The City of San Antonio’s District 1 office and Gallery Club on St. Mary’s Street hosted “Rock the Block” on Saturday, billed as a block party marking the end of construction on the street — seven months after its completion.
A ribbon-cutting ceremony outside the dance club celebrated the “grand re-opening” of the corridor, which was hindered by construction for more than two years before its completion in September.
St. Mary’s Street remained open to traffic as the event began, at odds with what many people expect from a block party. Only the bicycle lane appeared closed, blocked by the lectern where District 1 Councilwoman Sukh Kaur and others addressed the small crowd, including a few bystanders, who joined to listen.
The party was slated to continue until 2 a.m. Sunday.
The event’s celebratory nature appeared to gloss over a bleak period, with businesses that closed and industry service workers who suffered to make a living when construction blocked access to storefronts and nightclubs on the strip.
“To [Gallery Club] and all of the other business owners that are here, we know this has been such a challenging few years with COVID and construction all at the same time,” Kaur told the crowd.
A short walk down the street, an empty building that used to be Squeezebox sat abandoned. Graffiti marked the front door.
“But … we commit to helping every single establishment here stay. We don’t want to see any other business on this street close and our office will do everything we can to put our word where our mouth is and actually help in any way that we can,” she said. “Let’s go rock the block, y’all.”
Assistant Director of Public Works Luis Maltos said he enjoyed seeing cyclists, pedestrians, people riding the bus and commuters enjoying the improvements, which included wider and accessible sidewalks, pedestrian lighting and two pedestrian crossings, benches, VIA bus shelters, on-street parking and upgraded utilities under the roadways.
Randi Simpson, co-owner of Gallery Club, said she’s looking forward to “a new relationship” between businesses and residents of the area.
Simpson said Gallery Club was able to keep its doors open by adapting and with the help of city grants for noise mitigation and construction recovery grants, which some businesses struggled to get or didn’t receive at all.
“What’s important here is that we didn’t get the foot traffic back that we thought would come back,” Simpson told the San Antonio Report after the ceremony. “And I saw another negative news report about the Strip and it motivated me to get us together and let people know the Strip is open, the construction is done. ‘Please come back.’”
“I know several business went out and it was not good. It was almost worse than COVID, but I don’t want negative anymore. It’s done. It’s over. We’re moving forward,” Simpson said.
Correction: This story was updated to correct the party’s hours.
