It's hard to predict what the long range impact Alamo Ranch is going to have on San Antonio, but one thing for sure is that the approximately 3,000 acre site, under the direction of the Archon Group, has home builders and major retail outlets scrambling to a far northwest corner of San Antonio, near Seaworld, to get a piece of the action.
Alamo Ranch Marketplace, the center point of the retail portion of the construction, with over 950,000 square feet of available retail space, will be open for business this summer with major tenants to include a Super Target complex, J.C. Penny, and a Lowe's Home Improvement Center along with at least 10 junior anchors, and 16 smaller parcels, according to an article in the San Antonio Business Journal. Among the restaurants scheduled to open during the summer months are an Olive Garden and Chick-fil-A.
On the residential side, it's hard to keep track of the builders, who, according to the San Antonio Business Journal article, are in the process of developing the twenty-one active subdivisions and eight planned subdivisions within the Alamo Ranch area.
Pulte Homes, with plans to build over 2,000 luxury Del Webb Homes in its Hill Country Retreat retirement community, restricted to buyers 55 or older, has approximately 200 homes already sold and recently opened a massive entertainment center. (See a separate category on my website (Del Webb Homes) for more details.
Some of the other major builders well into the process of populating San Antonio Ranch with mostly luxury homes in gated communities, include Medallion, Ryland, Newmark, David Weekley, Meritage, Kimball Hill and J.R. Horton homes. The San Antonio Research Corporation projects 84,000 new homes and approximately 250,000 additional residents over a ten-year period.
Along with development comes the need for additional schools and medical facilities Over the past ten years, the Northside Independent School District has opened three new high schools in the general area of Alamo Ranch. A fourth school in the immediate area is to open in 2010. Medical facilities in the planning stages include Methodist Healthcare, Baptist Healthcare, and Santa Rosa Hospital.
When the dust settles, perhaps ten years from now, the business center of San Antonio might have made a major shift to the northwest corner of San Antonio. Look for other developers to follow up on the Alamo Ranch development.