While La Villita tenants are struggling to attract visitors due to construction that has blocked South Alamo Street for more than a year, they’re hopeful that new programming announced Monday by Chef Johnny Hernandez will bring more traffic to the beleaguered historic arts village.
“Market Days” will be a Saturday outdoor market featuring artisans from different regions in Mexico at La Villita’s newly-renovated Maverick Plaza, kicking off June 15, Hernandez said at a press conference on the plaza.
Monday’s event also included a ribbon-cutting for Hernandez’ new Maverick Coffee Bar, which soft-launched in February and will offer coffees and eventually margaritas from a new kiosk located at the northeast corner of the plaza, closest to South Alamo.
Also on display was the renovated Faville House on the plaza’s northwest corner, which now houses a kitchen that will be used by Kitchen Campus, a nonprofit started by Hernandez in 2014 to connect young people to culinary opportunities, as well as visiting chefs, Hernandez said.
The $44 million reconstruction of South Alamo Street, from Market Street to East César Chávez Boulevard, began in late 2022. The most recent completion estimate is now winter of 2025, according to the city’s South Alamo project page.
Also delayed is Hernandez’ plan to develop three new restaurants on the plaza, turning it into a culinary destination showcasing San Antonio’s 2017 designation as a Creative City of Gastronomy. He acknowledged Monday that building out all three will take years — and that La Villita can’t wait that long to lure visitors back.
“Let’s start now, let’s not wait,” he said.
Rent relief, construction grants
Alejandra Calvillo Cerna, president of the La Villita Tenants Association, said attracting foot traffic has been an uphill slog as construction drags on.
“It started with Covid and then three years of construction, and we haven’t had a moment of relief,” said Calvillo Cerna, who manages Yolix Luna Fine Art shop.
Sarah Sifuentes, who helps her father, artist Alejandro Sifuentes, run Equinox Jewelry Gallery and Sifuentes Metalsmith studio, said that once the restaurants around the plaza are complete, “it’s going to be a home run.”
But until then, she said, with South Alamo construction continuing to block the eastern edge of the village, “we’re really trying to alleviate and advocate for the tenants and artists that are already here.”
In 2020, the San Antonio City Council approved four months of rent abatement for tenants at La Villita and Market Square while the destinations were shuttered in the early days of the pandemic. The association is now in talks with the city for additional rent relief, Sifuentes said.
Assistant City Manager Lori Houston said via text Monday that the city “is working on a construction rent relief package for both La Villita and Market Square” — which is also under construction, with an expected completion date sometime in 2025.
The City of San Antonio is also rolling out a new round of construction grants this month, with another $1.3 million to help small businesses affected by ongoing construction projects. South Alamo is one of the eligible corridors for this round of grants.
Grants will range from $10,000 to $35,000, “based on actual reduction in net income,” according to city documents.
At Monday’s event, Mayor Ron Nirenberg also acknowledged La Villita’s struggles.
“I think today we can file under ‘nothing good comes easy,'” he said, to chuckles from the crowd, which included elected and city officials, downtown boosters and La Villita tenants.
The city and Hernandez’ shared purpose, Nirenberg said, is to “reignite this downtown district’s original dynamism, and fulfill former mayor Maury Maverick’s 1939 vision of honoring La Villita’s artistic and articulate architectural heritage, [and] a magnet for both residents and visitors.”
Maverick Coffee Bar, plus the plaza it’s located on, are named after the former mayor.
The city has invested $5.6 million in the redevelopment of Maverick Plaza, from Inner City Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone revenue, while Hernandez is reportedly contributing $7.7 million to the project.
Bexar County approved a $250,000 grant to Hernandez in April that will be used for additional amenities in the plaza such as awnings, fans, sound systems, tables, chairs and lighting for Market Days, culinary events and other cultural programming.
When seeking the grant, Hernandez pledged to start programming as soon as possible, “to begin to bring people into the village, before the restaurant that will open,” he said at the time.
In the next month or so, he hopes to be able to install brightly colored, temporary shade structures above the plaza to help mitigate the summer heat during Market Days and other events.
By fall, Hernandez promised that programming will include Friday night markets, Sunday market days, live music, dance performances, a German beer festival, Day of the Dead celebrations, holiday events and an artist-in-residence program.
Hernandez said he’s keenly aware that current tenants are struggling. “It’s been a challenging project,” he acknowledged. He said that in 2020, “all the financing was in place” for the three restaurants, which included concepts from two other local prominent chefs, Elizabeth Johnson of Pharm Table and Stephen McHugh of Cured. The delays dragged on so long that both were forced to bow out of the project, Hernandez said.
Even his own restaurant is still at least a year and a half out. “And I still have to carefully plan construction of the restaurants, in a way that allows” the plaza to remain open, he said.
Until then, the goal is “free programming, free activities, working with the community cultural organizations” to bring people to La Villita.
At Monday’s event, he had an ask for those assembled: “Please help us promote it.”
Development reporter Shari Biediger contributed to this report.
