The business of business.

San Antonio is supported by Texas Mutual Workers Compensation Insurance and welcome.

I'm Henry Cisneros, and this is Business of Business.

San Antonio 2023 has been another banner year for our city's economy.

We're indeed in a moment.

We're seeing jobs, industry and housing grow.

For the next hour, we'll look at various elements that make up our thriving economy by talking with the people on the front lines of those areas.

It's a time to reflect on how far we've come and take a moment to appreciate the work so many have done in creating this growth.

But we're still on an upward climb.

San Antonio is on the fast track to becoming an international hub of prosperity and business.

We want to start this discussion of the San Antonio economy in the logical place with the person who knows the overview of the economy better than anyone else, and that is the mayor of San Antonio, Mayor Ron Nuremberg.

Mayor, welcome to this discussion of the economic moment for our city.

How do you see the moment?

I believe San Antonio is in a place of competitive advantage relative to our peers across the country.

But certainly here in Texas, we're seeing incredible momentum in our economy right now.

We're seeing also inclusive growth in our economy, where while we've had 46% GDP growth over the last six years, we're also seeing during that period of time median income rise, wages rise.

So we are entering a period where companies are seeing San Antonio as a place to invest, create jobs.

But increasingly those jobs are now accessible to a larger proportion of our population.

That is a stunning number that you just cited, 46% growth in the gross domestic product of the region, the economic product of San Antonio in the last six years.

That's right.

And it's just a result of a number of things.

One of them being the fact that we have created ecosystems, supplier networks and different pillar industries.

We've also created a labor advantage with the work going on in the educational system as well as our workforce development efforts environmentally.

We have an advantage in real estate and affordable, reliable electricity and water.

So we have fundamental advantages here in San Antonio, and we're also investing in our community in a way both through infrastructure and workforce that I think companies, businesses locally as well as all across the country in the world, are seeing San Antonio as a place where it's a smart, smart investment.

Talk about the most recent announcement.

Yeah, the British company, fantastic announcement, one of the largest economic development programs we've ever announced since Toyota came in the mid 2000s.

This is the largest privately owned construction and agricultural equipment manufacturer in the world from the U.K., called JCB, and creating 1600 jobs at a minimum in our community that are going to be high paying jobs in manufacturing.

And one of the things that's most gratifying to hear from that company in this whole process is that workforce was the primary motivator for locating in San Antonio.

They saw what we were doing in terms of cultivating a workforce not just today, but into the future that they can invest in.

And that, of course, benefits the local population here.

Let's talk about two pieces of that.

One is automotive as a cluster and what it's doing beyond San Antonio into south Texas and northern Mexico and how that's going to continue to accrue to our benefit.

People are talking about near shoring companies coming out of China and Asia because of the supply chain problems, because of the tensions between the major nations, tariff issues, etc., and locating literally in our backyard or in our city to paint a picture of what that's going to amount to.

Sure, if we play our cards right as a state and as local communities, this could be the second Texas miracle economically.

The fact that so many companies, large companies, are finding it as an advantage to locate their supply chain nearer to where their consumers are because of what you just talked about, supply chain issues as a result of the pandemic tensions politically.

And we can be a beneficiary of that because of all of the other things we just talked about, advantages and the availability of real estate, electricity, water, but most importantly, people.

We are one of the fastest growing corridors in the entire country from essentially Dallas all the way to Monterrey, but really Austin and San Antonio into the valley.

And if that population can grow at the same time, be educated and skilled, that's a great advantage as you've talked about.

Thank you both for your work.

Thank you for being with us today.

Thank you, Aaron.

One standout star in economic development in 2023 in our city has been Port San Antonio.

From cyber to automotive to aviation to entertainment.

Port San Antonio has claimed its rightful place as the beacon of new growth on the city's southwest side.

The port has proved that a landmark location can be rehabbed and turned into one of the city's new economic drivers.

How is that done?

We visited the port and talked with President and CEO Jim Pearse Buck to find out what he isn't getting excited about.

Jim Port San Antonio.

Since its inception after the closing of Kelley Air Force Base was thought of as a of aircraft assembly aircraft maintenance facility.

And that was a great boon for the city.

But with your arrival, we sort of hit a point of inflection that took it to a completely different level.

What was your thinking?

What was your dream at that point?

The thinking was very simple.

Aviation continues to evolve.

We went from wooden airplanes and canvas wings to modern airplanes.

And when you have computer systems, information technology, digitalization and robotics coming in, that's what we do so well in San Antonio.

So you bring these disparate groups together and you solve problems that are going to advance the industry for 100 years.

That's what we wanted to do.

And talk, talk to me about the economics of that.

What's the economic development aspect of that?

The new firms, new start ups.

In the five years we've been pursuing the strategy, we've added over 8000 jobs to this campus.

In fact, just in 2023, we're over 2100 new jobs on this campus.

We built and fully occupied 750,000 square feet of office space and laboratory space during the pandemic and transacted about 7 million square feet of real estate transactions.

And in doing that, we raised our net operating income by more than two times and our top line revenue by two times.

So part of your job is a traditional real estate job in terms of attracting tenants to buildings, and we're getting the technology firms.

But you've gone beyond that in the creation of this Boeing Tech Center.

And that also was something that you first espoused and no one appreciated or knew.

What would it be?

What was the idea and what has happened?

The idea was very simple.

You know, our fundamental stick, the lever that we control is real estate.

But if you use real estate for real estate purposes, that's just a money flight.

If you use real estate as a tool to invest in people, invest in the community, then you drive up the value of not just the assets, but you drive up the value of the people that are there.

So with this center, we designed it to do a couple of things.

One is very simple build amenities.

You have food here, you have exhibit space here, you have educational space here, you have museum space here, You have all kinds of conferencing venues.

And what's ahead in terms of next steps beyond this tech center?

Beyond this, we're going to keep on growing the campus.

You've been building buildings.

We've been building with security dimensions to them, and you've been very successful in drawing almost an honor roll of technology and aerospace companies here.

But you're building something special next.

What is that?

We are we're about to launch will be the most expensive office building ever built in San Antonio.

We've got some international architects who have built what is really a work of art.

There's not a straight line on it.

It looks like it's rising up from the ground.

But that's the real economic development that we all seek.

Thank you very much for the work that you're doing, the vision that you've had.

And thank you for informing our public today.

Thank you so much.

You can't talk about the incredible growth on the South Side without talking about Brooks.

The former Air Force base has been transformed into a successful mixed use community that includes retail offices, technology, housing and recreation.

And at the helm of Brooks is Leo Gomez, one of the premier public leaders of our time in San Antonio.

Leo, thank you for being here.

My pleasure, Henry.

Let's start the conversation about Brooks by talking about the history of Brooks.

Tell us a little bit about the base as it was in its prime and also that historic moment in 1963 when President Kennedy came to Brooks and delivered a speech there the day before the assassination in Dallas.

Here's what I think people usually think about Nasser when they think about space exploration and don't realize that a lot of the original research that enabled human beings to go into space and the equipment that supported them was all research developed and done in the experiments right here in San Antonio at Brooks Air Force Base.

In fact, it was for that visit that President Kennedy came on that November 21st to dedicate the facilities, the centrifuge in which the astronauts and pilots today are still tested as candidates.

And the altitude chambers.

You were brought abroad to to lead the transformation of the base, which you have very successfully done.

It's one of the premiere success stories of modern San Antonio.

But when I came on board and worked with the board and community leaders, we developed a new vision for Brooks, and that was to redevelop it as a mixed use community that would not only redevelop the original 1308 and eight acres, but redevelop in a way that created regional prosperity so that Southeast San Antonio would truly benefit from the redevelopment of those 13 been completely transformational.

So you have hospital, you have housing, you have a hotel that's never existed on the South Side with the amenities that this one has.

The School of Aerospace Medicine is now a medical school incarnate Words.

A school of medicine.

What's yet to be done?

What's next is, is taking what we've built and doubling it in terms of numbers, doubling residents, doubling students and doubling employee count.

I know you have international companies coming there, other institutions that you see in the future.

Yes.

First, we have companies from South Korea, from Japan, from the Czech Republic and from France.

Today, I look forward to attracting companies from a couple of other countries and working with greater ascetics in the city of San Antonio to do that.

Manufacturers that we have are wonderful along with what we have in the hospital.

But Henry, we also are dreaming of building an incredible office park.

There isn't a class a office building in South San Antonio, but for Port San Antonio and Brooks.

And we believe we should have an opportunity to bring those kinds of employers that would be in class C office buildings 10 minutes south of downtown San Antonio.

It's amazing to me that in 2004, the assessed value of the land that encompassed Brooks and another 1200 acres around it, which is now the Brooks turns its boundaries, was valued at $36 million and change the latest valuation puts it at $976 million, 27 times the growth in that period.

We've done $1,000,000,000 in development, 1.3 billion in just the last ten years.

And this year alone we're doing another half billion.

That's fantastic.

It really is balancing off growth in the city, creating some very livable options for people and a good business attraction.

Keep up the good work.

Thank you.

Pretty much every city in America is attempting to create economic growth by concentrating on the tech sector.

San Antonio has had particular success because of an entity called geekdom, a platform from which emphasis on startups can occur.

And the CEO of geekdom is Charles Wooden, who's here with us today.

Charles, you set out a very ambitious goal several years ago and are making great progress.

Describe that to us.

Yes.

So two years ago, 2021, we set out the goal to launch the next 500 startups in ten years.

And here I sit in front of you today at already 302 startups launched in just a two year period of time that look amazing and it's amazing.

In ten years you had a goal of 500.

And in two years you've reached 300.

Yes.

Tell me how that works.

People come to you at geekdom.

They get some sort of mentoring and assistance and access to capital and all that's required.

And then and then they go out and they and they grow as business.

Exactly.

We have a curated process that we call, ideate, cultivate, shape and grow.

Now, in the big picture, San Antonio is drawing some major firms, like the announcement by the British firm JCB to create 1500 jobs and growth of our major companies like H-E-B continuing to grow.

Where does what geekdom does fit into the larger ecosystem of San Antonio's economic growth?

I look at it as more of a holistic approach towards economic development, whereas bringing an amazing company like JCB here will impact over the long term.

What we're trying to do is grow the next SCB out of San Antonio alone and to make sure that we pave the way so that they get all the resources that they need so that we don't lose the next JCB to another city.

And we build them here and we give them all the resources that they need, creating new jobs out of nothing.

If you compare geekdom to what's going on in other cities, do you find that geekdom sort of where is it in the package of ventures of this type?

I think we're speeding ahead.

And if you look at our neighbors up north with Austin, who we've learned so much from being close to, for me, it's really kind of replicating what it is that they've done well up there.

But applying it to the culture and the experience that is San Antonio and that is being very agnostic, being open to small business support and being helpful.

Not everything in this industry, in this world in San Antonio is going to be as tech focused as it may be in Austin.

But how do we leverage those successes, the funding that they've brought there to that city and bringing it down here?

Are you do you believe we're functioning as a region, Austin and San Antonio?

More and more.

Can you actually see that dynamic?

Absolutely.

I mean, for us, we're seeing that distance between the two cities blur and it's becoming a lot more difficult to tell the difference between them.

But on top of it, the collaborative nature that I'm finding between organizations doing similar work up there and what we're doing down here, such as Capital Factory's CEOs, sits on my board and we work together quite often to make sure that we're getting these resources and you find more respectful working relationships and compatible working relationship.

Well, thank you for the work that you're doing.

This is very impressive.

It is something that we badly need and it will create a foundation.

And under all the other kinds of economic development we're doing homegrown companies, startups, succeeding.

It's probably the best way in the long run to build an economy that works for everybody.

Yep.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Longtime locals can remember when the San Antonio International Airport was one small terminal.

It doesn't seem that long ago as the city experiences rapid growth.

The airport has grown along with it.

You can see why San Antonio International is one of our blue chips of San Antonio economic drivers.

And 2023 has been a year of firsts for our airport.

So I suppose congratulations on a big year for the airport.

Thank you.

The highlights, of course, the international flights and the fact that you're now underway with the renovation.

Tell us about both of those things.

Yeah.

So, I mean, when we take a quick snapshot of 2023 and what we were able to accomplish this year, it's been an incredible year for the San Antonio Internationa First and foremost was, you know, air service development in a post-COVID era.

So, you know, six months of, you know, record breaking numbers, these are all time highs higher than during COVID.

Right.

Even I mean, the best years of 2019, which was record breaking years for the for the airport.

And all of that is intentional and purposeful.

And tell me what you think is going on.

Is it the growth of the region that's occurring and more people flying?

I think it's some prosperity.

I think that's a factor.

I think the other important factor that sometimes is left out is the framework in the strategic plan that we put together to prepare ourselves for a post-COVID era.

If we think back and look at what happened in the 911 situation, 2008, you know, the big recession that occurred, what goes down eventually comes back up.

So you have new flights in general, but but some really good international flights.

You had a Germany flight.

The transatlantic connection was an enormous win.

That is, you know, the first time ever.

San Antonio will connect it into Europe and beyond and starts next year.

And that starts May of 2024.

And then you landed a couple or three New Mexico direct.

Yes, that's a big one.

That's a 1.5 million person area, Leon, on, you know, to the existing, you know, Monterrey, Mexico City, Guadalajara.

Now, part of that is this automotive cluster that's developed.

So there's a lot of industrial people now flying to get it that on their own and places like that.

Right from here it is.

As the airport director, you feel generally comfortable in saying we are prepared, we are ready to handle the growth that is before us.

We're getting ready to be the next big bang in Texas.

Let's look out, I don't know, 30 years into the economic future of central Texas, what do you what what does your experience tell you?

Our air service is going to look like we're going to be in this airport.

Austin has their airport.

You see collaboration between the airports, people across the region making choices as to, you know, what flights they take from where.

Is that The way this is going to be like a team work?

It is in many ways, but it's competitive and we can't forget about that from our perspective.

It's really preparing the San Antonio International Airport to be the next large hub in Texas.

Right.

Today, we're a medium hub airport, but within the next, you know, five years, eight years, we could be at 50 million passengers.

That prepares us to be the next large hub in the state.

We were adding 17 gates, 17 gates in this next iteration that's about to begin.

Correct.

Fantastic.

Well, there's no doubt that airports are the key to city growth these days.

It used to be airports were convenience, but today they are absolutely essential to kind of activity.

And you cannot be a functioning large metro with a strong economy if you don't have air connectivity.

Thank you very much both for being on this program, but for the work you're doing for this pleasure.

Thank you for everything you've done as well.

Thank you.

It's impossible to talk about the economy of San Antonio and not talk about the biosphere inches the entire health sector, which represents more employment, a larger part of the economy than any other sector.

We're fortunate today to have Dr. William Henrich, who is president of Uthealth.

That is the aggregation of six schools of medicine in its various forms in San Antonio.

To join us.

Dr. Hinrich, let's start with you.

As a representative of the biosciences at large in San Antonio.

Last numbers I saw about 160,000 people employed in biomedical careers in San Antonio.

In medical education.

Medical research.

Medical.

A clinical services delivery.

Medical.

A spinoff.

Companies.

What is your take on the state of the bio sciences in San Antonio?

I'd say in a word, it's thriving.

It's growing.

It is dynamic.

Trying to accelerate our recruitment of new businesses to San Antonio, trying to be more and tromp and worry all about creating new businesses from our own research.

And I would say that the demand signal and is continuing to be very strong.

We're growing all these in all these places because of the fact that our city is growing, our region is growing, and we have so many particular needs that need to be fulfilled that we spend the bulk of our time trying to meet that demand.

Give me your sense of whether or not we're emerging as a notable bioscience center beyond taking care of our own folks.

We are.

No one could say anything but that.

That is true.

It is true.

We have partnerships at UT Health with Texas Biomed, with all the hospital systems, with the businesses that that galvanize biomedical research in every sector we are.

And we're bringing more and more and more top scientists to San Antonio who want to make this their home because we've reached a critical mass.

And that's important to them because it means that they have colleagues to work with and areas of research which are sufficiently developed that they can further their wish to cure cancer or heart disease.

Now, private investment in biomedicine, startup companies, new products, that's happening as well.

We see companies that manufacture micro instruments, nanotechnologies in the medical field happening here.

People retire from military medicine and stay here and start either a practice or a business or a research company.

How powerful a dynamic do you think that is for cities, for this city's future?

I think it's important and I think it blends in very well to this system of sophisticated care that we're building here.

And so bioscience scale is important, but it's also important to have high quality, very high quality research.

And that's something that San Antonio is more and more being known for.

And that is an attractant for this, the kind of entrepreneurialism and blue sky thinking that comes with the very best in leadership.

I think we are a world leader in neurodegenerative disease.

We have the only Alzheimer's disease research center in the whole state of Texas, comprehensive care in San Antonio.

The National Cancer Institute designated cancer center is here.

And we're partners with everybody across the state and across the country in cancer.

And some of the I think kudos that could come to that is the fact that we have now between six and eight drugs that were targeted here, developed here now in clinical trials.

That is an astonishingly good record and that's in cancer.

Thank you for your work and thank you for being here today.

My pleasure.

Andres Munoz is the chief operating officer for Visit San Antonio, the city's primary mechanism for appealing to the outside world.

That is to say tourism.

That comes as leisure travelers, people who come here for conventions and traditionally a very important part of the San Antonio economy.

Our guest today is Andrés Munoz.

He's the chief marketing officer for Visit San Antonio, The city's primary mechanism for appealing to the outside world.

That is to say, tourism.

That comes as leisure travelers, people who come here for conventions, but traditionally a very important part of the San Antonio economy.

Andrés, thank you for joining us and thank you for the work that you do.

And there is the obvious question about San Antonio and our touristic hospitality industry.

Is the aftermath of the pandemic.

What can you say about where we are in the path back and what do you expect in your expertise will be the final result?

Are we going to be back to the same levels?

Are we planning for something different?

I think we're going to surpass what we had before.

We've come back stronger than ever and nowadays we have a momentum that we hadn't seen before ever.

And I say that because the goal in 2019, back in 2019, the goal was to get to 41 million visitors.

We're already at 36.

Obviously, the pandemic hit us hard, but we're rebounding pretty hard and we believe that that momentum is going to continue to grow.

Tourism has always been important, at least for the last 50 or 60 years.

To us, we've been a touristic destination.

Some people in that time said it's not the largest industry.

They may say it doesn't pay the same level as you might expect from technology jobs or something.

But what would you say about tourism and San Antonio?

What would you want the audience to know about just how significant it is to us?

It is very significant.

$19 billion of economic impact into our local economy is significant.

140,000 jobs.

The goal around 140,000 jobs, one in every eight San Antonio's work in the hospitality.

And that's second only to something like the bio sciences, which is about 160,000.

So it's right up there.

It is right up there.

It is definitely top five industries within our economy.

We believe that in the next few years we're going to have at least 15 more hundred hotels, new rooms to be so up to around 50,000, around 50,000.

And where does that compare?

What does 50,000 mean to the layperson in comparison with other cities?

Where would that put us?

It is probably very similar levels in Austin, without a doubt.

Top 20 in the country, maybe.

I would say there are some cities, obviously Las Vegas, New York, that are significantly higher or Dallas would be in the 90 or 100,000 rooms.

But we are up there considering that we have two types of travelers, which is not the case in many cities.

We have the convention travel, which is one important part of that occupancy, but we also have the leisure traveler, which is the families that come in during the weekend and come to is a lot like last minute decision to come in and to have a great experience.

And I gather we're seeing more people from across the U.S. as well.

That is correct.

Thank you for sharing these insights with our viewers, but thank you also for the work that you and visit San Antonio do.

It's obviously a critical enterprise for us and and the work you do touches many lives.

Thank you, Henry.

We're incredibly proud of our day to day and hopefully will continue to grow.

One measure of the vitality of a city is the vibrancy of its downtown.

San Antonio has been fortunate to have a colorful and exciting downtown, though we do face challenges.

I had the opportunity the other day to catch up with the new CEO of Central San Antonio, Trish De Berry, on Houston Street in the center of the city.

What is it exactly that Centro does just so the public understands the job?

Sure.

So I love Centro for a variety of different reasons, but specifically Centro manages the public improvement district or the pit, which is really the earth.

So is it officially a public agency, a public improvement district with a separate board?

With a separate board, Yes.

Mission is is a clean and safe downtown, and whatever it takes to redevelop downtown, you're your mandate is big.

You can think about parking issues or office space issues or mobility issues, the river walk, all of hemisphere.

Right?

All of it.

How would you assess the state of downtown today?

I felt like we were on a real roll.

The pandemic hit us hard because our core business is conventions and tourism, particularly in the downtown.

And it went to zero.

I mean, it's it's it's almost incredible to believe that some of our hotels were down to like 5% occupancy, 2% occupancy in the heart of the pandemic that had to have an impact on the street was huge in downtown because we felt like we were really on a roll.

So where do you think where do you think we are now?

So I think we have we're still working our way out of recovery.

I do think conventions are coming back into downtown.

We are getting to a place where I think we've got some bigger solutions regarding homelessness in downtown.

And that's a big deal right?

Perspective is everything and cities all across the country are dealing with that.

But it's about how do we handle mental health issues and homelessness that we have in downtown, but also about vacant office space.

Right.

That is a very big deal.

Is the residential growing now?

Yes, the residential is growing, but we've got more work to do where that's concerned because we need to incentivize not just affordable housing, but market rate housing as well.

Do you think this will come to see minor league baseball in the downtown?

I do believe people will come to see minor league baseball.

A we've got a beautiful downtown here.

There is a love associated with baseball, especially in south Texas and into Mexico, not to mention the fact it is very affordable for a family to be able to go to a baseball.

So you would you would you would work in this job to sell the average San Antonio.

I want public policy that would say we should invest in a downtown stadium and downtown.

Yes.

Because I think there there is a huge economic development case that can be made for that, not just direct, but also indirect.

Now, the harder question, Yes.

Do you support the idea of the Spurs coming downtown?

I do support the idea of the Spurs coming into downtown.

Make the case for me that I, as a business person, running a business operation, should be in the downtown.

Well, because I think especially as we look at what could happen with stadiums, I think there is a new energy and a new vibrancy associated with downtowns.

I do think that we have to have elected leadership who believe in downtown and become what I call evangelize for downtown.

And I kind of feel like that's what I do.

I preach the gospel every day 24, seven, 365 days a year regarding the potential for downtown.

And I think if we can move not just elected officials who are also talking to their constituents about the game changer, that stadium talk could mean that what the Alamo and a new urban park and all of that means to downtown then I think we reach a tipping point regarding where we're going.

Well good luck at this because it's clearly important to the to our community.

And I don't know that there's anybody with more enthusiasm for the job.

So thank you.

And thank you for what you did for our no city, no region can have economic success without jobs.

The Austin San Antonio region from Pflugerville to Floresville is seeing record job growth.

It doesn't just happen that businesses decide to come.

Here is the result of efforts of many different groups and people who work tirelessly to bring companies to our area.

Our guest is Gina Salcedo.

She is the head Greater S.A., San Antonio's Economic development Program.

This is the organization that represents us around the country, around the world, attempting to find good candidates to come to San Antonio.

And just in the last few weeks, Gina has generated a major success.

Congratulations.

Thank you.

Tell our audience who may have missed it when it was announced about JCB, what it is, what it represents, the size and how it fits into economic development program.

Absolutely.

JCB is the world's largest privately held manufacturer of construction and agricultural equipment, and they selected the South Side of San Antonio for a significant manufacturing facility that will be their largest in North America.

As you know, with these types of opportunities, they have their initial investment and then manufacturing has a multiplier effect.

So their suppliers and there's a procurement element and so significant jobs there.

And good paying jobs.

Great paying jobs.

And tell me what this how this fits into the larger panoply of San Antonio's automotive and automotive cluster.

I mean, what you're hitting on, Henry, is our broader strategy for advanced manufacturing and growth within that sector and specifically addressing the opportunity in automotive manufacturing.

And there's so much to be said there.

And as you and I have discussed, the opportunity is is really with the broader corridor between San Antonio up north to Austin, down south and to Monterey and leaning in to work together on building out of talent development, pipeline, infrastructure coordination, and then, of course, industry development.

Tesla is a good example.

Toyota now JCB, Navistar The opp northward to Austin, but this southward push is real.

It has plants in one alto in Monterrey Bay, in Queretaro, and all of them in connection to the needs here for parts and assembly and so forth.

Talk about that.

Yeah, I mean, we've known since you worked on the Toyota Project now 20 years ago, they celebrated their 20 year birthday in San Antonio just two days ago.

But we knew then that if we were to lean into workforce development and into their supply chain development, that we could be a serious contender for automotive manufacturing.

What we didn't know is if you were to fast forward to today the geopolitical climate, right, the mass exodus of corporate investment out of China specifically, and the conflict in Russia and now the Middle East.

And there's a dynamic at play where these investments are looking this way.

They are looking people call it near shoring.

That's on shoring.

And the idea is not to get caught up in the supply chain problems or the tensions between nations and actually put the manufacturing here.

Right.

I think if we continue to align around, again, talent development, infrastructure development, we that that corridor, we can be one of the most dynamic employment corridors in the world if we just continue to focus and continue to partner.

That's awfully good sounding words to me.

When you say in the world at the pinnacle of sort of economic progress.

I think educational attainment and talent development simultaneously is our greatest opportunity and challenge.

But we're focused on it and making progress.

San Antonio is lucky to have you and glad that St Mary's University invested in your personal development.

Thank you.

Other cities in Texas have found that as they grew, one of the principal challenges they face to keeping the quality of life is mobility.

That is to say, transportation.

To most folks, that translates into either you have free flowing traffic and ability to go to work and school and medical appointments and the rest of the mobility realities of life, or you have congestion.

And it becomes a limiting factor on the quality of life and even the economic prospects of the region.

In San Antonio, we have VR that focuses our attention on mobility, and Jeff Arndt, who is the CEO of Veer, is here with us today.

So let's talk about the financing for a minute.

Yes, the sales tax that was voted in 2020 takes effect in about three more years.

Correct.

And then there has that addition Tell us about whether we accomplished anything with that with that vote.

I think the two signature projects are the advanced rapid transit projects, one that we call the Green Line, formerly known as the North-South Line, and then the silver or East-West line.

But does that tax help us get at least where you can plan forward and have sufficient resources to carry out some of these projects?

It does.

Just to focus on the finance piece of it, it does advance the ball some.

And now there is unprecedented amounts of federal money as a result of the infrastructure bill and others that are available.

You and you're availing yourself of that.

Correct.

And and again, unless you have the local match, you can't get the federal share.

And so this new sales tax is providing, in many cases, the local match against which we can draw down.

For example, the Green line, our current ask is 60% federal, 40% local.

So those local dollars would deleverage.

So now let's talk about the things that are on the table today.

And you mentioned the Green Line and the Silver Line.

And describe to the public who hasn't had time to sort of read up on it.

What is the essence of those projects?

This is a new form of bus transit.

Rubber tired, electric on dedicated lanes with people being able to get on and off without having to climb stairs because they're at station level high right now.

This is a kind of a hybrid in the sense that it's dedicated lane and therefore you could be more sure of its arrival on time.

Right.

And you can put more frequency, is that right?

Correct.

So first of all, let me just give you that kind of those key pieces that you just talked about.

Air will be a highly frequent route, like every 10 minutes during the weekday.

Right.

Ten, 10 minutes is a sweet spot where people don't feel like they even need to look at a schedule.

They just go wait for the bus right back.

The second thing is those busses are going to be in dedicated lanes, which means they're out of the traffic.

So, Jeff, this sounds like a revolutionary advance for San Antonio for me.

Would you, with your experience across the country, would you see this as a point of inflection for the VA system?

We're about to hit a new VA.

I think it is definitely that's a perfect word and I'm going to remember it.

It is a point of inflection, I think, up until these processes came about and that sales tax became available to us.

We operated on what we could afford, which is the same kind bus system that might have been in the forties.

Right.

Does this mean that we'll see VA contributing to the reduction of congestion and that will inevitably come with growth, but we can at least flatten the density of congestion?

Is that is that possible within our reach?

What it should do is increase how many people can be carried in a right of way.

Much of this has happened on your watch, so congratulations for bringing the ideas, the energy, the drive, the knowledge, and and thank you for an advance for our city.

Well, you know, the VA is a village, and I'm just, you know, the guy that looks around the village as impressed by all the wonderful, wonderful things.

The people in the village has to have a godfather there.

Okay, There you go.

It's.

Thank you.

Absolutely.

One of the most important topics we could cover in a program that deals with San Antonio's economy and growth is water.

In many people's opinion, the only thing that could possibly stop the growth of the Austin and San Antonio region would be if we had water shortages.

Fortunately, we've had good leadership at the top and the result has been unprecedented access to sources of water that San Antonio has not tapped before.

And that's largely because Robert Fuente has been the CEO of Source over the last 15 years.

Robert, welcome to the program.

Tell us, in a word, the water situation in San Antonio today.

Well, we like to say that we're water secure and bio secure.

What we're talking about is a long term supply.

We feel that with the addition of our latest water project with storage, that we have water security into 2017.

And by that, I mean, worst case scenario, drought of record of the 1950s, the recent drought of 2011 and 2014, which was more intense but shorter, put those together.

The worst of both of them.

And we lay that on our planning horizon and we have water security through 2017, 27, 80 or almost 50 years from now.

Vista Ridge is a water project that came online in 2020.

It's water that comes from Burleson County, which is north of Austin, 142 miles away and is groundwater from the Carrizo aquifer.

And it currently is about one fourth of our water supply.

So that's a very healthy part of our portfolio.

So are we continuing to work on water supplies?

You've worked on brackish water from shallow aquifers to the south, correct?

That can be treated?

Not necessarily for drinking water, but for greywater, which then allows the other water to be used for drinking purposes as well.

The brackish plant we have in southern San Antonio actually, we treat it to drink for drinking standard and we put it in our distribution system.

What other options are out there beyond, say, the brackish sources?

What what other options?

Conservation obviously is very large, but we rely on our conservation department to always drive down that per capita use so that we know that the more you can do that, you can push out those future water projects out into the future.

Right.

And then there's conservation.

There's also retreatment of existing water.

Yes.

How much of that are we doing?

We have the nation's largest recycled water system, and that's all of the water coming from your commodes, your sinks, your showers.

We collect it.

We treat it at our one of our three wastewater treatment plants.

A good portion of it goes to the energy to cool and to keep the lights on.

Another portion goes into the San Antonio River downstream, because we have commitments to have certain volume all the way down to the Gulf.

Correct.

We meet that commitment.

And another portion, about 50,000 acre feet, we bring back up to San Antonio to be used by Toyota, by Microsoft, by all of our golf courses, to supplement the river so called gray water.

Or some people talk about purple pipes or something.

Yeah, it's a purple pipe system, the largest in the nation.

So it's a source that we want to protect.

That's why there's water restrictions after decades.

We have water security in San Antonio and in this area.

And so it's as simple as a, for example, greater asset.

They no longer require us to try to explain to a prospective company that's coming to San Antonio that have a plan.

That's what we used to do.

We have a plan, but now it's actually demonstrated availability.

Congratulations.

In addition to water, the other critical ingredient of infrastructure that is to keep the region strong and growing is power, electric power from a variety of sources.

And we're fortunate today to have Rudy Garza join us, the CEO of CPS Energy.

Rudy, thank you for coming.

Thank you, Secretary Rudy.

As I mentioned, it's a critical ingredient of of growth.

And we're watching a region, Austin and San Antonio together.

That's about 5.3 million people today.

Over the next 20 plus years, estimates are it will grow to 8 million people, which requires an immense amount of electricity power.

How are we fixed for power?

Well, we have a plan.

It's called Vision 2027, and that our board and our leadership team have really worked hard to put a plan in place that will allow us to continue to meet the growth of San Antonio.

That plan is well-diversified, brings in additional renewables, brings in some battery storage.

So we have got to keep our foot on the pedal, too, in order to stay ahead of that growth.

We're growing by about for us, a megawatt is our unit of measure, which powers about 200 homes.

So we're growing at about 150 megawatts a year.

So we have got to keep adding resources in order to keep up with growth.

Obviously, we need power for growth.

I believe Austin and San Antonio, separately, as municipal utilities have about the highest use of wind and solar of major utilities across the country.

Is that right?

So San Intel CPUs, Entergy in particular, you know, municipal or not, we are number one in solar in the state of Texas.

We're number five in the country.

We're number two in wind.

One of the other big themes in the power sector these years is microgrid and distributive power, meaning people having solar and then feeding it back into your system.

How is that doing as a share of power?

Our customers have really embraced rooftop solar.

You know, we've got probably close to 300 megawatts of rooftop solar spread throughout our system here in San Antonio.

That generation is valuable to us because it lowers the amount of demand on our system during those really peak times.

So our customers are really stepped up in that space.

Explain to our public the grid, the role of ERCOT and if you CPS are generating enough power but have to share it through the ERCOT system, what it means for San Antonio's?

Well, we're all part of one big system.

ERCOT controls about 90% of the state of Texas energy.

And we're and it's outside of some very small interconnects to the other grids in the nation.

We're not really interconnected the way the other parts of the nation are.

So there's there's no way for us to kind of disconnect from ERCOT.

You know, so by and large, this past summer, we had a really great operating year where we were able to sell power back out into the market and help the entire state.

So the long and short is, as the CEO of CPS, you are confident that we're generating what we need to for our growth.

CPS energy is a is a game changer for San Antonio, not just from the revenue we send back to the city to help keep taxes low and to do all the great things that our city partners do.

But we're reliable.

We're one of the most reliable utility in the state, which is why big data centers are coming here.

So we're cost competitive, we're affordable, we're reliable, and we're doing the planning work.

We need to have the reserves on the generation side into the future for the nuclear power project going to be in the mix for the long run?

Yes, sir.

We will operate our nuclear plant until 2050, you know, maybe maybe longer.

And I think there are some opportunities on that site to look at some new technology, such as small modular nuclear, that our military's really interested in microgrids, you know, say, infrastructure, you know, to provide some resiliency for for our military missions here.

So really, everything is on the table from a technology standpoint to carry us into the future and stay diversified.

Well, we're fortunate in many respects.

And one of those routines that you're on the job.

Thank you.

Thank you, Secretary.

One of the ways that positive growth manifests itself in a city is in how people feel about housing, the price of housing, the availability of housing, the strength of neighborhoods.

It is critical to the life of a city.

We're fortunate today to have Sara Garish, who is the chairperson of the San Antonio Board of Realtors, join us.

Sara, thank you for coming.

Thank you for having me, Sara.

You both know the big picture because you're chairman of the Board of Realtors, but you're also a working realtor out on the street.

In your role as a working realtor.

How does the housing market feel today?

We know that it was super hot just a couple of years ago and a whole series of factors like interest rates and some lessened production may have changed the market.

What do you what do you feel out there on the street?

Know, you can definitely feel the shift as the towards a more balanced market with days on the market increasing.

So now buyers actually have time to look at the property, actually consider is this the right property for them closing costs.

So what's the average days on the market these days?

A couple of months.

It's like 60, 65 ish days, which is an increase.

Dramatic increase or what?

Before you put a house out and it might be gone the next day may be times where I'd have to get in line to even walk in the house just to show it.

And how is the production level in San Antonio?

The big builders are here, D.R.

Horton and the big master builders, and they're all still building.

We see new subdivisions at all price points.

I would say all price points in general, though, in our market, that under 200,000 is a small segment.

It's like less than 12%.

And we're seeing that in areas all over the city.

Yes.

I mean, the south side, for example, is getting subdivisions that it never did before.

Oh, it's exciting to see you on that part of town.

Certainly I'm a south sider, so it's definitely exciting to see.

So in terms of preparing for the growth that's anticipated and we are expecting substantial growth going forward both within the city of San Antonio and in the region.

You think are realtors are homebuilding sector, the constructors, the developers are in position and set up to help us meet that growth?

I think so too.

I mean, do you have people who are paying attention to economics?

And like I said, well, we have these big employers, we pay attention to where they're going.

Everybody needs a place to live.

So I think we are on track and, you know, we're excited for for the future growth and feature new neighbors.

You touch a lot of lives, help people get their lives going.

New new entrants to the market and then people who have all different kinds of circumstances.

Congratulations and thank you for coming.

Thank you.

So 2023 is a year of excellent growth and success for San Antonio.

We made it through the pandemic to see our flag flying high once again.

Here's to many more years of prosperity for the Alamo City.

We want to thank you for being here for this in-depth look at the San Antonio economy.

And thanks to all of our guests who shared their knowledge and expertise.

You can see the show again online at KLR and dot org.

I'm Henry Cisneros.

And good night.