‘The ship has sailed’: the pilot program is too late to save struggling stores

Here’s what the remaining $90,000 would fund:

• $50,000 for public messaging about ongoing and future construction to generate excitement.
• $15,000 for a small business toolkit that provides important contacts, ideas for mitigating disruption, communications with community partners, access to city programs, and technical assistance.
• $25,000 to build the city’s partnership with mapping services app Waze that relies on community input to inform people of traffic and closures.

The project will target 13 active streets around San Antonio including the popular nightlife strip on North St. Mary’s Boulevard, South Alamo Boulevard and Broadway Corridor. The city hopes to implement this pilot model in June 2023.

The ship has sailed

Business owners say the stress from construction has been felt for years and has only been exacerbated by the lingering effects of pandemic-era lockdowns. Too little, too late, says Augie Cortez, owner of Augie’s BBQ on Broadway.

“This ship sailed two years ago,” Cortez said at the meeting. “This should have been introduced before COVID started.”

However, Cortez says this program is not particularly adequate for businesses. The city is throwing “nickels and dimes” at business owners, he says, for more signs saying businesses are open, when the problem is getting to them.

“How could it make sense?” Cortez asked the committee.

Bond-financed improvements on Broadway have been running for more than two years and have recently ceased. The delay comes from a dispute between the city and Texas over who owns the two-mile route and whether the city can reduce lanes on Broadway for bike lanes and sidewalks.

Aaron Peña, owner of The Squeezebox on St Mary’s Street, says his pub has been forced to close several times due to ongoing construction. When a waterline broke a few months ago, Peña said it had to close on Saturdays — the busiest night for Squeezebox. This is a loss of $5,000 in sales on top of the money he paid the waiters who were unable to work that night.

St. Mary’s faced alternating closures along its route nearly two years ago for another bond-financed road and pedestrian improvement project. It has been hit with delays that push the project into 2023 in an area that already has parking issues.

“It’s basically $400,000 to flush the toilet,” Peña says. “Instead of giving that to companies, they’re basically trying to pass that on to marketing and signage and all kinds of things that don’t help us.”

Board members on the committee agreed not to use resources and funding to directly assist business owners.

“My concern is that this is $400,000 on something our small business organizations are already doing, and how we can shift toward that immediate help,” said Councilwoman Terry Castillo.

What can he do?

Cortez said the city needs to stop issuing permits and approving construction contracts while other work is still in progress. But he said the solution is simpler: a utility subsidy, rent and taxes in the form of grants.

“This is the easiest way out to help us survive,” he says.

Peña says the money could go to 20 other companies in the form of $10,000 grants that could help businesses affected by construction by renting and paying their employees.

“They slap us in the face because here we’re struggling to pay rent, we’re struggling to pay salaries, and they still haven’t given us a dime,” he says.

Money like this could come from the Midtown Tax Increment Reinvestment District, which is a fund made up of tax revenue withheld to go toward boosting growth. Castillo raised this during the meeting, and called for a disparity in businesses that benefit from TIRZ.

“We have millions and billions of dollars in business with their help — they get it,” Castillo said. “And then we have these small businesses where this is their livelihood, and they have to show up for meeting after meeting after meeting, and then go to work.”