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So they never bought the property. This is one developer's wet dream.
Figure it out, kiddo.
E. Side land courtship hits bump
Web Posted: 11/20/2005 12:00 AM CST
Elizabeth Allen
Express-News Staff Writer
As developer Dan Bailey crafts his plan for a massive sports complex on the East Side, he finds himself in an uneasy courtship with someone key to redeveloping the area — landowner Bill Tidwell.
Last week, it almost blew up for Bailey when Tidwell, tired of hearing his name bandied about town as part of the deal when no promises had been made, had associate Cecilia Garcia send Bailey a harshly worded letter telling him to set the record straight. Garcia copied the Nov. 17 letter to various community leaders.
"It has come to Mr. Tidwell's attention that you or your associates may be representing to others that he has agreed to participate in the project and include his properties within your site plan," wrote Garcia, owner of real estate firm The Priority Group and member of the city's planning board. "We are concerned that others may be relying on your representations that he is a part of this project.
"Mr. Tidwell will support legitimate efforts to improve the area and maximize the use of existing public resources," the letter continued before urging Bailey to cancel plans for a news conference Tuesday at Tidwell's Red Berry Mansion.
Bailey and wife Marlene Bailey own HollyHills Group, a California-based company that already has announced big plans for an industrial park on the South Side and a golf community on the far West Side.
Tuesday they plan to announce their redevelopment ideas for the area that surrounds the Bexar County-owned SBC Center and Freeman Coliseum, as well as the adjacent city-owned Willow Springs Golf Course. Making that work depends on weaving together a web of supporters, each seeming to be looking to the next for confidence.
And at this point it looks like the plan will still — or once again — include Tidwell.
Tidwell owns Cardell Cabinetry, a sprawling cabinet factory along Interstate 35 in the East Side Council District 10. And over the past two years he also bought two important East Side properties. One is the Red Berry Mansion, on 84 acres along Salado Creek and adjacent to the city's Willow Springs Golf Course. And across Houston Street from Willow Springs — and the arenas — he owns a 165,000-square-foot warehouse.
Tidwell's timing is good. Bexar County officials last week awarded a $327,000 contract for a master plan of the SBC Center-Freeman Coliseum complex. That design could reach out to include the golf course and surrounding properties like Tidwell's, and County Judge Nelson Wolff has said any large-scale redevelopment of the area would need to include them.
Wolff was one of those who received a copy of Garcia's letter to Bailey. Others included Mayor Phil Hardberger and District 10 Councilwoman Sheila McNeil.
Garcia's letter wrapped up by saying Tidwell is willing to talk.
They've already been talking for some time, as Bailey reminded Tidwell in a reply sent that night.
"When we first met on the trip to Rockport, we shared with you our Vision of the Eastside," Bailey wrote to Tidwell. "I told you at that time that the project would work without Red Barry (sic) Mansion but you were adamant about leaving it in and you were so thrilled after seeing what we had envisioned for the Eastside."
By Friday morning, Bailey had patched it up with Tidwell, who softened his stance and said they'll meet again today.
"I told him he could go ahead and have his press conference," Tidwell said.
Part of the reason he had asked Garcia to write the letter was because of the rumors that were coming back to them both, he said. The other part was business hardball. Tidwell had grown tired of waiting for Bailey to get him real numbers on a proposed partnership.
"I took a little inventory of my time and where I want to go with my life," he said, adding that he's decided an outright sale to Bailey would be better than partnering with him in an ambitious 10-year project.
Bailey spokesman T.J. Connolly said he expects the conference will be held at the Red Berry Mansion, but will firm up the details after the two men meet.
McNeil said Friday that Bailey never specifically told her Tidwell had signed on to either partner with Bailey or sell him his properties.
"But the impression was that they were going to team up to do this," she said.
Tidwell admitted he's been intrigued with the Bailey plan for some time, but said recently that he would proceed with caution after learning that Bailey had served time for fraud in the 1980s.
Tidwell's been seeking reassurance that city and county officials support Bailey — particularly Wolff, whom he admires. And he said Bailey told him Wolff was on board.
"On board with what, though?" Wolff said when asked about his support. "It's just a sketch. It doesn't say who owns it, or who's going to pay for what. I just said that 'It's great that you've got a vision for the East Side.'"
Wolff has remained coy in part because he thinks Tidwell is key. And he falls back on the county's first duty: intelligent redesign of the arenas property.
"We're going to concentrate on the grounds," he said.
The planners take the same position. Led by Kell Muñoz Architects and San Francisco-based EDAW, they will start with the site itself, said Kell Muñoz CEO Henry Muñoz. Then they'll work their way to the surrounding properties and see how it all fits together.
Muñoz said he hasn't conversed with the Baileys for "going on six months," but a sketch his firm showed county commissioners was remarkably similar in its elements to the ideas Bailey has shopped around. Those include a football stadium, NASCAR track and a baseball stadium.
McNeil said she's waiting on what the planners dream up, and what else is out there, before she takes a position on HollyHills.
"I'm not at liberty to say who they are, but there are a couple of other people who have come to me with ideas about the area," she said.
Tidwell himself has hinted, without elaboration, that others have ideas for the East Side. And whatever those ideas are, he said, to work, they're going to have to be big.
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http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/met....2639ce8f.html
So they never bought the property. This is one developer's wet dream.
Figure it out, kiddo.
i thought this was a thread about an illness that makes you switch your pheonetic pronunciation of "ch" and "sh"...as in, "i like your choose" and "i like to eat shicken"...
^^
But wouldn't that be the West Side Complex?
^^^ yea
Read the article dumbass.
I did. Turns out kiddo that you were wrong, per usual.
Really?
The Baileys, though, say their intent is clear. They've bought "substantial" acreage around the SBC Center, and they've spent half a million dollars assembling plans for the district.
They didn't close on the site as you claimed. Damn, you are that stupid.
I told you in the other thread I may have had a fast reaction, I slowed my roll.
But they have bought a lot of land (acres) around the SBC Center and it seems they'll get the Cardell Cabinetry and Red Berry Mansion land as well.
All I can say is, good idea stupid area!
I'm curoius, with the oil/fuel tanks that border 35 (and I assume in the proposal) what are the EPA clean up costs involved?
That's an Exxon Distribution center and I seriously doubt they'd be willing to move. Something tells me there's a lot involved in moving a tank farm...
I'm very interested in seeing the renderings.
KENS reported Holly Hills stating that the complex will force no one from their homes.
New KENS video:
http://www2.mysanantonio.com/multime....cfm?ids=34170
Talks about:
1) Project includes a football stadium that wouldn't need to be fully paid for by public money.
2) The NFL planning to expand by two teams in 2009 and the Saints future is uncertain.
3) The purchase (finalized yesterday) of the Red Berry Mansion and another industrial storage facility.
4) No one who lives in a home currently will have sell and move out because of this project.
5) Sports Entertainment District will be built on existing land.
6) District would be year round with resort hotels.
7) Renderings will be released today.
KENS Video with renderings and virtual tour:
http://www2.mysanantonio.com/multime....cfm?ids=34186
I doubt that SERIOUSLY. The NFL is in a perfect 8div X 4 teams/per format now, and scheduling is a symetric dream. Everything I've read is that they are NOT interested in expanding anytime soon, which is probably why Tags is putting the full court press on the Saints. If they were expanding that soon, why not just earmark one of the teams for LA? They won't have a stadium ready for at least a few years anyway.2) The NFL planning to expand by two teams in 2009...
If they can't get a team to relocate to LA, they have to turn to expansion.
Funny how they haven't even spoken to the land owners right across the street. Big dreams.
I'm sure HollyHills went through all the effort to examine the area, come up with renderings, contact the right people, and now get investors all to be stopped by that guy.
Which is why the developer seeks to enlist the support of the public. Developers often work on projects that aren't certain of ever moving beyond the design phase.
Actually its quite typical of entrepreneurs and investors to just throw their bs grand ideas out there to see what kind of read they can get.
Here is a problem for you.... how come military drive ends at Potranco but then restarts back up at Richland Hills?
And the whole area is blowing up with Retail, apartments, businesses, etc. etc...
Because somebody forgot that right in the middle of all that, a man owns the land and is not giving it up, therefore that part of the project is not growing due to poor planning by city leaders and entrepreneurs/investors.
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