From Texas Public Radio:
A new designation may slow down plans to demolish San Antonio’s Institute of Texan Cultures (ITC).
The University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) planned to raze the building in the summer of 2025 for the possible construction of a downtown Spurs stadium and a redevelopment project called Project Marvel. There would also be a re-imagined Alamodome, improvements to the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center and a new hotel.
But Texas Historical Commission named the ITC a state antiquities landmark during a hearing on Friday.
Lewis Vetter with the Conservation Society of San Antonio helped in that process. “We’ve been at the hearings,” he explained, “and we’ve got an informal coalition of many different organizations that have provided their support to receiving this designation.”
That designation carries with it more protections. “They are far more bound to preserve and find alternate uses and preserving the structures involved,” Vetter added.
But the protections aren’t absolute, and officials with UTSA said they planned to proceed with moving the museum, demolishing the structure, and selling the land.
The ITC building is one of the last surviving of the city’s HemisFair ’68. Vetter said that those claiming it was built as a temporary structure were misinformed.
He noted that “Senate Bill 156 states the following: ‘Hemisfair, the Texas State exhibit building, will be used to have permanent exhibits or such additional and alternate uses as the legislature may direct.’ So the whole intention in building this one was to make it a permanent structure to serve the citizens.”
The UT System received the building and the 96 acres around it once the fair closed in early October 1968. In the past few years, it studied how to monetize the huge structure before deciding on demolishment.
In April 2024, UTSA Associate Vice Provost Monica Perales explained the collection housed in the ITC building would be moved into the Frost Tower temporarily, and that site would open to the public in May 2025. A new Institute of Texan Cultures will then be built in one of two downtown spots they have chosen.
“We will be embarking on a plan to move the ITC into a new space as we begin to envision a new permanent home for the ITC so that we can continue to serve the public and audiences who love Texas history and Texas culture going into the future,” she said.
One spot where new ITC may be built, just above Crockett Hotel.
Screenshot / Google Maps
Those two sites are at either ends of downtown. “There are currently two potential sites where the ITC might find its permanent home. One is the Crockett site, located near the Alamo,” she said.
That site is right across Bonham Street from the Alamo grounds, and next door to the Crockett Hotel.
“The other location is near our Southwest Campus, which also has many advantages, being connected to the wonderful arts resources there and the School of Arts at UTSA and the downtown public library as well,” Perales explained.
That second location is directly across from the former location of WOAI TV at Navarro Street.
