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Steve and Adele Dufilho San Antonio is a fast growing, fast moving city with something new happening every day.

That's why each week we go on the record with Randy Beamer and the newsmakers who are driving this change.

Then we gather at the reporters roundtable to talk about the latest news stories with the journalist behind those stories.

Join us now as we go on the record with Randy Beamer.

Hi, everybody, and thank you for joining us for this edition of On the Record.

I'm Randy Beamer, and this week we start with a fascinating concept.

The possibility that some freeways here in San Antonio on the east side could be put underground.

And then the communities that were originally split by those freeways could grow back together.

Just a possibility.

Anyway, one thing they could be working on soon, James Norton, who is the CEO of San Antonio for growth on the East Side, joins us.

Thank you very much for coming in.

Now, this is another thing that's, it topical because this possibility is coming from a grant that right now is in limbo.

You got word recently that you're getting the grant.

And then what the president putting on hold things this week.

Tell us about this grant and what it could do.

Yes.

It's great to be back, Randy, as you said, seed San Antonio for growth on the east side.

Our mission is to promote the economic development and cultural vitality of San Antonio's east side.

And so we were thrilled to receive a $2 million grant to study how we can cut, cap and burry parts of three interstates.

Interstate ten, Interstate 35, Interstate 37, parts of these interstates underground.

I know it sounds a little bit different.

Why would you do that?

The idea is back before, in the 50s, 60s and 70s, these communities were connected and people could move back and forth.

And then once these federal highways, they were built right through black and brown communities in ways that tore them apart and concentrated poverty.

Our goal is the city's communities together and reimagine these highways, approaches highways as a new kind, communities in ways that Dallas and Austin already have done.

And so we would be studying solutions.

If we can bring parts of these interstates underground, and then imagine park spaces aboveground, where people can walk across in Dallas.

People might be familiar with that one.

It's a. Clyde, Warren.

Park, Clyde Warren Park.

It's above what was a freeway.

That's right.

Or what is still a freeway in Austin they're working on.

That's right.

And I think.

Thing and in Europe there's a lot of this underground freeways.

And so you have green space.

This $2 million, the biggest grant you've gotten is still in limbo.

So what happens now?

When do you think you were supposed to get announced?

A couple of weeks ago.

Now.

Who knows?

Yes.

So on January 27th, President Trump announced a temporary pause.

And so the courts have gone ahead and acted to freeze that.

There's a little bit of limbo, but we believe that the court to go ahead and resolve the matter.

We believe that this project is ultimately about economic development, which is in line with the president's priorities.

And so it comes from the Department of Transportation.

That's why it's a federal grant.

That's exactly right.

And so we're not concerned.

We're going to let the process play itself out.

And ultimately, we believe that we'll be able to move forward.

And where are these, possible places on the freeways that you would, push these freeways underground?

One is right by the Alamodome.

We're also right now the city is talking about a possible land bridge so that there could be coordination if that happens.

Absolutely.

There are four areas we're going to study.

One is on I-37.

This is the same one the city is studying between Broadway and Carolina Street.

The second one is going to be on I-35.

This is the northern area of the east side between Broadway and Walter Street.

The third is going to be on I-10 between Piedmont Street and Walton Street.

And then the fourth is also going to be an I-10 between Houston Street and MLK Street.

We're going to study these four areas, and we're going to get the community to tell us what do they want.

We're going to be using architects, engineers, transportation experts to take a look at what is possible, what needs to be preserved, and then using the schematics to understand what would it look like to have these highways underground, or would it be better to have it above ground?

What would be the cost?

Perhaps it's cheaper to cause that.

I mean, because the grant just pays for the study.

That's exactly.

Right.

And the study would be also figuring out how to pay for.

Absolutely.

And where it comes from.

What are the big advantages?

What do you want to see happen to the East side because of this?

At the end of the day, the whole goal is to help the East Side community become more accessible to the entire parts of San Antonio, to also allow people to move through the city and feel safer.

Right now, it can be very difficult to move across the interstates I-37 or cross I-35.

If you want to grab something for lunch or to go to work.

If you want to take your bicycle.

The goal here is to make it easier to go across highway, to have the ability to walk, to bike, to be able to have more green space, to have healthier areas.

And so by taking an area that was meant for commerce, like the interstate and open it up for more people to be able to get across and to have a little bit more surface.

Streets as well.

Absolutely.

That's exactly right.

We can redesign these spaces to be for everyone.

And we had Tommy Calvert in here, last week talking about, what's going to happen to the Frost Bank center and that whole area.

If the Spurs move downtown.

There was a meeting over the weekend and another meeting this weekend.

What's happening.

With that?

This is an incredibly important conversation.

For decades, people have hoped for economic development on the East Side, and there was sincere hope that with the now Frost Bank center, that this would be a big economic development.

The reality is this hasn't happened yet.

And so with this conversation of a potential move of the Spurs back to downtown, nothing's been decided yet.

There's a question of what will then happen to the prospect Center.

And so I commend Commissioner Calvert for leading this conversation.

My hope is that that building, should the Spurs leave, should not remain empty.

We don't want to make them sick of another empty stadium.

I can see a couple different possibilities.

One could be having an economic engine similar to what Brooks has done in the south.

Another could be developing kind of a stock card model with the rodeo.

Similar to what we've seen in Fort Worth.

But whatever happens, it's important that the community be heard.

That's exactly what the commission.

And also this could involve the golf course there because that's in the across the street there or the AT&T, whatever it's called now.

But that golf course is in a floodplain.

Yes.

A tunnel could change that.

And so you could develop on that land.

Is that being talked about?

That's exactly right.

As a part of the conversation, the county owns the Willow Springs Golf Course.

And so my hope would be that that still remains green space, but that needs to be thought of in a much larger plan about not just thinking through the Prospect Center for that golf course, as well as part of a potential development that preserves the space but becomes an economic development engine.

Of course, a big question for all of this is money.

That's right.

After the meeting, this past weekend, this coming weekend, where are you in the timeline that would get people to say, okay, well, we see we can see development on the east side, so we'll go ahead and and okay, the Spurs move downtown.

And so what do you think that will happen.

So it's potential I think what's needed is clarity and conversation.

At the end of the day having a sense of what's the cost involved.

Where is the sources coming from?

From the city.

What's required from the county and what's required from the taxpayers until there's greater transparency about all these questions?

We don't have enough information to make informed decisions, and that's what's important.

Having every stakeholder at the table and then having the community make informed decisions.

All right.

Well, thank you very much.

James Naughton, CEO of San Antonio, for growth on the east side.

Interesting that you're in limbo now on this grant.

But, keep us updated on that.

And what's going on on this side will do.

Thank you.

Randy.

This month, San Antonio made another top 25 list, this one for the seventh straight year.

One of the top places to film in the country.

Joining us to talk about this is Crystal Jones, the director of the city's arts and culture department.

Thanks for coming in.

Thanks for having me.

Tell us about, MovieMaker magazine and what they say about San Antonio.

Yes.

So MovieMaker magazine every year does a top 25 list of best places to live and to work as a movie maker in North America.

And Canada.

And we made the list, and we actually moved up this year to the 20 spot.

And along with a lot of other Texas cities, which really speaks to Texas's investment in the film industry.

Why?

Because I know years ago there was a there's always been a controversy of how much should the city and the state, support film.

Industry.

And they have they have gone up and down.

Where are we right now and how much we're supporting film.

Right now on the state level, we have $200 million in the States incentive, and that's a rebate program.

So for every dollar spent, what really ends up happening when a an organization gets a dollar of the rebate program, they spend $5.75 an hour on our Texas community.

So it's really an economic generator.

So $200 million funded at the state level.

And of course, this legislative session will be looking at the same amount or more, advocating for that.

But on the city's level, we have the largest film incentive on a municipality level in the state of Texas.

We have a 7.5% film incentive, and it pairs with the state's incentive, or it can be used independently.

And again, it's a rebate.

So you spend over $100,000 and you start to get that 7.5% back on what you spend in San Antonio.

And specifically, people might have heard recently about 1923, the TV series streaming, they shot here and, made some money.

They did.

City made some money.

Yes, yes.

So they filmed, for one day in San Antonio on historic Broadway between PyCon and Houston Street.

And in that one day, the investment in San Antonio was about $1 million for filming.

So if you think about over 200 cast and crew, we had a lot of locals on that film production, and they're interacting with businesses.

The businesses along that corridor got paid for the days of the times that they had to close down, but then also coffee shops along the way were open where cast and crew could come and get coffee, all paid for by the productions.

So it's really an investment in small business and an investment in our local cast and crew.

And the reason it's important also is nationally in different states and cities have even more, incentives, very competitive, trying to get people away from Los Angeles where it's even more expensive.

But New Mexico, for example.

Carolinas.

How do we compare to those?

Well, with this $200 million investment, we compare very well.

I mean, we're getting a lot of productions coming back to Texas, which left win, of production.

The incentive wasn't so strong.

So it's not only that economic generator, but there's also a big film tourism business.

People want to see where films are shot or where even commercials are filmed.

And so a lot of states are starting to see the reason why we need to invest in film.

And when you, try to get people to come to San Antonio to film, what do you tell them about locations and things like that?

Here it is all about location, location, location in San Antonio.

One of the things that really benefits us in San Antonio is that we have many different looks, where other cities may just tear down historic buildings to have a new development.

We are committed as a city to making sure that we still have historic areas of our city, and that has been a huge difference for us.

We've had productions that go to other cities that shall not be named, and they say, oh, we don't have that look.

And then for days they call us, they say, we have to film in four days.

Do you have anything that looks like this?

And we do so in four days.

We can shut down streets.

We can make sure that businesses are informed and get the production done.

And not everything needs to be the big production to get some incentives.

I went to film school in LA.

You see, you didn't really like it at the big stuff.

But now you have guerilla filmmakers, you shoot smaller, films, just a few people, and you also have grants that support that kind of film as well.

Yes.

So if you haven't made that $100,000 threshold, do not fret, especially if you're a San Antonio filmmaker.

We have a grant that's open to all artists, but in particular, there is a multimedia section and it's open right now.

The intent to apply closes February 7th.

When you do that, intend to apply.

It opens the application, which is due February 21st.

You can find that at Sagi Arts and it provides, between seven seven, $7500 or $15,000, depending on how complex your your project is.

They are competitive grants.

But, we have a number of filmmakers who have applied and received those grants for their projects that might not be hitting that incentive threshold yet.

What do we see coming up?

I know you can't always talk about what's coming up until it's confirmed, but are you what you're working on?

So we are at any given time, I'll tell you, we typically in the past had about 200 film permits that we issue on an annual basis.

Last year we had over 400.

So filmmaking is really increasing here in San Antonio.

So on an on an active week, about 6 to 7 productions that are active from, you know, small music videos for our musicians or commercials, we are scouting about 30 projects on average.

And we got some big ones that are in the works.

But I'm really excited about seeing some of our local, directors and producers starting to work on their own projects.

So I think coming up, you'll start to see some of that news on our website.

And our social media handles casting calls for projects.

The website is for people that are on.

Our website is Saga Arts.

You can find everything there and we'll put cast and crew calls if you want to be an extra or if you're an active cast or crew member, you can get a job with those productions.

We talked about the impact of, Taylor Sheridan and his, projects on Texas, just maybe coming more to San Antonio or a little bit.

We don't know.

Yeah.

1923 is right.

I mean, do they.

Like it.

Here?

Oh, they loved it.

I mean, they loved it.

Not only did they have, so much access to our city, we're very easy to work with.

The fact that our film commission actually controls our permit system helps because it allows us to prioritize them.

We had some, folks say we wish we would have shot the entire season here, and that's what we're aiming to do.

We always know that just like any average visitor that comes to San Antonio, they see it for the first time.

They want to come back.

We find that with productions all the time.

1923 did you pitch them on 1718 or 1836?

Anything they have coming up, coming up?

If Land man wants to take a vacation to San Antonio, they can come and take a vacation.

All right.

Well, thank you very much.

Crystal Jones, director of the city's arts and culture department.

Appreciate you coming in and talking about film in San Antonio.

I'm a big fan.

Thank you.

On reporters roundtable this week, the Texas Legislature is going to take a look at clamping down on energy storage in Texas this session.

At least battery sites where they are, where they can be.

And that's turning into a little more controversial topic than you might think.

Joining us to talk about it is Sarah Natali, a staff writer focusing on energy for the San Antonio Express-News.

Thank you very much for coming in.

Now, this concept of energy storage, which is batteries, basically for wind and solar power.

Just last week, they helped us through the cold snap, and we need more of that.

And one would expect that the legislature would encourage battery sites, but that's not actually the case, it seems.

Yeah, it's definitely a mixed bag depending on who you talk to.

Right.

There's certainly folks out there that support batteries, but there's been concerns, especially among those lawmakers who represent smaller communities, especially we focus out in the whole country, obviously that's nearby, where transmission lines there have a lot of like choke points where there's a lot of power racing through, almost like a crowded highway, batteries, you can kind of think of like a sponge.

So some of these operators are trying to pinpoint those key areas that a sponge would make the most sense.

So where can we soak up the extra power, to hold on to it so we can keep those transmission lines having easy pathways?

Because, you know, you don't want a car crash, right?

And the same works for power.

As we've ramped up, wind and solar, we have ramped up some, the battery storage.

But, I understand some people, like in the Hill Country, are concerned there could be fires.

There was one recently in California, but that they say, supporters say is rare.

Yeah.

So, batteries kind of can soak up power off the grid and also be tied to renewables and hold on to solar power and wind power.

Just to understand sort of the diversity and like all the different roles they can have now, the safety concerns, I don't think they're illegitimate, but yes, the industry, says they're rare.

There's never been one in Texas, that we know of, at least that has ever been, you know, reported, the ones have all primarily been in California, which is the other like state that has the most battery storage.

They're they're typically contained to where they happen.

Right?

So a lot of times, battery fires burn really, really hot and they're difficult to, extinguish.

They kind of burn themselves out.

But most sites are built in a way that like you're containing that fire.

They don't typically spread, but, you know, there's fumes, there's, evacuation.

You now, there haven't been any in Texas from these sites have been other places, but there's also national or natural gas explosions and firearms things like that.

Now, is this, kind of the battery people kind of feel like they're being picked on.

As I understand it, oil and gas is Texas, and there's a lot of oil billionaires backing a lot of legislators.

Is that where some of this is coming from?

You think that they want to focus on building more gas plants than encouraging wind and solar?

There's definitely a discussion, among like what is considered the most reliable source of power.

So you have plenty of lawmakers and folks around Texas who view natural gas powered plants or even coal powered plants as being firm, reliable power.

And they see that being is like the future of the grid.

When you kind of are just looking from like a technical perspective, Texas demand is growing unprecedented rates by the end of the decade.

It could be more than double where the decade started and sort of the more middle ground approach that I think a lot of even battery operators are taking is, hey, we're not against gas, but you can't physically build enough gas plants quick enough to meet the demand that we are going to be seeing in five years.

Even so, to create more red tape there, like, you know, this is a.

And this would be, one of the bills, I understand it would, create a new permit process.

The Public Utilities Commission would, basically be able to tell you where you could put and not put a battery site, which is unlike what they can do for gas plants.

Yeah.

What's so important to remember, of course, is are all we get thousands of bills and we don't know which ones are going to move forward or not.

But, there's a theme among multiple of them that sort of have this, let's go to state regulators to make the final decision.

And as you said, that's not something that, other sources of power are having to do.

You know, there are some federal permits that are usually air quality focused, and renewables or battery storage sites don't have to do much with that because they're not releasing emissions.

And, you know, if there's, if they're trying to build something where an endangered species species is located, then they would be subject to the same, like permit process that any other plant.

And, President Trump, also is, what he has talked about in terms of wind power.

He's not a big fan of wind power at all.

And so battery site operators and wind power people are a little concerned about that.

What that's going to mean do we know yet.

So it's so early in a lot of the and I think this goes for most of the executive orders he signed, where there's an anticipation that a lot of these are going to be challenged in court.

There are some grants that are sort of in limbo now of money that was pretty much already set up for certain renewable projects, specifically about wind.

He's made his stance, like, very clear, in, you know, in his remarks, like right after taking office, he was very, very clearly against, wind power.

So the orders he wrote don't have any immediate impacts on Texas, because it's federal lands and offshore.

So we don't have any current like there's been discussion about offshore projects in Texas, but none of them had actually been like, started.

There's nothing to stop.

And I, I want to say we have a very small percentage of federally owned land.

So it's very unlikely that any current wind farms are being affected.

But, you know, it obviously sets a clear tone, a clear priority.

And we're already seeing that there's a similar theme in the, the state level bills that have been filed.

But people may not realize the wind and solar is growing so much in Texas and battery storage, and it's getting more efficient, say, unless you drive down to the coast and see all the the turbines are up into West Texas.

And that looks to be continuing because the state needs that.

And those are faster, easier to be built.

Yeah.

Quicker talking to operators, they've all told me that wind, solar and battery storage are cheaper and quicker to build.

So even, like taking out any federal or like state level incentives if they existed, a lot of folks say battery storage especially would still be growing at a faster rate because it's just, you know, the market just makes it more appealing.

Right?

That's just business economics.

Like they're cheaper and quicker to build.

So when you're talking about like, sort of like how Ercot fits into all of this and like the state grid operators perspective, they really have said that they view all these resources as important and all having a role to play.

The state has, a new like, incentive program to give low interest loans to gas powered plants that are being developed now.

But as I said before, these things take a lot of time to build, and we don't have a ton of time, but they.

Have that taxpayer funding for gas plants, but not for wind and solar.

Correct?

Yeah.

There's not, any state level like renewable incentives or some federal ones.

But at least right now would be interesting to see what happens in the legislature.

Thank you very much.

Sarah Dean Italia is staff writer, Express News, focusing on energy.

Thanks very much for coming in, and thank you for joining us for this edition of On the Record.

You can watch this show again.

You can watch any previous shows.

You can also download the podcast.

Just go to KLRN.org I'm Randy Beamer and we'll see you next.

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