San Antonio's Newest Proposed Skyscraper Design Revealed

[Odainsaker 2,133]

This past week the carefully guarded design by Pelli Clarke Pelli for Weston Urban's Frost Bank Headquarters in downtown San Antonio was finally revealed.  This will be the first major commercial office tower built in our downtown in almost 30 years, and we were promised an iconic, skyline changing building.

"Weston Urban proposes cutting-edge skyscraper for Frost headquarters" - Richard Webner and Steve Bennett, San Antonio Express-News

"Frost Bank Tower Design Signals a 21st Century San Antonio" - Iris Dimmick, The Rivard Report

It's...err...shorter than what many were anticipating!  That has been the immediate, universal reaction as the design will rise only to 400 ft.  However, once you get past the diminutive stature, it's actually kinda pretty.

Admittedly, downtown San Antonio has no modern glass towers, so this really is cutting-edge for us:

For some, the octagonal glass design is too modern, while others think it is too restrained and boring.  Seeing that skyline cut-'n'-paste with the octagonal Frost Tower flanking the octagonal Tower Life Building tells me Pelli Clarke Pelli knows exactly what they are doing.

The current site is a motor bank landscaped along its perimeter with live oak trees, which the developers have promised to largely preserve, particularly the live oak allée:

Not yet shown is how the rear base of the building will relate to the San Pedro Creek Improvements Project, which is creating a linear urban park out of a neglected drainage creek paralleling the Riverwalk.  At one point, the creek project facing the proposed tower site would have looked wondrously like this, but it has since been toned down more like this.  I admit, I was partial to the wondrous look.

 

Frost Bank will also have new, more conventional buildings in Fort Worth and Dallas, but the benchmark for San Antonio was the iconic Frost Bank Tower in Austin, whose completion in 2003 inaugurated a rapid building boom in the Capital City.  It is hoped that the San Antonio tower will herald a similar boom in Alamo City.  The iconic crown on the Austin building always seemed to me to be squat and peculiar, and it was a wonder just what sort of comparable crown might San Antonio end up with.  I do like this cleaner, serrated crown.

Former Mayor Julián Castro surprisingly announced this unsolicited tower project and its complicated public/private downtown land swaps in 2014 just before leaving to become U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary, and this building is seen as the crown to his mayoral "Decade of Downtown" initiative.  Construction is expected to begin at the end of this year and is aimed to be completed by 2018, in time for the San Antonio Tricentennial celebrations.

 

Lastly, my own humor:

 

[Thin White Duke 4,072]

Not a huge fan of the design, to be honest. I agree it should've been taller, so that the proportions would end up somewhere between the current design and the Turning Torso. This building looks a bit fat, whereas the Turning Torso looks like it's struggling to hold up it's own weight.

Even if they were to make it so, I'm still not a huge fan of the design. I like simplicity, or art deco. They should make it look like the lever building. Or the Magnolia building. Or something.

[TekindusT 3,809]

I like it that short. If it was taller, with that striking reflective design, some would consider it stands as a sore thumb and would be instantly hated by the population. In my opinion, the proposal has the ideal height for a city without supertalls like San Antonio.

[citycowboy 183]

I like it, and while I'm not a huge fan of contemporary architecture, I think its presence will be a welcome sight in San Antonio, and will really help a nice city draw some attention to itself. I remember I wasn't a huge fan of the Chicago Trump Tower when it was first proposed, but now I couldn't imagine the city without it. 

[Odainsaker 2,133]

Local watchers report it unanimously passed first approval by the City's appointed Historic and Design Review Commission today, with final oversight approval expected in the fall after submission of more details to City staff about the night lighting, landscaping, and parking garage façade.  That is an achievement in itself, as the HDRC is notorious for hammering down into mediocrity anything that tries to stand out, obsessively nitpicking over the landmark preservation of unimportant junk, and turning a blind eye to the destruction of buildings with real historical heritage.  UNESCO actually made them kill the once-proposed Joske's Tower, because even something as safely conservative as that could not be allowed to be seen from the grounds of the World Heritage Alamo.  With the continuing renewed focus on downtown in the run up for the city's Tricentennial, maybe the HDRC has finally gotten better, for in the past few months they surprisingly approved the blatantly contemporary Floodgate apartments, the Canopy Hotel, and the Thompson Hotel, all on the prized Riverwalk.  I would still dare them to do Gomez Vasquez International's W Hotel, a not-actually-proposed study sketch that appeared last year on Reddit, swooning locals into titillated excitement even as city leaders vowed they would never consider such a project even if it someday became real.

EDIT:

"San Antonio historic review commission clears design of new Frost Tower" - Richard Webner, San Antonio Express-News

"Frost Tower Gets Preliminary Approval, Pending 'Nitpicky' Changes" - Camille Garcia, The Rivard Report

"You folks are taking an opportunity to build an iconic building in San Antonio and with that right comes a responsibility...I think the building could be a little bit better if it were a little bit taller." - The HDRC Vice Chair

 

[Odainsaker 2,133]

A minor update...

 

The little Frost Tower has been under construction and has reached around 2/3rds of its 23-floor its height.  More interesting, almost two weeks ago they tested the nighttime LED pinstripe lighting already installed on the lower levels, and it turned out better than expected.  I admit, I was not sold on the artistic renderings of the night views, but the construction webcam images of the test have won me over:

(Webcam imagery from KDC OxBlue Construction Time-Lapse Cameras)

 

The second image also shows at the lower right foreground the historic Alameda Theater, or at least the upper half of its signature marquee.  The art deco marquee with its intricate neon piping is not often lit as the building remains vacant, but, should it be lit, I can imagine it making a wonderful pairing with the new tower.

The landmark Texas art deco theater has long been vacant and in various states of preservation work.  Schemes for occupation have often fallen through, while the costs of its slow restoration had mushroomed due to water damage to its spectacular interior murals, which used fluorescent paints that glow under blacklighting, a technique no longer widely used due to its toxicity.  However, Texas Public Radio, our region NPR affiliate, last year offered a plan to relocate its headquarters and studios into the historic building.  Design renderings have now been revealed showing how TPR hopes to redevelop the historic theater:

"A First Look at Alameda Theater Renovations, TPR's New Home" - Shari Biediger, The Rivard Report

(Images from Overland Partners and Martinez + Johnson Archtiecture via The Rivard Report)

 

Also seen around the Alameda Theater and rear base of the Frost Tower is the currently under construction San Pedro Creek Culture Park, a redevelopment of San Pedro Creek from, which had been reduced to little more than an urban drainage ditch, into another linear river park system paralleling the city's more famous downtown Riverwalk.  It is not yet clear from released renderings or from the construction webcam just how successful the base of the Frost Tower will meet with its segment of the river, though it is understood that the ground level will be retail while the upper levels will be the tower's parking garage and that the garage will supposedly be masked by an intricately detailed façade and trees.  I'm disappointed that earlier schemes for the San Pedro Creek Improvement Project where scaled down after residents complained about the costs and seemingly strange outlandishness of many of the art installations:

The outdoor amphitheater with its syringe-topped, blue-glowing, apple-shaped stage was removed from the designs.  Too bad, I though it too would have partnered well with the sawtooth crown of the Frost Tower that would have risen behind it.  Philistines!  The giant polished steel head sculpture meant for the entrance of the creek park may also be in trouble.

 

Announcements that opening of the first segment of the San Pedro Creek Culture Park in May also came with this nice image of the progress:

(Photo by Scott Ball from The Rivard Report)

The plantings will take years to grow in, and it is expected that this area of the city with its mostly light industrial sites and empty lots will also begin filling in with greater urban development.  If it proves successful, then this view with the completed Frost Tower from upstream on San Pedro Creek could unexpectedly resemble this popular view of the older and similarly octagonal Tower Life Building from downstream of the parallel Riverwalk on the San Antonio River:

(Photo by Jim Drought III on Flickr)

(Photo by Ellen Yeates)

Both waterways, and thus both buildings, are connected far downstream at Confluence Park, which opened last month as the southern end of the San Pedro Creek project.

These images bring up another urban design and development issue that is currently embroiling our city:  protected view corridors or viewsheds.  San Antonio is becoming a rapidly growing and developing city, with the Austin-San Antonio corridor consistently ranking among the top development corridors in the U.S.  Estimates released from the U.S. Census Bureau last month showed that the 2nd and 5th fastest growing counties by percentage population growth in the U.S. are within the 8-county San Antonio metropolitan area, while the third fastest growing county borders San Antonio and is within the Austin-San Antonio corridor.  For total population gain from 2016-2017, San Antonio's own Bexar county ranked 7th in the U.S. even though little San Antonio is only ranked 24th in metropolitan area population size.  Additionally, the Brookings Institution noted that the San Antonio metro area ranked second in growth rate among millennial young adults, those ages 18-34.  While all that growth has historically been as suburban sprawl, greater intensity is now being seen with the downtown area and inner, historic suburbs, and that new development has sparked fears of change, gentrification, and NIMBYism.  A complaint that has risen to the level of City Council policy making is that new development will block long cherished views of various city landmarks such as to require development restrictions.

The catalyst was an apartment project in an empty lot next to the historic Hay Street Bridge, and old industrial bridge over a railroad site that has been recently restored.  The immediate surroundings are a blighted industrial area and a largely poor community, and it is hoped that increased investment as represented by the new apartment complex will revitalize the area.  Opponents argue that such development will raise property values, inevitably pushing out older, poorer residents with newer, wealthier residents and gentrifying the neighborhood and destroying its character.  The proximity of the historic bridge and the historic neighborhood put the apartment complex plan before the city's Historic and Design Review Commission, where activist arguments were recast as the apartment building blocking familiar neighborhood views of the historic bridge and thus destroying the character of the neighborhood.

The precious view that must be preserved at all costs:

(Photo by Bonnie Arbittier from The Rivard Report)

The neighborhood-destroying project and symbol of failed democracy and crony capitalism run amok:

Yes, this is much ado about nothing:  a banal view blocked by a banal apartment building, and yet we are having "vigils" over this.  The HDRC ultimately voted against approving the apartment, the City overruled the HDRC with conditions, activists have become embittered and vengeful over stolen lands and greedy capitalists, and the developer has thrown his hand up saying the project with all the conditions and controversy has become economically unviable.

The effort now among local policy makers is craft some sort of local regulation concerning viewsheds that can be used to duck behind during public feuds such as still occurring with the bridge.  San Antonio does not have a design policy about protecting viewsheds that is equivalent to the Capitol View Corridors employed by sister city Austin to protect sightline views of the Texas State Capitol from key locations around the city from being blocked by building heights.  Something of an unofficial one exists for projects that might be seen from or behind the Alamo, or which some fear might cast shadows on Alamo, as was used by the UNESCO to quash the proposed Joske's Tower.   For San Antonio, views of the Alamo, Spanish missions, Tower Life Building, and local cathedrals are a given, but what do we make of those equating the view of the Hay Street Bridge in a blighted industrial area to views of the state capitol?

"Council to Consider New Viewshed Rules in Wake of Hays Street Bridge Debate" - Iris Dimmick, The Rivard Report

Actually, I'm a big proponent of view corridors and meaningful sightlines between symbolic public landmarks as a way of enabling great humanist urban design, not to outright drive development away, and I'm disturbed to see urban design tools misused instead as weapons in little political fights and activist campaigns.  I'm even hesitant on the term "viewshed," as that suggests a panoramic swath rather than a sightline, and that suggested broadness might play too easily and dangerously into hands of the NIMBYists to freeze all potential development.  Actually, they are already there, as reported in The Rivard Report article of Hay Street Bridge activist Graciela Sánchez:  "It's the viewshed of the bridge, not only from the bridge...The (viewshed) of the bridge should be 360 degrees."  That would be putting a moratorium on development from...the entire city!

 

[raynev1 1,886]

      Cool update to the thread . That project is coming along nicely , I think that the the San Pedro Creek project is superb as well . Much better to incorporate the creek rather than to hide it underground , like done in many cities . 

[T Wrecks 10,209]

Yup, bodies of water can be such a huge asset for a city!

Always a pleasure to read your posts, thanks for the update.

[matias93 7,535]

I hadn't seen this thread! I kinda like the no-frills approach that Pelli has to their structural work: octogonal slabs of concrete, piled more or less depending on the requirements of the clients, and cladded on glass: its the same thing no matter you are on Charlotte, Winston-Salem, Hong Kong, New Jersey, Madrid, Santiago, San Francisco or San Antonio. The issue is, I normally despise the post-modern dullness of his towers, always having their tallness as their only distinction and lacking any interesting shape (the Petronas, obviously, are a clear exception).

But this one doesn't look neither dull nor abusing its prominence to look important. Indeed, it seems really well scalated to its sorroundings, and even the typical Pelli octogon appears to be doing a nice wink to previous buildings on the area. I also like the playful spikes on the top, and the way they twist the entire shape. Maybe the only thing that doesn't appear to be well resolved is the low-rise annex, which appears to me as too much blocky and full for its sorroundings: it would have worked better on a more dense city on which full blocks were the norm, but I can rationalise it assuming the idea is to promote such kind of re-development on the near blocks. If is not, I would have opted for a more fractional volume, with different heights and an open space in the middle, reachable by gaps between the low buildings.

Also, it is a huge parking block? I know, its the US, every single person and their dog use the car, but overground multi-storey parking blocks are one of the worst architectonical sins of the 20th century! Why insisting on them now!? Those square metres would have been much better used by making them retail space, or even apartments! Cars don't need sunlight, they can be hidden on the basement without trouble!

 

Oh, and about the NIMBYness and all of that, I'm a bit dubitative: yes, that rail bridge isn't precisely the kind of structure you would want to protect the views of it as a city policy, maybe using measures to avoid gentrification isn't such a bad idea. I would prefer seeing open policies to stop gentrification and segregation instead, but if this is the way the fight can be given, then it is. Now, how much this convoluted plan could help empoverished families to stay on their neighbourhoods? I think a much better trade off would be to make the new residential projects to include affordable apartments and to use some of the available space on the other side of the street to make a farmers' market to keep food prices low (a key policy to avoid gentrification), also making a public space from where the patrimonial bridge could be seen and valued by all.

[Odainsaker 2,133]

Several days ago user babysal on SkyscraperPage.com posted this update morning shot looking north:

(Photo by babysal on SkyscraperPage.com)

I'm not normally a fan of mirror glass boxes or twisting towers, but this photo suggests that this one might actually look better than expectations.  The octagonal shape and taper creates multiple facets which reflect, refract, pass through, or block sunlight in different ways depending on the viewing angle and time of day.  While this obvious effect was certainly understood, none of the artistic renderings really conveyed what this might really look like in place.  Even better, because San Antonio has relatively few mirror glass buildings, with virtually none in its downtown area, the crystalline contrast with its older surroundings is even more dramatic.

The parking block is dismaying, even if part of the ground floor is retail.  I recall talk of alternative designs where the parking formed the lower portion of a significantly taller tower, freeing up the remaining block for other uses, but I guess so much taller of a tower came with too much higher of a price tag.  Underground parking might have also just been too expensive if too deep, as the ground in this region is rock and limestone topped by a thin layer of soil, requiring dynamite and heavy machinery.  Like glass towers, underground parking and multi-level basements here are very rare, especially when land is cheap.  Amusingly, we still have active rock quarries in our inner city, while exhausted historic quarry pits have themselves been amazingly turned into sunken gardens.

 

On ‎4‎/‎27‎/‎2018 at 7:45 AM, raynev1 said:

 That project is coming along nicely , I think that the the San Pedro Creek project is superb as well . Much better to incorporate the creek rather than to hide it underground , like done in many cities . 

 

On ‎4‎/‎27‎/‎2018 at 9:08 AM, T Wrecks said:

Yup, bodies of water can be such a huge asset for a city!

I saw this promotional image recently of the recently opened Museum Reach segment of the nearby San Antonio River on the northern edge of downtown:

That's very idyllic and marketable, especially when you consider that this district is generally light industry and underutilized:

Yes, in this older Google Earth shot of that same stretch of the river, those are tarps, sheds, and dead lots.  Top center is a former abandoned brewery that has been long previously converted in the San Antonio Museum of Art, but which had stood isolated in middle of low intensity and even blighted industry.  However, we can see new apartment construction at the top right.  The previous idyllic image wasn't just marketable, it actually was marketed and this is now a boom area of luxury apartments.  Some land owners complained that the increased demand as a result of the river project has increased their land values and property taxes, but perhaps downtown should not be the place for empty concrete lots and a scrap metal shop under a tarp, and the reality is that the best option is to develop or sell.  Many did, and what was a stagnant industrial zone is now San Antonio's inner city boom area where they cannot build the apartment blocks fast enough.

(Image from River House)

Just a bit downriver at the other end of this river segment, they are now finally constructing the soon-to-be Thompson Hotel and The Arts Residences:

(Images from The Arts Residences at the Thompson Hotel and Powers Brown Architecture)

When did the Alamo City start making buildings that look like they could have been directly lifted right out of Osaka or Nagoya?  There was a time when Japanese urban planners from Fukuoka or Kitakyushu came to San Antonio to inspect our Riverwalk for inspiration, and now we are borrowing their buildings for inspiration.  Ah well, it is a good time to be in the construction industry here, and it is an opportune time for downtown land owners.

 

The parallel San Pedro Creek is in a similar position, with this pre-redevelopment portion being the view from the adjacent Frost Tower:

At current growth rates a million new residents are projected for San Antonio within the next three decades, and many of them will be relocating into these very same inner city blocks.  Already complaints are that rents are rising in the apartments in the middle left of the image due to the redevelopment of the creek and that some sort of city government intervention is needed to freeze land value, rents, and property taxes.  Others are decrying increased car traffic, potential loss of available parking, and a change of neighborhood character.  I would instead suggest this low level of development adjacent to downtown no longer makes sense and is not sustainable, and that it's not rational nor practical for the city to freeze this into place.  The Frost Tower proposal originally hinted at additional residential phases for its neighboring blocks, and the developer has already bought up swaths of adjacent properties.

The SimCity player in me already wants to remove or reposition that road in middle that is paralleling the creek.  Do it now while the land costs are still low.

Interestingly, that tiny pedestrian creek bridge in the middle of the image, the Salinas Bridge, was going to be redeveloped into this:

It was decided the glittering gemstone shade was too outlandish both in artsy style and in price.  Unlike the restored industrial Hays Street Bridge, area residents here feared the new Salinas Bridge would be garishly unsightly and pushed for art designs that were less visibly pronounced and more normal.  A dramatically scaled-back bridge design was adopted when the project was reworked to significantly reduce its upwardly spiraling costs in what was called the "70%" plan.

Judging from the Google Earth view, the formerly proposed bridge with all its sun-reflecting color beads would have been the glitziest thing for miles.  I would have gone with it.

 

[Odainsaker 2,133]

They topped out last month and have added the crown.  Here's are two nice construction webcam shot from two weeks ago with great reflections of an afternoon with scattered clouds and a strikingly pink sunset after a mostly overcast day:

(Webcam photos from KDC OxBlue Construction Time-Lapse Cameras)

Glazing actually now has only two more floors to go and then the crown.

I know, it's just another glass office building with a tapered octagon shape and stubby height, but this next shot by Raul Medina III shows how it is unlike anything building in San Antonio's rather conservative and homogenous downtown:

(Photo by Raul Medina III on Flickr)

Sexy flyover drone footage from White Cloud Drone:

 

__________

 

Interestingly, another building proposal was updated last month that surprised local watchers with another octagonal building deeper inside downtown on the Riverwalk, at the halfway point between the historic Tower Life Building and the new Frost Bank Tower:

This new Floodgate tower by Austin-based Rhode Partners is a radical departure from the apartment building originally proposed two years ago.  It will stand beside the now under-construction Canopy hotel overlooking a downtown junction of the San Antonio River.  The closest glass building I can think of with a staggered octagonal shaft is Hong Kong's Lippo Center.  This will not be anything near the scale of Hong Kong, but, if constructed, it will the third in a line of strikingly octagonal towers in San Antonio, creating a peculiarly specific building theme.  Compare this with Singapore, which had a skyline noted for towers resembling calculator keypads after the construction of several prominent buildings designed by Kenzo Tange.

I will admit, I am not a fan of the contemporary fad for towers that look like staggered Jenga blocks.  Rhode Partners also designed the currently under-construction Independent condo tower in nearby Austin, and that tower has already become Austin's tallest...impressive, but the shifting blocks are trite to me.  I might have the been the lone wolf here in San Antonio who did not like the shifting blocks tower design Gensler had submitted for the redevelopment of Hemisfair Park.  However, I won't chase them away with snotty architectural critiques, for this poor city needs all the development help it can get.

 

_________

 

It was also revealed last month that a new urban park would be created out of the greensward block in front of the Frost Tower.

(Photo by Joey Palacios on Texas Public Radio)

The current block is an underused green in front of the tower.  The grand plan is for it to lead around to Frost Bank's Houston Street promenade, whose shady live oak trees were temporarily relocated for the tower's construction.  With their return, the shady promenade lined with shops will then lead to San Pedro Creek linear park behind the tower.  It is intended that the allée of live oak trees will partially obscure the upper garage block, but I'll believe that when I see it.

Both the Frost Bank Park and the promenade are being designed by Seattle-based landscape architect Gustafson Guthrie Nichol, who is also currently redesigning San Antonio's Hemisfair Civic Park, giving them a surprising opportunity to place a distinctive single total design stamp on the urban parks of this city.

 

__________

 

Speaking of which, the San Pedro Creek Culture Park opened in May to great local acclaim.

(Photo by Bonnie Arbittier on The Rivard Report)

(Photo from San Antonio Current)

(Photo by jaga185 on SkyscraperPage.com)

(Photo by Sergio Chapa on Twitter)

(Photo by jaga185 on SkyscraperPage.com)

(Photo by Muñoz and Company)

Hmmm, one of Pegasus's pond kit tiles can be used to make this in SimCity.

It still has to grow in.  This is only the first phase of the project, redressing the San Pedro Creek as it approaches from the north into western downtown, stopping at the Frost Tower and the historic Alameda Theater.  The next phases involve reworking the creek actually within the downtown urban core and then further downstream of downtown to it junction with the San Antonio River.

(Photo by alexdskates210 on Flickr)

A grand Plethora Sculpture by artist Jorge Rodríguez-Gerada planned for the space next to the bridge at center right is mired in delays and cost overruns.  Still, already the surrounding underutilized blocks are being targeted by developers, including the developer of the Frost Tower, who had indicated that apartment towers would be part of the great Frost scheme.  Some local residents are concerned that the football field at lower left for the neighboring high school is slated to be replaced by an administrative complex.  Cut off in this image to the left is a recently opened new downtown roundabout, suggesting that the city is slowly putting in place infrastructure in anticipation of the inevitable growth of this area.

 

__________

 

Whew, it was busy last month, with more than some may ever want to know about urban design in a small city.  Fans of the mega-metropolises might might like this direct inspiration from San Antonio and its Riverwalk:  the Cheonggyecheon Stream Restoration Project in Seoul.

They tore down a elevated highway and reclaimed a river, uncovering ancient Korean historic sites along the way and creating an astounding linear park.

Surprisingly, with the removal of the highway, traffic congestion in Seoul reportedly improved in a example of Braess's Paradox where adding streets worsens congestion in a network and closing streets improves it.

It turns out that the portion of San Pedro Creek north of the current linear park is under and in between the elevated Interstate 10.  Seeing what Seoul did with their highway makes me dream of rerouting I-10 such that the linear park can fully reconnect with its headwaters at San Pedro Springs Park, the city's oldest park:

Once upon a time, the springs throughout the region sported natural fresh water geysers which fed the area's rivers and creeks.  Regional growth and aquifer tapping has long since lowered the artesian pressure at the headwaters such that we are lucky if the blue holes remain filled with percolating ground water.  San Pedro Lake, once the original site of the city's first colonial missions, was eventually civilized into San Pedro Swimming Pool, and the park itself has been cut off from the city core by a tangle of modern highways.  The price of urban development.

 

Bonus:  here is a walk along a much smaller urban creek, transformed into a magical urban wonderland by sakura in Meguro, Tokyo, filmed by Rambalac:

Well, we did need a design scheme for the grittier parts of San Pedro Creek in the upcoming next project phase through the narrow back alleyways of downtown.  Maybe we can drop a few hints to our sister city Kumamoto for some sakura saplings and turn those back alley drainage channels into a canal for cherry blossom viewing.  We already did it once for an old stone quarry pit with amazing results.

(Photo by Charles Birnbaum on The Cultural Landscape Foundation)

Sakura, crepe myrtle, mandevilla, bougainvillea, russelia, Texas sage...yeah, lots of possibilities for colorful sprucing up here.  Amusingly, non-native tropical caladiums and taro elephant ears have become invasive species downstream due to their heavy ornamental planting on the original Riverwalk.  I admit, though, that I have them both in my backyard.

 

  Edited July 21, 2018 by Odainsaker  

[Ocram's Razr 963]

Thanks for keeping us updated! Your thread and all the lovely pictures of your city make me want to move to San Antonio when I earn my engineering degree. In some ways, San Antonio looks better than my hometown of Seattle; it sure beats every other city I've ever lived.