expensive,” said Mario Bravo, an environmental activist who represented District 1 on the council at the time. “We have a lot of other needs in our community.”
The project’s champion
Calvert is currently The Link’s biggest — and perhaps only — political champion.
The commissioner, an advertising and public relations professional by trade, is relying on momentum and community organizing to help it overcome tough odds.
Facing pushback to a feasibility study in 2022, Calvert, who already assembled a 40-member stakeholder group, invited powerful developers to make their case for the project at Commissioners Court. Commissioners approved the $2 million on a 3-2 vote.
Now that the study is complete, Calvert is trying to rally public enthusiasm about what could be.
“One of the comments that I’ve heard is ‘San Antonio is not cool enough to actually do this project,'” Calvert said. “We don’t want to keep that attitude, that the old guard keeps San Antonio lame.”
Included in the feasibility study is $90,000 worth of renderings, graphics and 3D modeling of a project unlike anything that currently exists in San Antonio. Roughly $43,000 went to the Ford, Powell & Carson design firm for digital renderings.
The study also included proposals for scaled-back versions of the project that start at $38 million, less than the county’s existing earmark for the project.
“We actually have a fully funded project if we just decide to do the street level,” Calvert said, referring to the cheapest of the three options. “If we do the hybrid, we’re almost there.”
“If we do the full River Walk level,” he said, “then there’s some work to do.”
Challenges at the county
Even getting access to that first pot of funding could prove challenging as the end of federal pandemic relief causes local governments to tighten their belts.
Bexar County Judge Peter Sakai, who was elected in 2022, has been hesitant to green-light projects approved under previous leadership that he doesn’t feel the county can afford.
Shortly after taking office, Sakai told the San Antonio Report he was waiting to see The Link’s feasibility study before committing to it. Sakai declined to be interviewed for this story.
Calvert ran into a similar problem seeking funding late last year for an advanced manufacturing training center in his precinct. Though the court had given preliminary approval for the project under Sakai’s predecessor Nelson Wolff, county staff began exploring cheaper alternatives in other precincts when its price tag grew.
Calvert tried to get money for the original project put into the 2024 budget through an unsuccessful community outreach campaign, then launched an investigation into county spending that personally attacked Sakai and commissioners Rebeca Clay-Flores (Pct. 1) and Justin Rodriguez (Pct. 2) over the issue.
Asked whether he would be able to push The Link project on his own, Calvert said, “I never feel like I’m alone [on the court],” and “I think that the community support that we received indicates that I’m not.”
He pointed to the social media attention that news stories about The Link has already generated.
“There are very few ideas that people come up with in this town that have that kind of support organically from the community,” he said.
Precarious river projects
In Fort Worth, another decades-in-the-making river project was brought back from the dead in 2022 by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
Calvert is also eyeing the unusually large pot of federal funding for infrastructure projects and said he plans to keep courting potential new partners for the Link.
“I’ve had a lot of success lobbying for things in the precinct, just quietly aside from the [county’s] agenda in Washington, so we’ll be making the rounds,” he said.
While the infrastructure bill is contributing money for a number of water projects, like $400 million for Fort Worth’s version of the River Walk and $75 million for San Antonio’s Westside creeks projects, it’s unclear whether The Link, which doesn’t serve any flood control purposes, would be a compelling candidate.
Donovan said a case could be made for the project’s potential impact in mitigating an urban heat island. But since the project wouldn’t be built on an existing stream segment, that closes off many opportunities for federal funding, he explained.
At the public input meeting, Bernice Beck, who owns property near the proposed project, questioned whether The Link had true potential for economic development opportunities. Unlike the River Walk, she said, the project’s design wasn’t set up to create shops and restaurants.
Developer Universal Services Group has proposed a mixed-use development, Riverplace, near the project, set to be anchored by a 21-story Dream Hotel at Savings and Soledad streets.
Though he owns a consulting firm, Calvert said he does not represent clients with stakes in The Link.
Calvert, for his part, says The Link is a solution to stagnant development around the city’s north central business district and emphasizes infill versus further spread on the outskirts of Bexar County.
“I’ve always been a great urban proponent of urban development,” he said. “Every time we sprawl and put new streets on the periphery … that’s a permanent liability on your government’s books.”
