Hemisfair, the Hostage Zone and a Local’s Lament
Back in the day, they built Hemisfair Park with the kind of civic optimism that could only come from a city trying to put itself on the map — or, at the very least, distract from the fact that the River Walk used to smell like a pissed-on ashtray and downtown was where buildings went to die.
Hemisfair was our little World's Fair moment, dropped smack-dab in the heart of San Antonio like a goddamn spaceship from 1968. And just like a spaceship, people were confused, awed, and more than a little pissed about it.
They tore down homes for it — hundreds, in fact. Mexican-American neighborhoods with generations rooted deeper than pecan trees. Bulldozed and scrubbed clean like they were making space for the Queen of England instead of Belgian waffles and corporate pavilions. And folks complained — rightfully so. Because when the city says “urban renewal,” what they usually mean is “get the hell out of the way, poor people, we’ve got investors coming.”
But that was then. And now? Well, now we’ve got Hemisfair 2.0: a glittery, family-friendly, QR-code-scan-your-experience playground with just enough artificial turf and exposed steel to let you know the tech bros and nonprofit suits have had their way with it.
And folks are still complaining. Rightfully so.
Let me lay it down plain: I love downtown San Antonio. I stay in local hotels once a month — call it a staycation, call it civic loyalty, call it an excuse to avoid traffic on 281. I grab a room, I walk the streets, I drink the overpriced mezcal, I tip like I’m running for office. And I don’t do it for TikTok clout — I do it because I love this damn place.
But now comes Project MARVEL, a half-billion-dollar, techno-bureaucratic slap in the face to the folks who actually use downtown. The people who pay $16 for parking, not because they're tourists, but because we’re stubborn sons of bitches who still want to support our city with our own damn wallets.
What’s MARVEL? It's an acronym cooked up in the lab of municipal lunacy: Modernize, Access, Revitalize, Vibrancy, Environment, and Livability — which all translates into: “We’re going to make it real hard for you to just exist here unless you're Ubering in from the Pearl with an electric scooter and an attitude."
I’ll probably pay the ransom. I’ll fork over the cash, dodge the construction zones, navigate the parking apps like a goddamn tech support agent. But I won’t like it. And more importantly, I won’t linger. And that’s the dangerous part.
You start removing the regulars — the people who pop into local bars on a Thursday because they like the bartender, not because they read about it in a “Top 10 Margaritas in SA” listicle — and you kill the downtown spirit slowly, silently, like a gas leak in the walls. One day you wake up and it’s just another River Walk gift shop district, selling frozen drinks and Alamo T-shirts to people who think La Villita is Spanish for “mall.”
The problem isn’t change — it’s the kind of change that erases. Hemisfair used to be messy and weird and occasionally annoying, but it was ours. It was local. Now? You go down there on a Saturday and half the crowd looks like they were bused in from Austin to take Instagram pics in front of “Yanaguana Garden” like it’s a cultural artifact.
Let me tell you something, pal: culture isn’t a curated space. It’s a lived-in, spit-stained, taco-greased, Banda-blaring collection of contradictions. And when the city starts planning downtown like it’s a spreadsheet, they kill the soul to make room for the data.
I want to be able to walk downtown without being treated like I’m in the way of somebody’s urban planning dream.
I want the local hotels to stay local.
I want Hemisfair to remember who it’s for — the families who don’t own Teslas, the kids who still get snowcones from a cart, the weirdos who like to sit on a bench and talk to pigeons, not “engage with urban design features.”
And I want the city to stop pretending like a QR code on a kiosk is community engagement.
San Antonio isn’t supposed to be sleek. We’re not Austin, and God help us if we ever try to be. We’re humid and haunted and full of ghosts. We’re barbacoa on Sundays and lowriders on the South Side. You want to make downtown vibrant? Stop taxing it into sterility. Let it breathe.
So yeah, I’ll still check in for my hotel staycation, but I’ll be doing it with one eye on the exit ramp. Because if they make it any harder for locals to just be, then downtown will no longer be ours. And we’ll go where the tamales are still wrapped in corn husks, not grant applications.
You don’t save a city by selling it off. You save it by staying in it.
Even when it fights you back.
