Feature Photo: The beige brick house at the corner of Hoefgen Avenue and Delaware Street, designated historic, is proposed to be the home of a restaurant-bar with outdoor live entertainment and sports court. Image: Google Streets.
Posted: 9-8-2021
by Adolfo Pesquera
San Antonio (Bexar County) — A local urban developer received the Zoning Commission’s blessing for a bar with live entertainment and sports court concept that would involve the renovation of a historic building in Denver Heights.
The proposed bar/sports court would occupy one of four lots the comprise a 2.9-acre site northeast of the Hoefgen Avenue and Delaware Street intersection. Hoefgen fronts Interstate 37 at this block.
As reported in this VBX Nov. 5, 2019 article, the developer originally obtained zoning on the site for a mixed-use high intensity infill development. The plan was to construct a hybrid 570-unit extended stay hotel and apartment building. Plans for the hotel appear to be on hold.
Atiya Mitchell of Pure Development Services LLC, representing the developer, presented an incomplete site plan at yesterday’s Zoning Commission meeting.
“They do not have their site plan completed yet because right now they are vetting tenants. So, they need to have the zoning approvals before they can figure out how they would organize things around the site,” Mitchell said.
However, the developer, Craig Glendenning of Bright Lakes Real Estate LLC, is intent on moving forward with the bar/sports court. The request before the commission was to add the use of a bar with live entertainment, and an outdoor sports court to the existing zoning.
Mitchell said the concept would be very similar to The Rustic, a casual indoor/outdoor music venue and eatery located at The Rim in northwest San Antonio.
Glendenning said, “We felt like with the advent of the masks and COVID that people really feel like they want to be outside and have some more space … I found that most of the places that are doing pretty well right now do have some outdoor seating and people can get away from each other.”
A single family brick residence constructed in 1890, 509 Delaware St., would house the restaurant. The surrounding yards would be used for an outdoor stage and sports court.
Commissioners questioned how the business would accommodate parking. Glendenning said a portion of the adjacent lot–formerly a commercial yard the was used to store masonry products such a pavers and brick–would be used for parking. The lots extend from Hoefgen on the west to the railroad tracks on the east, and north to Indiana Street.
Because of the neighborhood and historic designation, Glendenning’s architectural plans will be subject to review by the Office of Historic Preservation and the Historic and Design Review Commission.
adolfo@virtualbx.com
