 Good evening everybody. I'm George Tech. I'm the chairman of the planning commission. I officially call the planning proportion of the joint meeting between the planning commission and the historic and desiring new commission to order. Secretary, please do a roll call. Commissioner Cigarola. President. Commissioner Gonzalez. President. Commissioner Christopher Garcia. President. Commissioner Ozuna. President. Commissioner Costa. President. Commissioner Brunson. President. Commissioner Brunson. President. And Chairman Peck. President. Is that a quorum? Yes, that quorum is right. Thank you. I'm Michael Guerrino, chairman of the historic and desiring new commission. I officially call the historic and desiring new commission to order. I mean, we have a roll call for the ACRC, please. Yeah. Sorry. Guerrino. Here. That's her. Dish. Here. Wolf. Here. Carpenter. President. Group. Here. Bowman. Here. Lafoun. Here. Garza. Here. A quorum is present. Thank you very much. All right, before we begin the presentation and allow citizens that are assigned to speak to speak, each chair will provide a brief description of each commission's purview. For the purpose of this joint meeting, the planning commission is the recommending value for street closures, change of use of the street, and lease agreements. Final approval of these items is decided on by the city council. Thank you. The historic and desiring new commission is an advisory board appointed by the city council. It's the function of the board to advise the city manager and all relevant city departments concerning all applications for permits for properties in historic districts or landmarks on city property in the river improvement number lane. And considering whether to recommend approval or disapproval of an application for certificate of appropriateness, the historic and desiring review commission shall be guided by the secretary of interior standards for rehabilitation, city of San Antonio's unified development code, and any additional design guidelines adopted by city council. We will now have the staff review our meeting procedures and speaking time for those who are assigned to speak. We will begin with a brief presentation of the proposal followed by citizens to be heard on the item. For those who sign in this up to speak for or against the proposed item, you will be called in order that you sign up to speak. Those in support and opposition will be allowed a maximum of three minutes per speaker and you are not obligated to utilize the maximum time limitation. You will hear this when there are 30 seconds left. You will hear another beep and I will inform you that your three minutes are up. For those that would like to give their time to another speaker, that speaker will be allowed a maximum of two people giving their time for a total of nine minutes. Those giving up their time must be present and signing to speak. When it is your turn to speak, please approach the podium, speak into the microphone and provide your name and address. The meeting is being audio recorded and we ask all comments and discussion be made into the microphone. We ask that everyone present be respectful of individual speakers and remain silent while each person has given the opportunity to speak. Participants who speak out of turn or are disrupted will be asked to leave or assorted from the facility. Thank you. Now we will have a presentation by staff. Good afternoon. My name is Lori Houston. I'm assistant city manager for the city of San Antonio. Today's presentation will include several people coming up and presenting the Alamo Plan. It's going to start with myself. I'll talk about the background and how we got here. And then I'm going to ask Councilman Roberta Trevino, who is one of the triagers of the Alamo Citizens Advisory Committee, to talk about the public process and the Alamo Citizens Advisory Committee process. And then after Councilman Trevino, we'll have Jared Kramer and John Kassman, who are two members of the DZAC team, who will come up and speak to the Alamo Plan itself. And actually before that it will be Jean Dawson who will be talking about the actual traffic plan. And then Councilman Trevino will close out. So we do have a long presentation, but it's important information that we need to cover, so you all can be informed when you take these votes. So just a brief background. We have been working on the Alamo Plan for several years. In 2015, the City of San Antonio entered into an agreement with the Alamo Endowment and the General Land Office for a joint master plan process that would help us develop a plan for how we redevelop and reimagine the Alamo. The agreement outlines the roles and responsibilities of each party and also helps us understand how we're going to provide the oversight of the implementation of the master plan to ultimately be developed. As a reminder, I wanted to stress how complicated this project is. It is multiple property owners. The City of San Antonio, we own the street and the actual Alamo Plaza itself. The State of Texas, they own the Long Barracks, the church and the 1936 garden, as well as the three historic buildings on Alamo Street. The City of San Antonio and the State of Texas finally are working together to master plan this important area. And the reason why the Cooperative Agreement is so important is this is the first time that the City and the State have worked together on planning and master planning the Alamo. Previous efforts to redevelop this area have failed because we have now had this partnership. The oversight structure identified in the Cooperative Agreement included an executive committee. That executive committee includes the Mayor of San Antonio and the Commissioner of the General Land Office. They are the oversight or the executive committee. Underneath them is the management committee that includes two members of the City of San Antonio and that is City Manager Cheryl Scully and Councilman Riverford Trevino. Two members of the Alamo Endowment and that is Jean Powell and Ramona Bass and two members of the General Land Office and that is Hector Gallet and Brian Preston. And then finally we have the Alamo Citizens Advisory Committee providing input to the management committee on the master plan since its beginning. In fact, the vision and guiding principles created by the Alamo Citizens Advisory Committee serve as the foundation for the Alamo Master Plan and the Alamo Plan that we're presenting to you today. The first order of business for the management committee who is the one responsible for the day-to-day oversight of the Alamo Plan was to hire an Alamo Master Plan team. And so in 2016 we hired Preservation Design Partnership which is led by George Skarmas and they worked in partnership with GDU. There's Mariah Shetman out of Mexico City and Fisher Heck who's a local architect here in town. The three of those teams worked together to develop the Alamo Master Plan which was adopted by City Council in May of 2017. The Alamo Master Plan, there were five key concepts. The first was to restore the church of Longbear. The second was to delineate the historic footprint of the Mission Plaza. Third was to recapture the historic Mission Plaza and create a sense of reverence and respect on the historic battlefield. Fourth was to repurpose the three historic buildings on Alamo into a world-class visitor center and museum. And the last one was to create a sense of arrival to the site and enhance connectivity between the site and other public spaces. That is the Alamo Master Plan and that was adopted by City Council in May of 2017. At that meeting they also provided conceptual approval of several components. The first being conceptual approval of closing parts of Alamo Crockett Street necessary to recapture the Plaza. The second was conceptual approval of repairing to relocate to the center town. And the last was conceptual approval of the future conveyance or lease of the portions that ride away necessary to recapture that Plaza. And that lease would be between the City of San Antonio and the General Land Office. After the Master Plan was adopted the Management Committee went to the next step which was to identify an interpreter planning team that would take those five key concepts and develop the site strategies necessary to implement those five key concepts. So we hired PGAB destinations out of St. Louis, Missouri in partnership with Cultural Innovations and Reed Hilderbram. Now since May of 2017 to today there have been a lot of revisions. We have been listening. There's been a lot of public input. Some of those revisions include the last was providing public access 24 hours a day making sure that we have a solid space and community space making sure there's great balance providing more shade and making sure that the senate staff remains within Allen La Plaza so we know we need to repair the senate staff but also our recommendation is to keep it within Allen La Plaza. Previous recommendations had it over on Market Street and the River. We also have come before that is committing with a plan that accommodates the fiesta traditions. So we've worked closely with about all the flowers and the flambo parades so we can accommodate those important fiesta traditions that we've grown below. We've also worked closely with the Cavaliers to make sure their investiture ceremony can be accommodated as well as the fiesta commissions pilgrimage. And so we've worked quite a bit with the community to make sure that the Allen La Plaza we're presenting to you today is something that can not only be implemented but it can be embraced. Now I'd like to ask Councilman Trevino to come up and speak to you about that public process. He has been getting engaged in that process since he came out of the city council in 2014 and he's been with us every step of the way so Councilman Trevino. Thank you Lori and thank you commission members. I'm privileged to be here today. I have the unique position of serving on both the Alamo citizens advisory committee as a tri-chair and on the management committee as well. And I also want to just thank Lamo Sosa who is here. He's one of the tri-chairs for the Alamo citizens advisory committee and I know that there's some citizens advisory committee members if they could please stand and be recognized. I just want to thank them publicly for being here. As you can see, thank you so much for being here guys. This has been an important process and I think an incredibly robust process that has included since 2014 as you can see over 50 public meetings 200 public stakeholder meetings. Of course that doesn't even include the archeology that we did during the campaign. There was 19 briefings where we set up archeological briefings every single day and it was followed by over 100,000 viewers. It was pretty amazing. If we can go to the next slide. You can see we have 30 members and the citizens advisory committee members and these are the folks some represent as council appointees. Every district had an appointee as well as the mayor's office and of course different sectors of the state of Texas history and archeology, Alamo Plaza committee and of course the technical committee as well. This is important because we want to point out that this is a diverse group, a hard working diverse group and since 2014 it has changed somewhat but we've had some members that have been around since 2014 and we're certainly proud of their work. Go to the next slide. Ken, the plan proposed by the consultant team further developed the proposal strategies necessary to achieve the five key concepts in the matched plan. And what you see here is the more prominent site strategies include closing and restricting sections of Alamo Street, Houston Street, Crockett Street to pedestrian and emergency vehicles only, repairing and relocating the senate staff within Alamo Plaza, developing a new parade route that honors the complete history of the Alamo, assessing the adaptive reuse for the Crockett Palace, Woolworth buildings and establishing a formal point of entry to the Plaza during museum hours and leasing to the GLO portions of the street Plaza necessary to recapture the Plaza. And of course on October 30th, as you can see here, the Citizens Advisory Committee was asked to take a position on each of these strategies. If we can go back one slide just to recap and just point out, again we had seven resolutions, five were supported unanimously, two 92% and 96% consensus and of course I would like to discuss these items. And so as you can see, these are the major strategies for consideration the street closures, parades, senate staff relocation, Plaza access and historic buildings. And of course the street and traffic plan will be further explained by Gene Dawson after I speak. We'll go to the next slide. So the first is the parade route. Of course we work very hard with battle flowers, Fiesta Flambeau, Texas Cavaliers and the Fiesta Commission and I think we found common ground. We talked about the tradition that honors the participants of the Battle of the Alamo. We want to know that we're going to venerate the known burial grounds and of course keep the traditions. And at the heart of this is that this is a plan that is really about revealing all the history at the Alamo. We're not trying to get rid of anything. We're simply saying we want to make room for more and this is a great example of how we accomplished that. We created, we worked with the battle flowers people to try to create a better way forward. We'll go to the next slide. You can see the current route of the parade route goes down Alamo Street and there's bleachers set up along Alamo Street. It stops at the front of the church. It has part of their tradition. They drop off their global tribute. A cadet drops off that bouquet in front of the church at the Alamo. We'll go to the next slide. This was the compromise that we worked out. Essentially, you can see there that we've recaptured the mission historic footprint and the parade route is now outside of that historic footprint. Whether you come from the east or the west you will arrive at a ceremonial activity zone. We'll go to the next slide and you can see the parade. It will still be in proximity to the site. Next slide please. And we demonstrated that the traditions would actually be enhanced because of what we're doing. By revealing more of the history and showing that the elements that are part of the battle of flowers parade and of course other traditions that occur on site we actually enhance those elements and enrich that experience. And so the next is also to assess the adaptive reuse potential for project palace and Woolworth buildings. This is an important part of what we're trying to accomplish on site as well. Again, we're not trying to give it any of the elements existing on site. We're simply making room for more. And so these buildings sit on top of part of the footprint and if we can go to the next slide you can see this is part of what we've studied. You have three different buildings independent of one another. Different floor plate heights. You have different structural grids. But essentially part of the footprint sits inside of the original historic footprint. And how do we go about addressing these concerns is part of our next steps. We have essentially received over 35 submissions for the new museum design that some of the Woolworths architects have submitted for the plants and local. And we're really excited about that. Along with that RFQ we put out an RFP to study these buildings to provide that information to the architect that would be selected to apply that and make sure that that information is available to the design team that will be tackling the museum for the album. We're really excited about that. This is exactly what we think is best in terms of how we move forward in a thoughtful process. The next is to relocate the cenotaph within the Alamo Plaza. Of course, originally we had the cenotaph located much further away off by the fuel empire off the market streets and that's one of the changes. We actually brought it back to the Alamo Plaza. It's within about 500 feet of where it currently sits now. And we're doing this because again we're trying to recapture the footprint and the cenotaph where it sits now is currently in the middle of that traditional footprint. What we hope to do is get it to 500 feet to the south. We're still tweaking some of that location as we've discussed. There's going to be more work to be done on how that is incorporated to Alamo Plaza and go to the next slide. What we've done is we did a rendering to show the cenotaph on the existing site if we need the cenotaph where it is and you have the permission footprint lowered. It really is a little out of place so you can go to the next slide. Part of the idea is to create a mission footprint that is period neutral, allows the museum to have exhibits, have classes out there and demonstrate what is specific to the Mission San Antonio de Valero otherwise known as the Alamo. That is critical to how we want to change the experience at the Alamo because that's at the heart of our entire goal and vision and guiding principles moving this forward. Go to the next slide. As you can see when you look from an aerial shot the current cenotaph location in the middle of the Mission's footprint would be relocated about where the current bandstand is and ironically we found out that that was the original location proposed for the cenotaph and so now we're moving it into a general location that is in line with the original suggested location for the cenotaph and we think that there's lots of opportunity to discuss how we how we accomplish a cenotaph that now is part of a MASH as you can see here this is what it would look like within an expanded Alamo plaza in a prominent location of course lots more to tweak out but the point is that it is part of an overall plan an overall scheme where it's not really a part of a scheme now so we hope to accomplish with the relocation of the cenotaph and go to the next slide of course we also want to encourage the formal entry point at the site once again we're simply trying to elevate that experience change the experience at the Alamo most people when they arrive to the Alamo are not aware where they need to go many people wander around and this is troubling because that orientation is critical that orientation is part of how somebody is educated about the site itself and believe it or not it's part of the original language from 2014 in the citizens advisory committee's vision and guiding principles we want to change we want to orient people before they arrive to the compound itself really give them that opportunity to understand what they're walking on most people arrive and they don't necessarily understand that they're on the mission footprint itself and so we also heard that we also listened that the site needed to remain open 24-7 and so while we're creating a formal point of entry there is public access 24-7 it's free of charge we do encourage that people who come into the plaza will be coming in through points that can help that orientation we did add as you can see this is the current situation here where most people when they come in they walk towards a little stand I call it a little hot dog stand that orients people and then they will maybe walk to the front of the church and that's about it and they try to figure out how they get around the almo what we're trying to propose is something a little more comprehensive as you can see this is the site that includes a primary entrance and orientation to ensure that people understand where they're standing and understand that this is a unique site should go to the next slide we've also added some additional access points depending upon the programming on the site in the lease agreement there are some specific dates that those additional points will be open during museum hours of course this is only during museum hours and that's critical to point out but as you can see there's always north-south access and then this slide shows the museum during non-museum hours access of the site is very open and allows people to go in and out of the plaza as needed and that is really important because we know that again this part of the evolution of this plan has been to understand this is a public space it's a civic space but this civic space is also grown it is a much bigger experience and with that again we're simply saying we want to make room for the stories at the alamo and so when people come and visit whether it's during museum hours or non-museum hours they are understanding the ground they're walking on and that is critical to this aspect of the project because we're trying to recapture that original mission footprint we go to the next slide and so we're going to talk now about the streets and behavior of traffic and I'll call up Mr. Gene Dawson to talk a little bit about the closure of the streets to address traffic Gene Dawson, thank you Councilman do you have some speed here okay so we have been looking at the traffic and it's important to point out that this traffic and this presentation evolved out of 2012 transportation study for downtown that we did for the city of San Antonio this study wasn't created for the alamo but the 2012 study the intended study was is to look at the entire downtown grid to determine what would happen with the bond issues with a lot of the projects that are coming forward downtown as you know we have a lot of bond projects we have a lot of complete streets we have a lot of hotels under construction so the purpose of this downtown transportation study is to give the city a tool to say if the Hilton Canopy Hotel wants to shut off St. Mary Street what happens to the grid where does all the traffic go that's what this downtown transportation study does then in 2017 as this plan developed the city said drop in the closure of alamo street the closure of hilton street and tell us what the solutions are and the impacts and so that's what you'll see here in this study this is just a graphic showing the same kind of linear discussion that I just went through there we have a downtown transportation study we'll look at everything that can happen downtown and then the solutions that can come forward this is a screenshot of the downtown model that we have and I'll refer to this we can come back to it later I have a little graphic but we have modeled every intersection downtown when we model it then we can come back in and put a new project in increase the traffic do what we need for the city to evaluate what's happening downtown first thing we did in this study was look at the joining highways and you can see that we're already in capacity this in fact was in 2012 our peak hour at 5.30pm we're already into 100% capacity so the other thing we did in 2012 is we predicted a traffic growth and we predicted a very high traffic growth almost 5% and the city in 2017 asked us to go back and check our assumptions in fact what we found was the growth rate was about half of what we anticipated in 2012 you know traffic even if you have a lot going on it just takes a long time for traffic to grow what you do have here in this kind of bubble diagram we did have 4.2% traffic growth in the north river area, the pearl area about 2.3% of the core not a lot of traffic changing there and then in south town about 3% which you would expect so with our highways clogged on sale over the next 20-30 years we're going to depend a lot on our arterials coming into downtown like Broadway and St. Mary's and Houston and the Cesar Chavez so that's what this map is here based on the green that you see we have a lot of capacity in those arterials and we're just using the graphic here of the new frost tower that's under construction that frost tower is the equivalent of 6 Hilton canopy hotels and we have the capacity of 18 more frost towers or 90 more hotels as another example that frost tower has the equivalent of 1,300 apartment units and we have therefore the capacity for about 20,000 more apartments downtown so we have a lot of our tail capacity to feed the downtown grid and then we project about 3% growth out for 10 years and get us to 2027 and we eat up about 25% of our capacity 10 years out so 20 years out from today and we would have eaten about 55% of our capacity so even 20 years from now we will still have arterial capacity leading into downtown so then let's focus more in on the area that we're talking about putting the Valvo Street in particular this graphic here shows the street grid between commerce and Travis and the blue lines are your northbound lanes and the red lines are your southbound lanes and the numbers in the yellow boxes show you the capacity and at the end of each of those arrows you have a number the bottom line is we have about 2,700 beaten hour traffic southbound capacity and we have about 1,800 now so just under half only using half of our southbound capacity and then on the northbound we have 2,400 vehicle beaten hour trip capacity Navarro all the way over to Bowie and we only really today have about 1,200 trips today so we have a lot of capacity still in these streets and as you guys know when you close down the street which we do all the time downtown without a long process just for construction it's a grid so you finally make the street over or the third street over and so at the end of the 2017 planning process the idea was just to let traffic run its way in other words not do anything no new construction and let traffic use its excess capacity if you're down in south town don't come up south down don't come up St. Mary's to Navarro going east west if you're trying to come from 37 along Houston street you already know it's already dead ends and you have to go around and come back in and do kind of a crazy left and a right and another right that would not change with the closing of Houston street and what we found in the eastbound direction what people are trying to do on Houston street is get over 237 get up there in McCullen, get on and head north and the reality is that best movement is to go up Broadway and across McCullen in fact we ought to sign that today it's this much more efficient and there's very little traffic you can see you only have 40, 70 peak hour trips and in fact Alamo, if you're on Alamo in front of the Alamo now there's not a dedicated north lane now you have to sit behind a left turn lane or a right turn lane very few cars going north on Alamo and one thing in closing Houston what it does for us is the worst intersection downtown besides Santa Rosa and Cesar Chavez if you drive through there is the Broadway-Houston-LaSolla intersection today it is a D-intersection right there in the middle when you close Houston street it becomes a C-intersection and then gives you the opportunity to find other solutions for more South traffic so what we decided to look at was to convert the soya between Houston street and commerce the two way and the rest of this presentation will take a look at what happens there so that's what we're looking at just right in this section in the south of Alamo South of Congress is two way Broadway, north of Houston is two way is there a way to make LaSolla two way this is a what I'll call a horrible graphic but it does show two southbound lanes on LaSolla and one northbound lane so today what you have on LaSolla is you really have two southbound lanes 11 foot wide and seven foot loading areas short loading areas that make up a 36 foot pavement and what we're proposing then is to go to 36 foot of pavement with 12 foot lanes one northbound and two southbound I want to emphasize that the southbound lanes the right hand lane will be designated for loading during specific times and in fact our linear feed of loading will actually increase along LaSolla which you might have been told before we were working with the downtown vendors and suppliers to find adequate solution so now if you're going north you have to cut through Alamo Plaza and then come back over to Broadway you can see that on the left and the option that we're currently proposing is we would make it one long north south connectivity so I'm going to look at two specific intersections again I already talked about the Broadway Houston Street LaSolla intersection and then what we call the Torch intersection so right now the Broadway and Houston LaSolla intersection is a D intersection you can see the blue lines are conflicting with people doing right and left off of Houston Street and then you're having the whole Broadway and then you can't take a right hand from Broadway onto Houston and the picture there pretty much shows how it is however if we close Houston Street we no longer have that movement and we have a continual right hand turn lane off of Broadway on the Houston Street it enables us to have a C intersection a continual turn northbound off of Houston Street so you can see just visually and instinctively this is going to be a much better intersection with the closing of Houston Street now I'm here at the Torch intersection you I'm sure everybody in town is driving through that it's actually three intersections all called together and one creates a very complicated signal timing for the city of San Antonio and it takes a lot of delay time to get to this intersection and what is proposed is we will take that down to just two intersections instead of three and you can imagine then how much more traffic time we can get to those intersections I want to emphasize that the connection between market and commerce still remains too far away like it is and you can see that now we also control pedestrians a lot better through this area and because we've taken out a whole intersection we've got some minutes that we can give to pedestrians and if you drive on to the soya one of the bigger problems is that cars it's people walking everywhere because there's not a continual pedestrian path on the south side of Congress you can't get to the Torch there's people crossing commerce, crossing again there's people all over this intersection and then the lower right you can see with the click in a winding with the soya we can then make a continual pedestrian path along the south side of commerce make it a lot less complicated get people on the street and again give more traffic time to the soya commerce intersection ok so I showed you that screenshot earlier where we have the intersection in town and so this is what you can click on any section in this model we're starting out at market and south Alamo these are peak hour trips and you can see what the traffic will do the model here is built with the two-way on the soya if you look closely you can see that when we hold the dash screens and when they go so they don't conflict with the traffic and now because we have the extra time we can give that time to the pedestrians then we can stop them we can make free rides it's always so frustrating when you're trying to turn right they're waiting minutes and minutes for pedestrians to get out of the way you can see the pedestrians going down the model now we'll fly over we'll go up to the soya so we're flying over commerce and the soya intersection now this is the first time you see the northbound cars on the soya got the southbound lanes clearing no pedestrians to conflict with that right hand movement there and I want to emphasize so on any intersection downtown and we can come in and we have dropped in like all the hemisphere development any new hotel development so the city has this tool that they can use on any time where the traffic grows now this is the Broadway-Houston with soya intersection you can see we don't have on the right side the Houston Street coming from the east and these are real traffic, peak hour traffic counts so when you see an intersection clearing that's what we would like in the future so this particular model this is pretty much straight engineering traffic model one more video here that we'll see we'll go ahead and go to the next one this is a little more graphic for the 3D just to give you another idea here we're coming through the market intersection again going by the torch you can see now that the torch is on the right hand side there it's within a plaza area you can approach up to it you can see the crossings you can see the backup on the soya very similar to what you would see today in a peak hour and then we fly up the soya the point of these are to show just to give a layman's presentation of the traffic the detail that's gone into this the possibilities in reacting to the closure of Alamo Street and Houston Street and we really think there's some opportunity to improve some of the bad air sections in town including improving some of the delivery system so I'll just go ahead now and end this and I guess I'm going to end it all okay, thank you Hi my name is John Caspin I'm from PG&P Destinations Lori and I spoke a little bit about the Interpretive Plan team that's made up of PG&P Cultural Innovations and Reed Hildebrand Eric Cramer with Reed Hildebrand is here he's going to speak a little bit after me about the Alamo plan and the site strategies and some of the creative content that's behind it we wanted to pause a little bit and we've already talked a lot about the detail and we talked about process and traffic and all kinds of detail behind the plan we wanted to take a moment to step back and share with you some of the why and some of the statement about the opportunity that we have in front of us and what has driven us as an Interpretive Plan team part of that is we realized that the goals that have been given to us from the master plan and the vision and guiding principles are old and they're visionary and they are one of great opportunity and so with that we started to think about when you put that into one sentence you think about imagining a world class historic site that tells the whole story of the Alamo and what that also means is creating an experience for anybody who comes there that is worthy of the Alamo as one of the greatest historic sites that we have in the nation and in the world and when we think of that type of experience we have to step back and think about when we use the term world class what does that mean and so as a team we had to think about that and we wanted to share with you that to us that means that it's an experience that has to do with inspiration and one of an emotional connection it also means that we're dealing with experiences that have to do with authenticity and we are creating an experience that is can only happen here at the Alamo can only happen here in your great city of San Antonio it's one of greater understanding so that anybody who comes here whether it's a local or a visitor understands the greater story of what's going on here it's also one of reverence access and inclusion are a big part of that as well as well as commemoration and celebration for the city and for the Alamo and all the great stories and the layers of history behind this project so it's a very comprehensive project and it's one that all those thoughts have been once that have been driven by the 2019 when we think about the goals that are in front of us and we know that the Alamo is the heart of your civic life here in the city and we also know that the experience as it is now is a bit compromised and when you think of it as an urban plaza and as a historic site there's a little bit of compromise on both of those existing conditions today we know that right now in the experience it does have some distractions it also has to come to the sensitive structures and the ability to understand all of those hidden stories are there are compromised because of the existing conditions that are there at the same time that existing plaza as it is curbs and planters start to limit its capacity to be as great a acidic space as what is expressed within the vision and guiding principles so as we think about those things those the details there will go through now we are talking about a transformational experience and we take that to heart but we also believe that in creating the civic plaza experience as well as a powerful cultural destination is not an either or we feel that this plan that we have presenting to you today is an and situation and not an either or so with that Eric is going to come up and expand on that and share with you some design strategies and site strategies and also some content behind the site Eric Cranham from Reed Hill Brand where landscape architects so when we approach this question of how you achieve these goals we think about what are the physical conditions in place what are the characteristics of the physical experience of your city that enable these things to happen and as urbanists we think about how those things those landscapes those physical conditions give back to the city as a whole how they elevate the experience of being within a city not about how they disconnect you from your experience of the city we also think about our users and here this sort of statement suggests two different groups of users that have to be accommodated and we believe that the plan really does the day to day citizens of San Antonio who treat this like a center square within a vibrant urban part of the city and the visitors that are coming from far and wide to experience the history and the cultural significance of the Elmville as John suggested today we recognize that actually on what is quite a tight space we have two overlapping and sometimes conflicting conditions the desire to tell all of the stories to create an outdoor museum experience and to create a vibrant urban center on Plaza what this plan envisions is having both of those things and understanding that the two of them really are in positive relationship with each other not negative that the historic site the actual delineation of the footprint of the mission and the church and the long bar and the 1936 garden are surrounded by a vibrant urban Plaza and that is the space that is occupied and daily used by visitors and everyday citizens of San Antonio of life what we see here today is the recognition that much of that history is under our streets under existing buildings within the Plaza and not accessible not legible, not understandable there is much to be uncovered and told when we look at the condition today we see that what we think of as the historic site the church and the long bar and the garden usually just over 4 acres and the usable proportion of Alamo Plaza really what is surrounded by streets is just over an acre the opportunity here is to expand the mission footprint to reveal as much of it as possible and to create a historic site that is almost 7 acres in scale to create a location for that museum and visitor center that orients visitors that explains the history and doesn't just tell the story of those 13 days but of the full 300 years of the site and all of that really embedded in and engaged in a larger more expansive Plaza that creates a pedestrian zone that reaches all the way down to commerce that reaches out to the soil and that even creates opportunities for this mission to be understood all the way up to the north wall where you can't even understand the mission existed because you're on the street between the Gibbs Hotel and the federal building but this is what that might look like imagine where Crockett Street is today that whole areas of the south reaching down to the torch and to commerce is a pedestrianized space and vibrant urban Plaza surrounded by brown floor full of activity and commerce and then to the north of that really more exciting the church and the garden and the visitor center and museum all of which are held together by this kind of transformed quality and experience that urban Plaza is shaded it is a place where we really envision people want to stay they want to be it is a kind of a living room for the city at the center of it is the Senateff as Councilman Trevino described as a really ceremonial entry and welcome to the historic experience to the north within the footprint again a transformed experience where history and everyday life come together where you're brought really into close focus with the church and the long barric in a way you could perform throughout that area 300 years of history will be told we describe that as the mission period of the Alamo period and indeed what happened in the years up until even today and those stories are stories of multiple communities that have activated and animated and lived in this site and it's really a broad retelling of the stories of the Alamo how does that work when you're down in the ground well here's that image you saw again today you'd be standing in the middle of Alamo street and this is now understood as standing in the middle of the mission you would see the long barracks you would see a portal bringing you into the convento there would be opportunities for living history and performance and school groups because now a shaded plaza enables people to just pause and stay there and actually learn here the north south promenade along the west side again open 24-7 but here looking into the site you would see the edge of the west the buildings that were along the western edge here where Travis and his famous letter again living history performances and even the opportunity to bring water back to the site and re-express the SAQM here looking north again effectively at the intersection of Houston and Alamo seeing the north wall where Travis fell and having an opportunity that you cannot have today to actually have access to that and then this is also an area where we know there are significant burials we know those people's names we know their stories here's an opportunity to actually reveal them to commemorate them and to even have activities and ceremonies that recognize their sacrifices and their role in the history of the site and finally imagine yourself on La Soya street looking into the site from your back is effectively to the Hyatt here you're in a garden-like entry but in front of you you see the 18 pounder and the La Soya house and you see actively here interpreted the multiple periods of history that animated this site the Palisade and of course the South Gate and the La Net being brought into some kind of expression so that even without entering the footprint you are brought that is brought into close association with everybody who walks through the site we'd like to talk about this project as a series of compromises between the many different points of view and the many different ideas but at the end of the day we don't believe it's a compromised project it's a project that brings all of those stories together in an incredibly powerful way where you would experience the living history you can explore the mission you can trace your personal historical roots on the site you can understand the diverse perspectives you can honor those lives and ideally you can even see excavations in archeology and practice the living site and we believe that putting these all together you create again both the best of both worlds a vibrant urban core and an amazing historic experience thank you Eric and so now I'll talk a little bit about the status and the steps of course I didn't realize that I could control it from right here so thank you for your assistance earlier I'm using that on this side so you know, August 30th the alibis citizens advisory committee approved this portion of the project of course the management committee met next on September 4th and we got approval of course in October 2nd the alibis executive committee made up of the mayor of San Antonio and the general land office commissioner signed the resolution to move this forward so what's next is obviously we're here today with the plan commission in HDRC and we're looking for approval the plan commission recommendation is to close sections of Alamo street Houston street and Crockett streets to vehicular access and create a pedestrian only right away and to close vacate an abandoned right away on Alamo and Houston street necessary to recapture the historic plaza additionally the plan commission must make a recommendation to the city council regarding the proposed lease between the city and the general land office for the city owned property necessary to recapture the historic the historic design review must review the proposed design changes to the Alamo plaza and make recommendations to city council the proposed design changes to include but are not limited to the relocation of the senate town the establishment of a formal point of entry to the plaza during museum hours and the rerouting of the two fiesta parades in a manner that still accommodates important fiesta traditions to include the floral tribute the office of historic preservation must also review and approve the relocation of the repair plan for the senate town prior to any work beginning while the htrc does not have purview over the historic buildings owned by the state of texas htrc will review and provide comments on the recommendations to thc city the city of san antonio city council must consider the closure of the sections of alamo street Houston street and Crockett street vehicles in order to create a pedestrian only right away and the abandonment of the right away on alamo houston street necessary recapture the historic plaza city council must also consider the lease and operate agreement with the general and office the authorization to negotiate and execute a contract or contracts for the restoration and relocation of the senate town the texas historical commission must review and approve the relocation of the senate town and propose plans for the historic buildings owned by the state of texas while the htrc does not have purview over the historic buildings owned by the state of texas htrc will review and provide comments and recommendations to thc so the city will be asked to take action on a lease agreement with the general and office for the management of the historic footprint the proposed lease agreement is 50 years with 2 25 year extensions the glo will ensure that the plaza area shall remain open accessible and free of charge to the public it will ensure that the public may enter the alamo complex, the church the new museum and the outdoor historic commission footprint through a main entry when the museum is open it will open 2 additional access exit points during the museum operating hours if there is no museum program scheduled for the historic mission footprint or during times of high production activity will provide high quality programming and services that enhances the historic and cultural significance of the site will comply with all applicable local state federal laws, texas health and safety code, state antiquities code will also ensure the design for the plan museum within the current footprint of the Crockett, the old palace and Woolworth buildings is reviewed by htrc and approved by thc we will also ensure the alamo plan recognizes and interprets the historic significance of the Woolworth building in the civil rights movement the city of San Antonio will develop a service and delivery plan to accommodate the area businesses and service providers that are impacted by the street closure the city and the glo will work with the battle flowers, fiesta plan boat, fiesta commission and cabinets on rerouting the parades in order to preserve the traditions like the old tributes as you can see here is a map to show you the lease period with the general office you should be provided that information and address before we conclude the presentation I want to remind everyone that the project is partially funded the city adopted fiscal year 2016 capital budget including 17 million for the redevelopment of the alamo plaza surrounding area additionally the 2017 bond includes approximately 21 million for the construction of facilities in support of the alamo area improvements and street improvements the Texas legislature approved 31.5 million in 2015 and 75 million in 2017 for the restoration of the alamo and redevelopment of the surrounding area the alamo endowment is committed to raising approximately $200 million for implementation these funding commitments along with the Texas legislature and alamo endowment contributions will allow for immediate implementation of certain components of the master plan at this point that concludes our presentation and we're here available for any questions thank you so much thank you appreciate the presentation very beneficial very thorough thank you now we will move on to citizens to be heard which will be called by the DSP administration all right first person I have signed in to speak is Patti science is Don Dixon and Patricia Seidenberger here okay so you have a total of nine minutes Patti good afternoon fishers my name is Patti science I'm the first vice president on the conservation society speaking on behalf of our organization and I do believe you have a copy of this particular statement before you over the summer the San Antonio conservation society collected some 7500 signatures to maintain alamo plaza as a public place and preserve its historic structures we are concerned that the terms of the lease agreement will severely curtail public access to the plaza in addition to our concern for the land market palace and Woolworth buildings we feel that the lease will severely limit the San Antonio city of San Antonio's ability to direct the future of one of its most important public spaces since 2015 the conservation society has urged the incorporation of three historic buildings into the new alamo museum the 2017 alamo master plan called for the same and our organization largely supported that plan the current plan is less clear about the historic buildings future despite the support for preservation voiced by Mayor Ron Nairberg Councilman Roberto Trevino and city manager Cheryl Scully equally concerning are the lease terms which will require all alamo visitors to pass through a single entrance during business hours the area will cease to function as a plaza and become a themed cul-de-sac special events will further limit public access even though the 1871 conveyance of the plaza included a condition that and I quote the property hereby conveyed is conveyed on condition that it shall be dedicated to the public use as an open space and be made a part and of one with public plaza above and below it now known as Alamo Plaza and Plaza de Valero end quote the current interpretive plan has focused almost exclusively on the first half of the alamo's 300 year history with extensive discussion and design regarding the mission period the 1836 battle and the decades following that battle there's been very little discussion of its important late 19th and 20th century history as a public plaza including the notable military and peaceful desegregation of lunch counters exemplified at Woolworth's on March the 16th 1960 this lease agreement negates almost every aspect of local authority the city has historically exercised over this vital area of downtown the lease needs to be amended to give the city more control over the results of the plan thank you for considering our remarks next person I have is Susan Bevin is Charlie Hansen here okay so you have six minutes good evening thank you for the opportunity to speak Susan Bevin 19807 as Padding mentioned over this summer the San Antonio Conservation Society collected some 7500 signatures to maintain Alamo Plaza as a public place and preserve its historic structures since 2015 we have urged the incorporation of these three historic buildings into the new Alamo Museum we have been encouraged that Mayor Ron Nirenberg Councilman Roberto Tribino and Mayor Cheryl Scully also have called for their preservation as outlined in the 2017 Alamo Master Plan the 1882 Crocket Block 1923 Palace Theatre and the 1921 Woolworth building received City Landmark designation in 1978 and have been listed on the National Register of Historic Places as contributing buildings to Alamo Plaza Historic District since 1977 the building's historic and architectural merit have long been acknowledged by San Antonio City Council and the National Park Service the San Antonio Chapter of the American Institute of Architects and the National Trust for Historic Preservation have urged the building's reuse based on their significance the plan today calls for an analysis of the building's significance and reuse potential unfortunately the description of this process is biased in favor of demolition one page criticizes the structural configurations of all three buildings although only the palace floors are out of alignment and the altered interiors of the 1920s buildings allows for new museum space behind their existing facades Alfred Giles the city's premier architect designed the Crockett Block which appears alone in some of the renderings for the future Alamo Museum however the Woolworth building's position on Alamo Plaza made it the most important site where the first voluntary and peaceful desegregation of southern lunch counters occurs on March 16, 1960 three days later Jackie Robinson compared San Antonio's decision to integrate its lunch counters with his own entry into Major League Baseball the demolition of this building would continue the marginalization of sites with historic ties to African American experience reusing these historic buildings not only preserves the plaza's authenticity it avoids the mistake of trading real historic fabric for a conjectural reconstruction or incompatible new construction these buildings can be reverent and contribute to a world-class museum the Louvre and Orsay in Paris the Euphesie in Florence and our own McNay, Witte and San Antonio Museum of Art all are in repurposed buildings thank you for your consideration Dawn Dixon Thank you committee, my name is Dawn Dixon I've been a business person here in San Antonio about 50 years and I'm kind of speaking from my wife she was a daughter and she volunteered for the new Alamo Mission chapter and she had the privilege of serving on that committee that ran the Alamo for about 6 years now what I want to talk to you about is the drastic changes that we're talking about in the Alamo looking back at that 110-year history for these ladies to go to the Alamo build it up from nothing all volunteered all volunteered and they guarded that shrine of Texas with their hearts and with their service now there's many historical issues that you're going to be dealing with here that I believe are negative and you're going to be dealing with planning issues which I believe are negative this plan is sort of a dusted off plan from 1994 some changes but the basics are still there from 1994 closing the streets altering the use of the politics moving the senate down the daughters got wind of this they hired an attorney Sam Dibble pleaded their case the main things that they were interested in is in this document I hope they gave these to I gave them to the staff yesterday is that they guarded access and visibility as imperative in protecting the Alamo and that is true today if you close the streets you're not only closing off mobility in the city of San Antonio but you're closing off visibility and access is raised tourist attraction there's many many problems they've already mentioned the deed and here's the deed you have copied with that you copied that the plaza an open public plaza is an open space as it is for 147 years keep it open keep the streets open do not move the senate down leave it where it is never designed to be moved leave those historic buildings to the west do not disturb those buildings you have a chance this committee has a chance to protect our greatest one of our greatest assets in Texas hold down this plane do not pass it up now tourists and tourists from the Indian what's the notice before my time starts we are the Pacocha Indian First Nation Union descendants from the Alamo can you pass the notice and we have we are grouped we are tribe Union descendants and then we have also our title reservation offers that has purpose in many tribes Mr. Randy Lee of Barnes and he will get time from Red Smith and we just want to clarify that before we give you the notice of disease and disease that everybody also got the letter that we sent in September the 21st to the Secretary of the Interior and the National Park Service Director then everybody got this letter you got the letter all of you then your time has started so again we just giving you can you put this one in the screen again we are already coming back and saying many times we giving you notice of the disease and disease to enjoying this product call the project is called Alamo master plan there is no proof along Houston street that there is burial grounds Alamo street needs to keep open there is no burial grounds there it was already destroyed and any bones that they found there during putting water lines, electrical lines they took those bones so my ancestors they throw them to the garbage so again we telling you you need to stop disease and disease this is already a lawsuit the Senate was billed by federal money and an agreement in a contract and you have that ordinance OH197 it says clearly there that the city will to preserve it and maintain it they have not it is a shame and the federal government when they build a national monument or build a federal building is to stay 30 seconds so again we are asking you right now we are just giving you notice disease and disease otherwise this is no difference than the Alamo okay we are going to stop the project and again the Plaza has to be open it is under Native American religion and again you have not honor non-prime you are in violation of non-prime this is a huge issue here you have not to stop with us under Niagara thank you very much next person I have is Sofia Torres what is your name ma'am are you Sofia Torres she is so again we are going back to square one not opera I am giving you again notice and you need to cease the disease because you are being opened by opera because me as an Indian descendant Pakua chain and our people that are still in existence we have the bloodline we have the DNA to prove it yes we are Indians and we are Pakua chain and we came from San Juan Bautista the mother of all misias and slavery and the people died horrible deaths there and Alamo Plaza Alamo Plaza is the church it is not the chapel that is what the doctorina was done so again I am telling you this is cease and desist and it was shot multi-billion dollar project in 1992 after Niagara passed in 1999 you have dishonor us you disrespect us and I am saying this to the present council and city manager we see them on the 18 and how many times you have seen me here with the war guardia you approve on top of an Indian cemetery by leading in disregarding to build multi-use apartments with conceptual mission you did it and also David Allman to build a huge building on top of the Madre Azequia where my ancestors and Ipyame, Tiliayas Sanas built that Madre Azequia with blood and tears in hemisphere and I sue you Chief Davis is sending you a message and $80,000 of his money and we sue the city that also what this means without prejudice it means that we can bring it back but we sue in you the alamolifernus are suing you the cenotaph is not going to be not even half an inch I am not saying an inch half an inch it is no difference that the battle of the little horn you don't see reels you don't see obstruction that is freedom that is what alamolifernus means to all of us and the streets have to be open if I am missing anything else we are already rejected do not enjoy do not move forward this is apohoy this is like apohoy thank you 30 more seconds it is too late how many times we came here and talked to you and all these public meetings way back since 2012 we do recall the first meeting at the public library with a PPS before they came to New York and we already said it don't do it you need to consult with us we never consult with us 3 minutes and a warning next person I have is Lee Spencer White Lee Spencer White president of the Alamo Descendants Association we represent the defenders, the scouts, the couriers we have over 13,000 people have signed a petition saying don't move the senate act we had two professional surveys done one in the city which was with Councilman Perry over 63% of the citizens of San Antonio say don't move the senate act we had a statewide survey professional across the state each county in Texas was included in the survey and we had 60% of Texas saying don't move the senate act just for a point of correction here never ever has the senate act even in the early design phases in the 30s ever was going to be placed outside the fort Councilman Trevino is very very wrong in saying that bandstand is where they're going to put it that bandstand was put there in the 1980s and never ever was there any consideration of it being outside the fort that's what our issue is repair it where it sits yes it sits in the heart of the Alamo it should sit in the heart of the Alamo the bluzz there it's an insult to move them out in front of the minger where we have pub runs you know street preachers all the nastiness that people talk about hey they're just moving it over and they're taking the actual memorial who everyone's saying we want this to be safer ground but you're throwing the people out who actually did the sacrifice is there something wrong here yes please repair it where it sits the survey that was done a couple years ago the engineer's report says it's really minor repair needs some more investigation $200,000 you can fix it where it sits millions of movement and maybe break it no leave it where it sits that's where the blood is that's where it needs to be kept in the remnant area thank you next person in the way is Randy Barnes are you Randy Barnes I am Randy Barnes I didn't bring any papers the city, the state, the federal government has mine I am a NACRA consultant NACRA means Native American Graves a creation act which supersedes all your Texas state laws antiquities codes I'm not going to put this you're basing this history on 300 years before the Alamo was brought here there was two other chapels that were already there a dove and a fax and then there was another one in Alazon Creek which predates what your president complaining about by 100 years and by that 100 years there was already tribal people of the Coelan nations being buried there at present you have 1,738 and that imprint you're talking about is Dirk Composantos and some of those lineal descendants are here tonight could you please stand up Ramon Bosquez, Raymond Hernandez, Maria Torres these are the lineal descendants now if your Alamo project falls under NACRA because of Texas Building Commission and George P. Bush accepts federal monies through the congressional appropriated funds along with the city of San Antonio and the state of county for all national historical projects so now it falls in my whole park you will not have an open pit your archeologist I know all the teams will tell you that under NACRA and under archeological law they cannot turn a shovel in the ground unless a federally recognized NACRA officer from the federally recognized nations be here on site which means you're looking at Mescalero, Comanche Alabama Cachada Kickapoo Kailah plus some other different nations that I've been on conference with part of my day I enlisted in the national registry from National Park Service U.S. Department of Justice and the United States Department of Defense and if you need to find me you can look me up under NACRA Rainy Barnes on any of your internet sites I don't play I don't play at all I was involved with the curvil projects Dallas projects and the projects in Iraq and Afghanistan well I served across the water in my main tours I have a 45 page legal document sent in my home right now that was made up by the attorneys to file a federal national injunction against the city San Antonio the Texas General Land Office it's 45 pages the last time we used an injunction like this we closed down the golf course in Universal City you cannot go forward without this project without NACRA I carry in my pocket a thumb drive that has the history of this area going back to your 1515 through 1899 you guys are talking about historical footprint well I have Mr. Wetz Wetz Smith Wetz Smith's time I have all the fire records I have all the Cassidian records from the college of Quintero and Sonora de Guadalupe out of Mexico I've been doing this for 41 years I started this when I was 17 years old when I was in Grunt with the University out of San Joaquin High School on summer projects for the University of Texas out of San Antonio and other programs together y'all need to learn that your Texas Historical Commission cannot protect you in this because NACRA supersedes Texas Historical Laws all you've got to do is call Mark Denton or any of the THC people or K. Heinz who is your chief archeologist or Robert Kissner or your pet project people here and they will tell you NACRA can close this project down in San Fernando Court it doesn't matter what else anybody else does the Senate tab sits on a composanto there are 75 composantos within San Antonio City Limits and two of the biggest ones you classify as San Fernando and Valado but those ancient burial grounds were already started by the three previous chapels that were already here and those people are listed they have no Spanish heritage they have no French heritage they are all listed as nations and one of those nations are the Paella nations and who have family here around the ranch right outside of San Antonio and I met 50 of the family members who are fully recognized and were reclassified during the time of Maribel Lamar during a long march to the Red River and they were reclassified as Kaiawa Apache and they are here in San Antonio today and they walked out of the moment and they were disgusted because when you talk about a footprint the indigenous people of Paella nations have the biggest footprint here that is the heart of it before Texas was Texas before it was called Paella it's called the land of trees so this question I have for you all you're educated some of your lawyers have master's degrees master's degrees well I have a degree too and it's major is in archeology and anthropology from Southern Manhattan University my former university was Texas A&M are you Ramon Vazquez? thank you 6 minutes alright going back 12 generations the first section was in Papanak Paella India I don't know about all these other Paellaias but I do definitely descend from them and in 1995 Roger Kennedy from the Department of Interior came down here because in 1967 they had desecrated our burial grounds that were the first Catholic Indians at San Juan when I was serving in Vietnam it took a 32 year struggle to get them back repatriated in 1999 I personally have been involved in over 200 repatriations personally I was mentored by Bill Talbow of the Cheyenne, Northern Cheyenne Nation because at that time we didn't even know how to repatriate someone once a person is buried they're buried forever and when they're desecrated I can challenge you already when you don't want to turn around and go back and bury a family member and it gets personal I'm not talking about ancestors we can all say ancestors are a blanket thing but I got grandparents at the Alamo real grandparents I'm 12th generation Texan 6th generation citizen of the United States because the United States didn't exist here until 1846 so I'm a deep down San Antonio as well as recorded the Texas Archaeological Department has through DNA established that our people have been here for 10,000 years now that being said why am I here I'm here because of section 106 that's a very important thing that's one thing that Roger Kennedy told us because back then everybody said you're not going to be recognized well under section 106 it talks about legal descendants and those legal descendants is what helped us get Nagra invoked in 1990 which I was a part of in 1994 to have that installed over there in Oklahoma with all the nations so what I'm saying is that we need to have this section 106 involved in this process because if we do not have that into our process we lose our voices as Native people and that's important to us because our history being left to the hands of other people over the last 300 years since our history existed and because of our contributions have been totally eliminated most people don't even realize that we're even still here they don't even realize the contributions that our families made and had we felt that any of our contributions in the building of these missions especially in Valero and the Alamo you can assure you that so there was a lot of other struggles and I'm not here to minimize the battle of contributions of that Alamo because I had families fight on both sides just like I had families fight on both sides in the battle of Medina battle of Consecion civil war you know and my grandparents go over one go over two with my dad my dad also fought in Korea I fought in Vietnam my daughter is in Desert Storm and my son is an Iraq veteran so we have a deep history going to that since the beginning and so these burial grounds is a cemetery and I am providing y'all with these records I'm sorry that we didn't have 16 I think we only brought 12 in it it outlines the issues about only that the federal government can advise us of whether section 106 applies and if you really think about it at the very least when you start pointing to that river walk you're going to have to involve the civil engineers that's going to create a federal thing now yes NYCRA can go out there and they can turn around and invoke all of these things like Randy Martin says but we got legal descendants here that aren't these people and we have standing they're standing and our presidents of the burials that we have proceeded in the past now I'm not here to dispute who is and who is not Indian okay that's not my job but we started a process in 1995 that's taken us to this day to get the standing to be able to service to genealogy our own pockets our own resources our own blood and sweat to go through this process and it's just not re-burying the people because we take responsibility for those things I personally have re-buried an ancestor inside the Alamo in 1995 and here last year I've re-buried another one outside in the plaza those things just don't happen to anyone it's because they know our record they know that we're committed we know the responsibility and so our request review of the project relates letters of the federal agency of jurisdiction determination we have not been informed as of yet I implore you to look at these things and get this involved and involved and at the very least establish an MOU of some kind with the real descendants that have been able to demonstrate by their actions for the last 40 years of the work that we have contributed to this process I served in the 1994 the Alamo plaza and I can look around and I can come again that we're involved in this process all right thank you sir I appreciate your comments that was 6 minutes yes next person is Forrest Bias thank you to the commission for letting me talk today my name is Forrest Bias I'm a 6th generation Texan I'm Alamo Defender Descendant my great-great-grandfather fought in the battle of Gonzales Conception C can battle a bear and was one of the Immortal 32 that Ancer Travis has called to reinforce the Alamo I'm for the plan I'm for moving the senate staff his name is the first name on the west side of the senate staff I'm for closing the streets to give reverence to the battlefield and the mission plaza and everything that went on there cars driving on it are not very good for the reverence of the plan I appreciate that part and I hope you all will give that in consideration there's been a lot of work on the citizens advisory committee and the other committees on doing this plan and a lot of thought and everything went into it so that was just my piece I appreciate it on your time George Cisneros George Cisneros, I'm the district 5 I'm about to point to you and I see the 16 of y'all and y'all have an attention and a focus that's pretty impressive right now because this is pretty heavy stuff that we're discussing we've had people we've had people here in the last few minutes who are speaking about the past and their connection to that earth and that stone in Alamo Plaza and I look at your names here and they do reflect old families in San Antonio who have put volunteer time as Boy Scout troop leaders PTA time volunteers on commissions such as this you've served in the military you've worked on commissions and worked with all sorts of things these families that y'all represent are deep and I'm asking you today to realize that your hard work and your commitment to this needs to be directed is do you really want to lease San Antonio property for 100 years to another entity do you really want to give control away for 100 years only 12 about 12 hours ago you were just leaving your houses to go to work put a full day of work in grab a bite to eat and come over here and do this commission work that's 12 hours but what we're just really discussing 100 years look at the lease what are we giving away what are we losing control of and from the very beginning the plan always was a smoke screen to me it was making a bunch of stuff happen but the crux of the matter is 100 year lease and governance those are the only two things that we must be concerned about at this moment everything at the senate it's important to some people emotionally but it's not like giving away land for 100 years and giving away governance read the lease the state of texas will have the right to release our land to a third party what if they do it to disney land what if they do it to six flags what if they do it to the alamo trust we will lose our governance and our control so those of you who come from families deep who volunteer and really care about san iterno 100 years is a long time your grandchildren may have already passed in 100 years so think about it in year 99 who on city council is going to say hey next year is 100 years we want our land back so let's think about that very very carefully because i don't know that 50 was 25 plus 25 means 100 and thank you for your attention and thank you for your support to community next rubber denny good evening i'm the sorority denny i was a member of the 1994 alamo plaza committee and kind of exciting to see some of the plans that were presented tonight not yet complete regarding the plan of the plaza lease that's been proposed between the city san iterno and the texageno land office there appears to be a question about the alamo plaza ownership that needs to be addressed before anyone goes forward while doing some online digital research in the city archives in the city clerks office i found a 1871 document regarding the conveyance of the galera building by the catholic church to the city of san itonia for $2500 most of y'all know that the galera building was the low barracks main gate main gate entrance and there were no documents found however indicating that the city of san itonio had ever purchased alamo plaza from the catholic organizations of san itonio the texas supreme court in the 1850s settled a lawsuit the city of san itonio filed a lawsuit against bishop odine certifying and approving the fact that the catholic church owned all the land of alamo plaza of the alamo mission and all the other missions in texas it was originally started by the acts of the republic of texas in 1841 but it was certified on that basis it was done because the city wanted to lease the land of the alamo that they believed they owned to the united states army that stayed there and found out that the representative of the arts diocese had already leased it as owners to the united states army so they filed a suit and they lost now the the ruling indicates to that they owned all the property and the art buildings up to a maximum of 15 acres for all the missions in perpetuity that's in the wording the copies of that too however it says about the conveyance going back to the galera that shows the meets and bounds in that document that y'all come on look up that is strictly the footprints of the galera and I believe it says something on this order that the it being understood that the property conveyed on condition that it should be dedicated to the public as an open space and be made part of and one with the plazas above and below known as alamo plaza that belong to the church plaza that belong to the city I hope that y'all will address that sometime very soon because a third partner a stakeholder has not been included a nice illustration for your time thank you next question I'm having is Sharon Davidson first access name and address please my first look at this was access and then I pulled up the entire 18 pages of the lease document having heard what's said here I totally agree that we have to look at that control and when you start reading through it not only is it control of the space but control of the economy around that space that allows for fees to be charged for vendors for concessions for all of those things that we're living up and in closing because that's the only way to control that access is by those access points right now I can leave my house and literally walk half a mile to the mall I can cut over I can be there you're taking that space and expanding it to like 6.7 acres and in closing that that does not lend well to tourists of saying hey I can go over there on my lunch hour from my meeting or on my way home from a meeting from the convention center to my hotel or et cetera that access that ability to interact with that historic space and the public space is what we're giving up as well as the economic level of that you start looking at who controls and allows things in and that it's very disturbing to see a city we appreciate a partnership but not when we are a minority partner and we use our ability and even in the reading of it it says you know the city manager can recently withhold a request to charge in those pieces and there are specific dates and times where we're going to have access to what is currently our land that we're giving away and one of those dates is in even March 6 the most important day at the Alamo so those are the issues that I come with of the accessibility of the public space the control of not just the space but the ability of giving up that economic space what's the GLO we're getting at this they're getting the ability to charge people for something currently that's free and that's a huge concern when we're talking about a public space access all the things that we're told here about the interaction and the ability to absorb it and get that experience at the Alamo 30 seconds that's my concern very much so and not having the ability to go in and out and appreciate what it does and having someone else control how and when I interact and giving me their experience not my experience thank you very much next person I have is Corrine Schluter is there a Raylon Schluter here he has my time we have 6 minutes hello my name is Raylon Schluter my family residence is 1048 Hillside Oaks in Wolverine, Texas I have a home in Councilman's the councilman that says we're listening to you from this whole deal he's had his mind made up since the very beginning of this thing and he wants to move the city top and he wanted to put it in the San Antonio River I'm a 7th generation Texas my grandfather Gordon C. Jennings Amanda Cannon on the north wall of the Alamo on the side of William Barrett Travis my grandfather fought in the siege of Barrett alongside Forrest Baez his family and died at the Alamo so it's hard that some of us Alamo Defender descendants and I am a member of the Alamo Defender descendants have chosen a battle that we fought against each other Forrest's family also fought in civil war and so did mine we fought and died in battles and the politicians have come in here and created another battle to move the senate top think about this Councilman Trevino and Mayor Ron Nirenberg stated a year ago that the senate top should be moved to a more appropriate place okay so I will have a question with each and every one of you how would you like me to go to your family's cemetery and dig up the headstones of your loved ones and move them to a more appropriate space there is no crosses at the Alamo if you listen to the Battle of the Alamo by Marty Robbins you will look for a cross one and you will never find one Santa Ana took the men of the Alamo stacked their bodies up like cordwood stripped them naked and set them on fire the remains set there for over here to be picked up in the wind until Juan Sagini came here later and buried them the senate top is an empty tomb it sets only a few steps from where the north wall was where many hard fighting was now they want to talk about well it should have been here and it should have been there well it should have would have it's been there for 80 years leave it there the senate top should set there there is a study from 2014 that we had to get a study to show that these people, these fine gentlemen have lots of money off this project that have no vested interest or blood in this that said the senate top could be a paid in place for like $200,000 why should we spend millions of dollars also I don't know if you're familiar with the Reba Publican Party passed Plaint 296 by a 93% passage for the senate top to set in place and the Alamo grounds to be preserved there's currently state reps working on this is the city of San Antonio planning to pay for all this when and if the money gets cut off because I've talked to a lot of people and if you listen to talk radio a lot of people aren't for this plan they think it's absurd why would somebody want to move the senate top other than we don't like the men's names that are on there it's more appropriate to re-amove it now my family hasn't been here as long as some of the other people but my family paid for Texas freedom of blood and sacrifice these people here they're setting on these committees talk about oh we want to have the reenactors so we can have an experience well the Alamo is not visiting land there's a lot of heritage groups that are made up of people that like the Alamo because they started collecting Davey Crockett lunchboxes and John Wayne's Alamo if you want John Wayne's Alamo Bracketville's probably for sale buy it make that Alamo take care of the chapel, take care of the Longbergs build a museum but leave the senate top alone there's no reason to spend millions of dollars unless we want to do what we did we'd like to do with monuments nowadays we take the senate top apart and it falls apart uh oh you know I'm not real smart you know but you know why now I don't know how you guys vote but I'm sure y'all work for the city and I'm sure y'all probably have a rubber stamp back there because that's like the city likes to do is rubber stamp so I don't mean to insult anybody but we've been to like many of these meetings where councilman Trevino says we're listening to you but there's never been an option for the senate top to stay there because Mr. Trevino doesn't like the senate top and some of his predecessors that were involved in some of these planning don't like for what the senate top stands for we know how the former mayor spoke of the senate top his mom did of the Alamo we do not need to quote that how they despise everything that the Alamo stands for there was nothing but drunks well there were men of honor unlike some politicians nowadays you know why would a 56 year old man leave four women, four children behind to come die at the Alamo why would somebody from Gonzales, Texas 32 men come to die at the Alamo knowing that there wasn't nobody coming why would a courier ride back into the Alamo knowing that there was nobody coming makes no sense these guys have fine plans but you know we need the senate top needs to stay there and why are we giving up our rights as a city to the state of Texas I wouldn't trust any politician whether they're democrat or republican all they lie once they get in the office they all want to leave their mark on the city or the state thank you Mr. Trevino to recognize Jack Amfinger I live in District 1 Mr. Trevino's district Mr. Curtis Fish this is around somewhere you are my representative see how well you listen to your constituents do you realize how much you are messing with people's emotions on these issues for real as a man just before we mentioned that Alamo that place of honor that shrine is an inspiration to every single person who comes by there and views it and you want to close off Alamo street which allows people to glance at the darn thing you realize that street is there to not let them glance but become inspired so that they will park their cars and then walk over to it and see everything in it Alamo street and Houston street you want to close that off too allowing more traffic jams the the center tap yes maybe it wasn't on the exact spot where the bodies were burned but it was right where the fat was and you want to move that please understand you're saying well just 500 feet uh-uh this is a symbol of a conflict that we the citizens have with you you are representatives you want to do something that you think is in the best so-called best interest of us uh-uh we see this as a battle between wits the once again the Alamo street the parade route I don't know why the the parade organizers sold out to this plan but we want the parade to run through the Alamo that's our symbol we don't want to just really stop me there and going off route we want the whole parade to run through it and finally the lease for 100 years I'm sorry I am a Republican and I do not trust George P. Bush on this stuff no, 100 years no, thank you next person is Susan Green I'm Susan Green I'm a downtown resident also I've been in San Antonio about 5 years and I've been most proud to live just 4 blocks from the Alamo and Alamo apartment I'm here because I want to challenge you on the historic design review commission to do the right thing and stop this plan uphold the provisions of the National Historic Preservation Act and also the secretary of the interior standards for preservation it applies to everything that's being proposed here and that is that changes number 4 under the historic reservation standards for preservation changes to property that have acquired historic significance in their own right will be retained and preserved this very clearly applies to the senate act there is no reason to move it it is historically significant in its own right it is a significant contributing structure to the National Historic Site known as Alamo Plaza it complements it is the most complimentary thing to the National Historic Landmark of the Alamo it tells the story of the battle of the Alamo the and it is where it is it was designed specifically for that location by Cappini the spirit of sacrifice is there on the ground where the blood was shed to move it outside the walls of the fort off the historic battleground even though it's only 500 feet away it loses all significance the symbolism is meaningless Cappini did not design this for any other location than where it sits right now the you've heard from many significant this the senate act and the plaza the buildings everything at Alamo Plaza is to many people that has their cultural significance historic significance family significance and it should not be moved there are also deed restrictions which clearly support that it shall be maintained as a memorial in honor of the heroes of the Alamo and the city agrees that the property shall be used only for the purpose for which it is attended please stop this don't be a rubber stamp for revisionist history be Alamo heroes insist that a section 106 review process be conducted so that all parties can be included in the process and it can be handled properly thank you next person is Brandon Burkhart Brandon Burkhart Brandon Burkhart president of this is Texas Freedom Force a nonprofit organization here in the state of Texas that holds over 18,000 members and our mission statement is the preservation of Texas history and protection of Texas rights and those protectors of all things Texas I can tell you right now that this moving of this Alamo that for Burkhart Trevino and McDonnell fact here along with George P. Bush and some of the other cohorts like Nuremberg is not with the people of Texas one and I can tell you that more than anybody can because our organization travels the state on a regular basis we talked to thousands of Texas guys sat down at the Alamo and spent hundreds of hours talking to tourists and Texans alike telling them about the city's plan and what they planned due to the senate and you know what the number one question we get is why do they want to move the senate leave it alone yes it wasn't there in 1836 but it was put there in 1936 to represent those people that died there to represent the Texans that stood for liberty stood for freedom we have also had two engineers that have come out and actually surveyed the blueprints and looked at the Alamo senate town and they have said that it is highly probable that the city will damage the senate town if they attempt to move it and the price tag to then repair it is going to be so high then they'll say well you know we don't have the money to fix it which is where the first plan that they first came out with was demolish the Alamo senate town and that's where we think that Trevino Nuremberg and some of the others stand at this point as they want this damage so bad that they don't have to put it back up and they don't have a good track record because you can look at the Travis Park monument which we railed against them removing that it sits in the Alamo basement the Alamo kiln basement excuse me with a broken butt on the gun and a broken barrel on the gun not only that some contents of the actual time capsule have been lost inside of the actual time capsule and a hole that was about the size of this was put in there and we don't know if somebody actually stole the stuff out there before the lawyers were able to get the UDC in there to actually look at it or not the city of San Antonio does not have a good track record we could rail against this entire Alamo reimagine this Alamo plan but we have chosen to pick the senate attack as our line in the sand and we will stand there and fight that every single day all the way up until the end and I tell you what George P. Bush his days are numbered because of this plan because Texas don't want it that the majority of Texans like Douglas McDonald back here will tell you well the majority supports me well the majority of Texans supported you then put it up for a vote for the Texans let Texans be able to decide this is not for somebody that came from up north down to Texas the visit to be able to decide this is not for somebody like Nuremberg that came from Boston to decide Wisconsin happens thank you Gary Bilyer well my name is Kelly Bilyer I'm the research director for the Texas Freedom Force I live in D probability two in San Antonio and I was glad to hear our person here from the Design Team Eric say that the plan is intended to honor 300 years of the site including the history in the 19th century in San The Senate TAP itself is a historical artifact. It's a monument designed by Pompeo Cappini, specific to the location where it is currently located. And the structural elements are specific to the cardinal directions, more south, east-west, that they face. This is well-documented. It's been studied. Pompeo was an Italian immigrant. He came to this country, he had, was his experience in Italy and his training in art. This monument was erected during the centennial year of the Battle of the Alamo as a monument to honor the defenders of the Alamo. The defenders' rights for their descendants to visit because their bodies were burned under orders of the Mexican dictator Santa Ana. Descendants from across the nation come to San Antonio to visit the site where their ancestor died. In the quest for liberty, from oppression, from a dictator who had abolished their constitution. That is the reason for the Texas Revolution. Because the dictator Santa Ana had abolished their constitution. They had settled this area, Tejanos and Alamos, under the understanding that they would be protected by the constitution. When it was abolished and they were told to turn in their arms, they said no. And they fought and died for that principle. Those descendants come to the battleground where their ancestors died and where the monument built to honor them is located. The city has done no feasibility study that this important monument can be moved without damaging it irreparably. The loss of this 82-year-old historical monument would be tragic to the residents of San Antonio who treasure Texas history and it would be a dishonor to our ancestors who fought and died at the Battle of the Alamo and in the Texas Revolution at battles prior and after that one. Please do not do this. Next person is Rick Ruskell. Rick Ruskell and the rest of the District 9 of San Antonio. The area we now call Texas has a long proud history. There's a focal point that leads us to where our existence is today. Instead of a single-star, long-star flag in the flag of the United States of America but before the Battle of the Alamo there'd be a two-star flag representing Coahuila y Tejas and a Mexican flag flying over San Antonio. The defenders of the Alamo are who we hold in very high regard. This entire plan is most suspicious. I attended the January hearings of the Senate Finance Committee and I'll tell you in short words that they were very displeased for the lack of transparency on the part of the GOO and I'll summarize the plan as being unnecessary, undesirable and unwanted. Unnecessary because they're very little if anything that cannot be accomplished by much simpler means. Undesirable in that it diminishes the significance of the Battle of the Alamo and makes the entire experience poorer. Unwanted in that throughout town where there have been public hearings the public has spoken out against this voted plan. Now let's look at a couple of isolated details of the proposed closing streets. Well, our engineer friends have a really nice-looking computer animation as garbage. Garbage in garbage out to more expression about computers. It applies here because at one of the public presentations they admitted they haven't even consulted the merchants who would need trucks to resupply them with their merchandise and their daily goods and so on it would directly affect the traffic flow stuff. What does that study work? A great big round number, nothing. Had it been a presentation to a private business it would have been followed by the words, you're fired. Let's look at a couple of other small details. Insignificant things like reverberate clauses and deeds. Notwithstanding the opinion of the city attorney I submit that this plan will trigger the reverberate clause So please vote for this plan so we can get it out of the hands of the city of San Antonio. This is a half-billion dollar project that need not be done. Any number of people could do a much better job for a business. First I want to speak for myself only. I was born on the banks of the San Antonio River as a lot of us always say, the Nick's Hospital. And my grandfather opened the store on the main piles in 1901 and my daddy was born on Marshall Street and everybody else still hang around. I'm a lawyer. Love giving advice. The concept, I listen to everybody at these meetings at everything I get upset, I don't get upset. I'm going to talk fast, which isn't possible. I like the plan. Having New Zealand is great. Having the Alamo fix it won't fall down is great. Having the public 24-7 is great. What's bad, it's not bad, but I would ask you in doing due diligence go find an attorney or if you're an attorney go home and read the lease. It's pathetic. I don't, what's in it, the substance is fine. It's so poorly grafted. There's so many holes in it. We could go report forever for construction. But what I think, giving you advice, what you ought to do, the buildings across the street, Texas won't tell you what they're going to do with them. They'll keep them. They won't keep them. They'll put the museum in some. They won't put the museum to make a facade. Well, it's not time to do a lease until you know what you're leasing. The other half of it is the Alamo. And they're arguing whether they should take six feet of dirt underneath the Alamo and go back to the original foundation or just leave it there because the ground is drying down. I'm not but like it used to be. And how's the city going to know how much earth they're going to have to move to make it beautiful? Well, it's going to end up beautiful. We're going to have the museum. We're going to have the beautiful area. But then the streets. Why don't you do this while the state is figuring out what they're going to do to the building so you'll know what you're getting for your deal and what they're going to do with the Alamo so you know what you have to do for the deal with the dirt and cleaning up and things. Why don't you close the streets? Close personal friends who would kill me. Close the streets. I don't think you may know who it is. Close the streets for six months or how long and they tell you what you're going to enter into and see what you've got. Hold parable. They're building a new college. The guy says, build the college. Don't put it in the sidewalks. They build the college. No sidewalks. Why don't you put them? Wait a year. Why you wait a year? You put it to see where they walk. Then you put in the sidewalks. Okay. Seriously. That's three minutes. Thank you. Last speaker. Yes, that was the last speaker. Here's my suggestion, ladies and gentlemen. First of all, I'm grateful for the civil tone that we're seeing tonight and I'm very appreciative of that as I think all of the commuters are. And I think that I want to compliment all of you for presenting your case as well and for doing this in a civilized manner which is, as we all know, pretty out of fashion these days. So thank you from all of us. But being only human, I think we need to take a little break here because people have been drinking coffee and water and all that. So let us take about ten minutes, five minutes. Do you think you can do it in five minutes? Okay. All right, we'll do it in five and then we'll be back for discussion. Thank you. So we're all back and for the record we are resuming after the break that was called after the citizens to be burdened and then we will have a discussion and questions. I think there's quite a procedure here. It's been suggested that since we're sitting here as a committee of the whole, that as each of the commissioners from their respective commissions want to ask a question, they be recognized by their individual chairman. I'm not really sure how to manage that because I'm trying to see the end of the dais here. And frankly, my compliments to the staff because I don't think you can get this many chairs here. Anyway, it may be better, I think, if we can talk to the commissioners simply to have a question. We have a microphone that has to be recognized and they'll do that. Is it okay with you, sir? Okay. Good with everybody. Let's proceed. Are we looking for a verse? All right, can we go down? I will go first at that. One, I do want to thank everyone for coming tonight. My passion is really up here and everything people are coming and voicing your concerns. It is really important to do so. And for my own millennials, I am a little disappointed that we don't see many millennials in the audience. That's me. You're here, nor there, so I just want to compliment you all for coming. But I'll try to make the comments great. And going back to the why we're doing this and why I think that we're all doing this and I'm really excited because of a sense of arrival and to enhance the experience that I don't necessarily think is here today for the Alamo, where the city of the Alamo were known for the river walk. And it is unfortunate when you often hear people coming and looking at the Alamo and being a little... What's the word? They're not very excited. They kind of look at you and they're like, that's the Alamo or they're driving quickly past. They pass the Alamo and they keep on going. And so I do want to applaud this city it's been several years in the works for coming up with this grand plan and I do think this grand plan really enhances and provides that experience and that sense of arrival, the appreciation that we really need for the Alamo in that area. On that note, I think it's pretty timely. We have dozens of individuals in Boston this week for the Urban Lane Institute conference and a diverse group representing several different organizations in the city. And Boston, as many of you know it, is quite a bit of history. And so as I was there this past week, it was timely. I was looking at how they do either many historic buildings and then thinking about this plan and how that's working out. There are several buildings where you pass by quickly in the car and with traffic, you kind of miss it and keep on going and that's what I think we have in the Alamo today. But then there's others where you're able to walk around in a pocket park in green space and for a massive and dense city like Boston being able to include those green space areas and being able to walk around and really appreciate I think is the key aspect of that. And so I know there was a couple of mentions about on the road hindering people from appreciating or stopping by. But I look forward to the day tour. We're not a city that's so car centric and we're more of the walkable, bikeable community. Like I think we're moving toward and so I think this pocket park, this green space area is on that path. I guess it's a good path that we're moving forward on. So all in all, I do applaud the nurse academic side in for this master plan for the Alamo. A couple of questions really quick. I think a few commissioners have is if staff can kind of clarify some of the lawsuits that were brought up, the one of six with different entities and federal lawsuits. I'm not sure that we looked into that, but if we can have a city staff member address some of those concerns. Good evening everyone. I may have used to go over to the city attorney. Unless there are specific lawsuits and I didn't hear any of them that were mentioned that are active, I'm not aware of any federal lawsuits that currently implant you on the Alamo plan or the Alamo lease. Just to reassure, the different concerns that were brought up throughout this evening, there are no concerns. We looked into them and... Oh, I mean I can answer specifically like I think there was an issue on Niagara in its application. That is an important federal law. Its fundamental purpose is to identify, preserve and repatriate items that are of significant cultural importance to Native American nations. And we fully recognize that. There's nothing though that's in the lease or the Alamo plan that per se, you know, violates or inconsistent with that law. And in fact in the lease, we acknowledge that both the city and GLO will comply with all federal laws. So we stand ready to comply with that if the issue comes up. Ordinance 08197. I don't think that's an ordinance. I think it's a section to another federal law. No. Oh, the Senate tab. Okay, I can address the Senate tab. Yes, the Senate tab as some people pointed out, as long as it's the purposes to honor the people that, the heroes of the Alamo, which under the Alamo plan, will still be what the purpose of the Senate tab is. That's the way in compliance with it. She asked you to discuss ordinance 08197. You have not. I'm going to wrap up my comments. I just want to reiterate the why. And it's really for this experience, enhancement experience, and seeing a sense of arrival around our Alamo. The aspect of our city that attracts several different tourists and I think that we have a master plan. So I am in support of this master plan. And for the comments and questions. Thank you. Thank you. I couldn't hear you. So yes, I am. I'm first of all, I'd like either staff or Jean Dawson to answer the question. One of the speakers referred to the utilities plan. If the streets are changed, then what's going to happen with servicing the businesses along the streets? Thank you, Jean Dawson. As I mentioned shortly in my presentation, we have engaged the vendors and suppliers in the city of San Antonio. That has been very productive so far. We've learned a lot. I think even if the Alamo plan weren't out there being considered, these vendors and suppliers needed to be engaged. A lot of the commercial loading zone signs that you see around downtown were put in 30 years ago and no one knows why they're there and why they're there for 30 minutes. And we really, what we're proposing to do in engaging the suppliers and the vendors is look at the entire downtown area and the core and create a delivery system that is more controlled or deliberate than it is today. It's everybody's kind of on their own and fighting for a space. We've had very productive meetings and we really think there's a solution for downtown. Clearly other cities around the country have implemented delivery programs that the city of San Antonio can follow. And I believe we're not going to move forward on anything until we have a good delivery plan in place. Thank you. Let me ask staff the same question. Mr. Dawson stated that the transportation plan the closure of the streets was not occur until the delivery plan was in place. Is the city staff saying that that is going to happen? Are you confirming that there will be a delivery plan before the streets are closed? Yes, and actually that is an lease agreement that we are going to be doing that service and delivery plan prior to the street closures. And as Mr. Dawson mentioned, that is underway and we have our second meeting with the stakeholders coming up. I believe on Friday. I'd like to ask the city attorney a question. Yes, ma'am. Someone in the audience that was referring to I guess the federal preservation section 106. Yes, that's the one frankly that I'm not familiar with on that. Well, I'd like to have someone explain to me. We have somebody that is familiar with that that can answer anything. What's your question? Randy, I'm sorry. I don't know his last name. I believe he was talking about 106. When they've been someone else they've been asking. Ma'am, I was talking about an act for a couple of minutes. Excuse me. My mom was talking about 106. Okay, okay. We're going to finish your questions now. I can explain just generally. Section 106 is section of the National Historic Preservation Act that requires review if there's a federal undertaking involved in a project. So if there's federal funding or federal permitting is required for these lines. And to this point there is no federal funding. It's not a federal undertaking. And so section 106 does not apply to the project. Thank you. My other question is about the NAFRA. Can the city explain to me why this was brought up and why some people think this might stop the project? It's my understanding that the summer team in the position that there needs to be an agreement before we move forward. But again, NAFRA establishes a process by which there's the identification, preservation and repatriation of items that fall under, including remains. And so as we implement the ALMO plan, that act may be brought into play depending on what if anything is discovered in excavation or construction. But again, there's nothing in the plan itself per se or nothing in the lease that would preclude compliance with the act. Will there be more excavations made as the plan proceeds? I think under the ALMO plan there's some plan for excavation but exactly how much and where I don't think it's been fully defined. We're going to refer to applicant I think initially you all can figure out who the question should be addressed to. One issue that was raised by one of the downtown residents was this access and what kind of limited access there will be to these six plus acres in that area. Now, I don't know if there was some misapprehension as to exactly how much of that six acres would be closed. And so if you could please go over that for the benefit of the commissioners. Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity to talk a little bit about site management and how we've actually expanded ALMO the idea is right now because of the elements that are on site it is very difficult to define the mission footprint itself. And so the mission footprint is the element that we're talking about managed site during museum hours not the entire plaza. So the entire plaza is now being expanded from something that is really almost non-existent now because of the road the roads that come through there to something much more expansive that goes all the way down to Connord Street. So imagine all the street that's ALMO now being part of the plaza the area around the main road and so forth adding to that space all that space is open the mission the historic footprint is what we're talking about being managed and that is about how many acres but the mission footprint that we're talking about is at one point yeah 1.3 So as the overall site is growing to six acres the mission footprint itself is much smaller. So let's say that that area from La Solia towards the ALMO footprint and then down towards the Torch of Freedom Torch of Friendship Torch of Friendship that would be open to the public 24-7 not managed not managed that's correct By the way there is a section that through the actual footprint of the museum is going to be a north-south access a very wide north-south access for anybody who's traveling north-south through the site. And I think that brings me to sort of one of the second concerns raised by the public today which was this idea of charging for access so that north-south access would not be charged is that correct? Well that north-south access will not be charged and neither will access to the mission historic footprint everything that's free today will be free tomorrow there is no charge to get onto the historic mission footprint what we're simply asking is that as part of the orientation it is part of our vision and guiding principles that were set nearly four years ago four years ago it was asked to simply orient people before they arrived to the complex and that's what we're trying to do is give people some level of orientation before they walk onto the historic footprint of the mission south mail and so sticking with this access point I'm sorry I'm using the problem more than I'm sure of time but so we have the primary access point through that north-south interface to get up the access point and slide this point and then we have two other access points to the battlefield footprint that's right some ancillary points those ancillary points will be available to the public after museum hours are closed is that correct? well no so after museum hours the site is completely quartz the ancillary the additional two points access points to the site are for during museum hours and what we stipulated is that in the lease there's certain dates that we've indicated that we'd like those entrances to be open because we know that there's going to be lots of activity for example certain dates are in fiesta or a specific camera dates that the mayor or the city council would like to identify as part of activities that we know happen downtown for example like final four we want to make sure that those are accessible as well as the idea that the museum director has the ability to open those up if that person deems it necessary or appropriate to open them up it may be so for example overflow or maybe there's no activities going on on the site and it's just the time to go ahead and open it up and get people access so those additional access points for museum hours only that gives you up to three access points needed there's one formal entry point that we want most people to go through because we want to orient them before they get on site we need to be free after museum hours or before museum hours the site is completely closed with six opportunities all over the site to get on to the site I'd like now to leave all of that to the senator if possible I know that that obviously is perhaps one of the primary parts of the content as we move forward here one of the things that has been raised one of the issues that has been raised is this idea of the capability study on the movement of the senate if that were to occur can you address that? yes we intend to just like every other piece of this project move thoroughly and thoughtfully about how we would relocate the senate tap in fact to address current issues of the senate tap today is something that we want to obviously take care of because it's currently in a bad state when we relocated we would rebuild a new superstructure a modern superstructure I think it's been suggested potentially a stainless steel structure to do it on site the way it is is actually more difficult because you have to remove it from the site to rebuild the structure anyway and then put it back together so we will be using subject matter experts, engineers and be very careful about how we move forward on those visits it's often said that we're not necessarily concerned about the senate tap and we can tell you this is an important piece of the site this is about making space for all the history at the alloy and so we have the intention to relocate the senate tap and of course we've discussed this before with this group is that we're still fine tuning the specific location we sure see with that plan as well okay so that's of course please today's action is after a request however the office of historic preservation which is led by Shannon Miller her office must review the repair on the relocation plan prior to any commencement work any work beginning so I was going to get to that a little bit later but while we're here if we look at the agenda items for the hvrc portion there is under g on the agenda memo I'm sorry there might be a little difference here there's an additional sentence regarding exact positioning and final plaza design that we consider a future date and so is that one to come back to this commission or is that going to be dealt with administratively by the operation it'll come back to the question and I'll ask Shannon Miller to speak to that anything on city property we'll ultimately have to come back for final approval and that would include the final location of the senate tab so the actual plaza design would come back for final approval to the commission and so even though we're giving or we possibly may give more precise final approval for it's Madeline Repair and the assembly of the senate tab we'll discuss that later correct I think Shannon's not going to be here I'm almost done we're here for with respect to the Woolworth Crockett and Patterson which I've been raised repeatedly about the kind of conservation society I can only speak for myself as to how I feel about the importance of those things and the preservation of those things and while the hvrc does not deal with the lease one of the items in our agenda today is the conceptual approval of the treatment of the historic Mission Sanctuary and the Royal Plaza site and general design concepts would those buildings be considered part of that? No, the buildings are owned by the state of Texas and so we do the hvrc does not approve you although as part of the lease agreement the hvrc will have the opportunity to review and comment on what is proposed for the buildings and so is there any item on our agenda today which we could indicate or otherwise take some meaningful action as to the preservation or the desired preservation of those buildings? I mean so I want to point out that we did do a study that you all have in the information packet about the historic significance of the buildings and that has been provided to and will continue to be provided to whoever is selected for the museum design and the GLO is also working on a more depth study like a structural analysis of the buildings and all those things so they are definitely being considered heavily because of the historic significance of the buildings and to answer your question none of the actions that you will take today directly impact the buildings because they're not within our overview but I don't there's no reason why you as an hvrc couldn't just make a statement that you encourage the reuse of the buildings Thank you Right and I would like to make an observation about the condition of the senate that and some other items related to it I personally had no doubt that it's in desperate need of attention and reading through Copini's own memoirs he was furious about the state of Texas and the federal government which was funding it didn't pony up $3,000 to waterproof the interior of it so it's been leaking like a since it was erected and if you look at it very carefully there are many openings in it and they're in all the wrong places the leading capstone line which is a chamfered piece that you see on the south end of it above the allegorical figure you can see daylight through it we've had this last month all that's been cascading through the interior it's held up by an armature which is concrete but we don't know what condition it's in and concrete that is constantly wet as this has been for almost 80 years can have the danger of the rebar the reinforcement bars in it expanding and bursting so we don't know if it's doing its job holding up the interior this is an urgent investigation and there's really no way to do it from the outside we can X-ray it we can do LiR surveys over the surfaces on the outside and we can certainly detect if the blocks have been moving but we don't know what the inside is whether it moves or doesn't move it's going to have to be at least partially disassembled this is my professional opinion then there's another thing which is the discussion about whether it can be moved is where we used to go with it so I want to report that by the way everybody's talking about their ancestry tonight behind his Italian and so Copini is a figure that's very important to me and to other Italian-Americans in Texas because he's sort of our hero he's the first one of us who got some public credit for his work so I've been always very interested in all of his work in the Senate have so I have worked and been to visit the quarries and bronze boundaries in Italy where he would have worked as a young man and there is a tradition of the way the work is done which is that it's done at the quarries this was also the case with the Senate have it was not carved in Texas it was carved in Georgia and shipped here it was probably partially assembled there it was not erected but it was put on a train and shipped to Texas so it's already moved halfway across the country if they didn't break it with the very limited means they had in those days I'm confident that we will be able to responsibly disassemble and reconstruct it wherever it goes but let us remember that the stones that it's made out have traveled a very long distance to get here to us do you think that I've attended several briefings from staff over the last few weeks and it seems like every one of them would get some different comments, different answers to questions and it seems like this is a moving target for example the graphic I had in front of me about street closures shows just the streets in front of between that and the Chapel of Reds I believe one of the images that was shown earlier also included the sale of their album it's just one example also I'm very concerned about access up until this evening I understood that there would be three minimum of three points of access when the museum was open and I was talking about one point and maybe two others would reopen if the waiting time exceeds a certain length so that's another moving target as far as I'm concerned one thing that I'd like to bring up that is important to me but may not be to a lot of the other commissioners since I'm a landscape architect I'm concerned about the vegetation on the site specifically the trees not mentioned very much this evening was the lowering of the grade within the compound and that's going to have a major impact on existing trees I've heard that they will be dug up and moved and stored and then brought back I know that can happen because I've been involved in projects moving on the streets in the past mortality in that sort of operation can be very high also on lasoya the graphic that was shown did not conveniently did not show all the trees on lasoya which would definitely have to be removed in order to accomplish the two-way traffic on that street so those are issues that I'm concerned about at this point although we're looking at a conceptual approval I have great reluctance to lean in that direction I think there's way too many things that are still vague on this proposal to be even considered for conceptual approval Commissioner Christopher Garcia we've seen a lot of slides today into all these presentations can you show us the slide that has the burial grounds and the archeological sites and what I would like for some of them to do is kind of highlight I don't know if we have the laser pointer or not but things like the parade route and what streets are going to be closed and where the streets are right now so we can see how those interact with the archeological sites and the non-burial grounds is that a possibility you can get from them we don't have that particular slide in this deck oh there it is actually yeah I think we can use that one I think I know you're talking about there's another particular slide but we can I think we can use that one okay so I'm sorry let's we're talking about the parade routes because we have several streets that were being asked to close or modify there's a modification at the parade route and so I was wondering how those existing items how are they going to overlay them with the known archeological sites and the burial grounds well as you can see you see the red dots A, B and C up on Houston and in Alamo that kind of helps you to find the north wall there as you come down we know that that area in particular are some known burial grounds and proved to be part of the reasoning for how we explained to the battleflowers group about the parade being rerouted around the historic site so one of the things we try to do is to make sure that we're telling the many stories that exist there because that's the last bit that we can demonstrate is the north wall and the history of the north wall how that's you know Travis was stationed there during the last siege on the Alamo and passed away near that site so we'll be doing some interpretive site work on that particular piece and of course part of the reasoning is that the closure of the road itself the road, the street is literally right on top of the last bits of archeology that are on that north wall one of the questions I do have is regarding the use of the plaza for free speech that is something that was shown on the slide that's still below we've had several US presidents to give speeches to the public in front of the Alamo just wanted to know how that will be managed once it becomes more of a museum and it's all found in your stuff by nature we're designating a free speech zone that is just south of the historic Mission Footprints what we know is that again the Mission Footprints which is just a smaller portion of the overall Alamo plaza is a site that we're trying to make sure that we hold reverence so we will be designating a free speech zone that is in close proximity to the chapel and all the historic elements so we feel again we're providing a space that will help to acknowledge all the historic features of the site many of which we're revealing for the very first time okay and I know the Cicero Chavez March currently ends at the Alamo so is that getting reworked yeah and so it's much like the Battle of Flowers parade and I think that there's still a lot to do here in fact people have been asking me a lot about the next steps and how quickly we're going to get to these portions and I would say this is the beginning of a much longer process to start to really define some of these elements we've been talking about conceptually for example the Ceremonial Activity Zone and what that means for parades but also what it means for other elements like the Cicero Chavez March like the connection of the cenotaph and how it could potentially help to refine some of the locations of these new design elements that are located on a more hardscape site so what we know is the mission historic footprint we're going to be removing the hardscape features the road itself and now what you're talking about is very, very sensitive ground, archeological grounds south of that is where we're locating all these elements and we do anticipate continuing a lot of these traditions that we see there today and of course we expect to see many more new traditions have. I mean it sounds like some of the things that the Islands have brought up is kind of the history of the land transfer of the Alamos that's been through and any other deep restrictions but to make sure that all the plants comply with such items like making sure that it's open as a public space and stuff like that. We've looked at the deep restrictions there was a lot of comment on the deed from the Catholic Church. We did take a look at that. There is no revertor clause in that deed and we have looked at that. We have an opinion on that. We've looked at case law where you have similar deed limitations of other property that was deeded to a city and we have had cities that built zoos we've had cities that built libraries on spaces that have had similar limitations. So we're fully confident that in terms of that deed we're fully compliant with the Alamo claim. Thank you. My minutes question is more for the curiosity of engineering. Will the museum be built to the city of San Antonio codes and amendments or will it be built following the state of Texas codes and amendments? Again the building itself is known by the state of Texas and so they'll be following state guidelines. So far the plants we've seen today and throughout these presentations they look like from but those of us who refer to the schematic design pretty much and so as we get closer and the design gets fleshed down we get more to construction documents we'll leave you more opportunities to comment. Can we have the members of the public please and their whisper to each other? Thank you. So I guess what we're excited about with this museum design is that we've received over 35 responses to the RQ a lot of amazing talent from all over the world that's responded to this and we feel that we're here and we have an opportunity to select some of the greatest talent to take a look at this challenge that we have to help give us quite an amazing museum and really tackle this changing of the experience at the Alamo. The heart of this is the management committee which is made up of the city of San Antonio myself, Shoe Scully at the Alamo in Downey which is Jean Powell and Ramona Bass and the general land office which is Hector Vaillet and Brian Preston will be moving this along with the citizens of Israe committee we've committed that the plan will be moving forward and work with the citizens of Israe committee to help inform a lot of the elements of the plan the final approval will come to HDRC of course she will be informing THC on that. Okay, thank you. With the streets closed how is the entry going to be managed and has that been worked out yet have you heard about a limited of maybe three entry points or maybe six during the evening some sort of gates or walls has that been worked out yet or is that further design up? Yeah, there's still more design work to do what I can say is that we don't know what that formal entry looks like because it's part of the museum visitor center design which we hope to begin here very soon. What we know is that it's not going to be a simple doorway or a term style it's obviously what we want is to create a very dramatic sense of arrival to truly orient people it's, I'm using words straight out of the vision value principle our goal is to change that experience that is there today which is really an experience that is lacking a sense of place sense of orientation and so as we move forward with the plan we expect a very a sense of arrival that I think is what we call a formal entry point now the two access points are also there in addition when needed this is about changing the experience for those that are visiting the site and we expect more people to come to the site and so our goals in the design are to make sure that we're meeting what we expect to be an influx of visitors to the site both local and those that are visiting San Antonio so it's difficult to tell you exactly what it looks like but it's about getting people oriented on the site and we can say it's getting quite grand thank you I do have a couple of questions on the lease if the citizens decided that we don't like what the GLO is doing and they all pick up the phone and stop by our council people's offices and say we don't like something about it whatever it is how they're managing it and when the city doesn't like how they're managing it maybe you guys and the city managers say they're just managing whatever what are the potential remedies how does Iroh work out I'll let the city attorney handle that I think we wrote some of those predictions we've included in the lease a pretty robust dispute resolution process what I have found in terms of agreements like this which long term and you have pretty complex issues it's best to build in the dispute resolution process that identifies issues early on the management committee will do that and then there's an elevation process that if issues don't get resolved they get elevated ultimately though there's not agreement we can go to the courts we do have remedies for the city if the GLO is not complying with the lease terms those are depending on what the breach is of the lease the remedies are key to what the ultimate breach of the lease is going up to termination but I will tell you it's a high hurdle to get to termination we hope we never have to get there but it's there and the example I used earlier is for example if the GLO tries to build an amusement park I'm exaggerating obviously we have clearly the right to terminate the leases they're not complying with the elbow plan I noticed in the lease it sounds like the city asked for control or for certain days can that be amended as things can be decided there's other days of significance or there's a in fact we built that in as the flexibility as new days and in fact as based on data obviously we don't know a lot now until it's actually implemented and once we actually get data on entry in terms of timing and everything there's flexibility in there to adjust those thank you speaking of data one of my other questions I know we saw the traffic study in the video but I was wondering was there any studies on the peak pedestrian traffic in front of the animal over the last two and a half three years we've done multiple pedestrian studies direction of access peak hours of access and so we understand today clearly in the summer spring break it's a whole different story than it is maybe out there today so we have a complete picture of the pedestrians and where they're coming and it did inform the plan that you see in front of you okay that's pretty much the base of my question that's important to make sure that we do include the Native American industry that's in the animal and the civil rights issues that we heard today those are also important and you know it looks like everybody in the city cares deeply about the animal and we all have our members so some of the people here today obviously their ancestors and their family has shared blood in other words have more recent memories you know I myself have marched into the parade in front of there and I remember my niece and nephew came and we you know and went in front and took our picture so I can understand the emotional attachment we have to this historic site and I think that's part of the reason we need to treat it as such as historical as I wonder what it would be today if in the like 1800's early 1900's the entire site of the animals treated as it should be instead of sold off in pieces and live sometimes literally picked by brick so I wonder what it would be today that's it thank you Charlie you commissioning understand I appreciate again the passion that's behind what we're doing here today I'm going to just speak about my experiences my family and I enjoy the historical travel I can tell you you've been to Mount Vernon Fort Sumter in Charleston, Gettysburg Pearl Harbor, the National Mall and one of the experiences that we really enjoy is kind of the place setting, the place of arrival we don't have that experience at the Alamo and so when you arrive at it it's really this diminutive building in the middle of downtown and you don't have that sense I think the plan here twice to establish that sense of arrival I think it is very important for what the historical traveler the historical traveler and what I'd like to ask is kind of the you assume itself and we talked about the building but what about the artifacts that's in the building what are those being sports funds are those at risk to not assembling and being able to share the story of the Alamo if we don't proceed with some type of building to exhibit the exhibits can everybody speak to that staff well actually you're speaking to the heart of what the cooperative agreement was all about in 2014 the city began a process on its own to start the Alamo positive and this one mistake came in and asked a partner along with the Alamo and the Alamo and what we see is this is an opportunity to make this one place right now because of the way it is it is subdivided we have different elements of the project so the idea is to yes make sure that we are unifying everything it is part of the guiding principles to make sure that we are being thoughtful about all the elements so that we can begin to tell the story a story that will be institutionalized by a museum and protect the tangible artifacts but also help to recover a lot of the stories as was expressed we want to make sure that we are uncovering all those layers telling all the stories and telling a complete history at the Alamo your testimony today also about the source of funding from the state can you speak to the source of funding both private and public the security of those funds are available and also beyond funding for the maintenance of the Alamo the city of San Antonio has allocated about $38 million towards this project the state of Texas so far has allocated $106 million and the rest will come in $200 million plus from private donations and as you can see the city's investment is $38 million to what we think will be a half a billion dollar investment on the site with incalculable economic benefits to the area to the property itself and to your point about creating a sustainable model that allows us to capture the footprint and run a site that is going to be well funded and last for many years to come because we have taken a look at all the elements that can help capture some of those revenues and resources so that we can express that history thank you very much I am really excited about this I am from Mexico my accent from many other countries as well I am used to going around the world and I think one of the commissioners mentioned this is our chance to show the world the real Alamo you are all very emotional with the Alamo and I feel like that's what we need and how we are we are not giving it the respect it deserves we are going there to get Araspa and take a picture in front of it we are not going inside there is not much to see by building this museum and bringing the original artifacts from there actually making it a central entrance go see it and not only the church and the facade everything else that is around this plaza we are actually going to be able to show more the cemetery being there actually you all have more access saying that you have more close family to the cenotaph you have access to it 24-7 I think we all are on that section and also when I say nobody mentions the torture friendship you are getting with respect that it deserves yes it is very hard to go there and actually take a picture and that represents the mighty commission I would just like to reiterate to the city staff some of them have been here a very late they have been working all day long to the representatives for each of our visitors and to the public they have been here very focused and earnest and articulate in their concerns I just want to make a few comments I am actually a very enthusiastic supporter of the master plan I have some very great concerns about some aspects and unfortunately those are aspects that are sort of beyond our control I think somewhere by zombie or by the dynamics of the city and state law and Texas I understand that is a dynamic that is very delicate and that it has been a very challenging road over time one of my concerns I actually had to do more with the management of the site over time there is some discussion about that and I have read very carefully through the lease agreement and also through the package that was given to us and there are two precedents that were shown in the package one of which I visited but don't have a lot of knowledge about how it is managed the other one I know quite a bit about the management of public forward that is the independence mall and in that case and actually I understand in both cases neither one of those historic sites are managed in a way in which they were anticipated and so I think that we need to be very careful in how we proceed with the implementation of the lease and the plan because sometimes there is unforeseen events going on and it has been mentioned the Secretary of Interior's standards there was ID 4 that was mentioned earlier in the conservation site very well crafted letter but there is also concepts of reversibility that need to be taken into account if you do things that are irreversible what do you do going back to independence mall for a second it came out of the sea beautiful movement the sea started in the 1950s but really didn't get going until the mid 50s and that was a high water mark for urban renewal and in a very hard hand-handed hand-fisted way hundreds of millions were removed from the three blocks of the center of the most historic part of Philadelphia a very narrow interpretation of the site they left only one building other than Independence Hall and the flanking buildings and it was the Quaker's meeting house because it fell within the 18th century narrative of the site that they wanted to have constructed there now I mention that because then in the 2000s something called 9-11 came along and there was a very reactionary attempt to lock down the entire site to help protect it and that's what I got involved in we got to examine things like blast radiuses and backpack bombs and things like that that were pre-arounds to be imagined but also as they were constructing more in Orleans master plan they came across the footings of the slave quarters at the President's house and this happened to coincide with the entrance to the new visitor's center that was envisioned there so I mention these things because when we look at these sites that have complex histories sometimes complex things come up as we dig into them and we've got to be really careful that we're not doing things that are irreversible and so I'm very concerned and unfortunately I'm not so certain what kind of leverage we have on this but very concerned about our swath of buildings being treated in a much more like an urban renewal kind of way just cleared away and we lose an essential portion of the history the continuum of history of the site so I don't have a solution for that I hope maybe we can craft something in our in our motions here that might earnestly implore that the GLO listen to the professional experience of the THC staff and treat those buildings with the property they deserve Thank you My hand Yes, I'm going to share in Davidson the statement that if the state has the property, certain property then the state can charge people for what is now a free area and someone addressed that I'm sorry, can you repeat the question? Yes, sharing Davidson brought up the point that areas around the Palomar are now free and if the state takes ownership they have ownership of it they may decide to have events where people will be charged again they're not taking ownership of the site it's a lease agreement remains the owner of the site and regarding special events I think that that would be up to the museum itself if the state is holding special events on site that's something that they have heard me over but the site itself is always going to remain free I think the question specifically was on 603 and we clarified with the GLO it was drafted to try to address as the councilman said special events or occasional events where there may be parts of the plaza where it would be for a private event we've already talked to the GLO and we'll clarify that in the lease it wasn't intended to be one where there was a fee it was meant to address those situations where you might have a special event or occasion where you might charge a fee thank you could someone put a picture on the screen to show the area which is really under the control of the state and will be closed off during certain hours but the rest of the area will be open to the public I think I may repeat the question you're saying so after hours there's portions that will be closed off their own by the state of Texas can't hear you what of this area that we are considering tonight will always be open to the public the plaza itself will always remain open there the church which currently is shut down at night church and long barracks will be protected overnight and so will the museum now the plaza itself if you look over there you see there's a dotted line almost right up against the long barracks you see the dotted line jogs in a little bit from that little line that's the portion that will be closed off to protect the two existing artifacts everything else in the plaza will be open put something on the pointer up to that and albino please we don't have a laser pointer just use the mouse can you see the mouse you can walk on price well okay so with the pointer on that line are you saying that everything to the so called right is open to the public or not that will be closed that is owned by the state of texas that includes the gardens the long barracks and the church that is correct like it is today so after hours the gardens and long barracks and the church that area essentially is closed down from the public okay and everything to the so called left is open at all times to the public non-museum hours it's completely open during museum hours you have a formal entry but you do always have 24-7 access well as soon as you go into the museum then you can go anywhere on the left hand side that is correct for free you don't have to pay to get into the one entrance that would be open no you don't have to pay thank you junior most of my questions have actually been answered at this stage going through our purview of police agreement and the road closure so at this time I would like to just thank staff for everything they've done this fantastic presentation today and a ton of information actually took quite a while to review and read and understand thank you Gene for your traffic analysis and the moving pictures pretty awesome thank you everyone for coming tonight and speaking and what's in your opinion and your passion for being here my like I said most of my questions have been answered I do have a couple lingering ones one is the lease agreement finalized is that the final language as I said there's one modification we've already talked with GLO but it will be finalized before the council votes on it next week but I would say that what you have in front of you is pretty much the lease with some potential clarifications such as the one on the potential charging of a fee for occasional rents I think that's easy clarification it clearly says that they shall not charge and they shall not allow vendors lease or anything like that correct pretty clear to me and I think I miss part of this conversation but the GLO today currently operates the animal so as we move forward if this plan comes to fruition the way it is operated isn't going to be dramatically changed from the way it's being operated today that is correct what happens when the lease is over I mean it's 100 years from now but what happens oh it is at the end of the lease there is an option to purchase by the GLO it has to be at market price and it has to be approved by the city and if they do not exercise the option to purchase the land goes back to the city it's a lease so not only does the land go back anything that's on it goes back to the city in the process we'll work building the Crocker Building I know there's a lot of questions as to how that's all going to be how that's going to be how the museum will be put in there and those buildings will be re-purposed what is the process for that the outside is going to be left the same and the inside there's going to be some conversation on how to make them fit together because they're different floor plates and architecture and whatnot how is that moving forward the 35 talented respondents to the RFQ that's exactly what we're going to be working with them on what we hope we get is some opportunity to discuss what available technologies can provide some answers but this is about a creative process allowing the talented individuals to process in a thoughtful way we want to do everything we can to incorporate these buildings as part of the design but it's hard for us to give you an answer about how that design is going to be done we don't want to be prescriptive about it I guess the city and the geo-order have input as to what the consultants are coming up with it's going to be kind of a round table kind of discussions on how it all comes we're doing that right now it's going to be a process of short listing of 35 entrance to the RFQ and we'll be discussing that through the existing process the process that's got us here today which is the citizen advisory committee the management committee and the executive committee that have really been about bringing a lot of people together a diverse group of individuals to provide input insight about what we're doing with this entire project that continues we're moving forward together on that we think that this process has been an incredibly thoughtful process that has got us to this point we intend to continue that thank you very much that's all my questions we have a question from Commissioner Wolfe thank you everybody for hanging with us I feel like we're in the home stretch I wanted to say we're getting there but obviously we're all here important to all of us so thank you for hanging in there we've all had a lot of presentations and I think that thank you again for all of the input I think this is a very compassionate, very considerate, very collaborative plan I think we've considered the employers, the employees special interest groups tourists, local school groups residents community groups and all the stakeholders my perspective is about the access and I know we've talked about the street access and managed access the street access I drive 3-4 times a week and I'm always worried about hitting somebody I go very very slow there because people step off that curb it's right there I have no problem closing the street simply because I want it to be a revered space and I don't want us to drive over what should be an honored space on the other hand I take an educator lens because that is my background and understanding that telling a story is a scaffolding experience I do however like most of us I think are conflicted when we talk about barriers and I do oppose a barrier that limits any reasonable access but you have to start somewhere when you're talking about an educational experience again that's the lens that I'm using I want physical conditions that elevate the experience but I think one of the things that we've been briefed on a couple of times is what those barriers may or may not look like or could you explain to us a little bit about some of the considerations of those barriers that have been discussed to this point and that's my point of view Thank you for the question and so as a reminder in May of 2017 we were looking at the glass walls that had barriers and they were from 8 to 14 feet and now we've taken those glass walls down and we do have barriers but we're calling them from railings they have yet to be designed we think they'll be about 42 inches in height around a historic mission plaza and it could be a landscape barrier it could be a metal barrier those have yet to be designed and those will be things that the management committee will be working on throughout the next couple of months and that'll come back to the HRC and Commissioner and Commissioner Peck I did want to add that you're correct that the GLO they do own the church in the long barric and the garden but they contract with the Alamo Trust to manage the actual Alamo just the church in the long barric Thank you very much Mr. Commissioner my comments were and I appreciate the public's input and I appreciate the staff the City and all the commissions and I think it's an outstanding job I did approach this with a very skeptical eye I was concerned about why do I do anything at all and it is as my fellow commissioners have pointed out in all those who travel there's something lost in the experience of visiting the Alamo and I do agree with the comment that the senate has does tell the story because there's not any other place that does tell the story and the reason to move it I think is a very strong one in that it can be relocated and still be respectful and what I didn't like is one of the initial comments that the senate needed to be removed because it was out of scale and I thought that's very much akin to complaining that a flagpole is tall and pointy and for visitors that are there they have nothing other than to do then kind of hang out and walk over to the senate and it's beautiful and I really enjoy it it's one of the things I love about working downtown and I too travel Alamo street almost every day and I walk past there and I talk with people it's a beautiful space and so I think the initiative and the impulse of this is like a change to enhance an experience to tell the story that there is room for improvement here and as my planning Commissioner Kelleport said this development has been a hazard over the years so here's a chance to get it right and do it better and conceptually I was very much skeptical of the access I've been reassured and I've sat through several presentations and I've seen it develop and I've seen those presenting take input and revise and redirect and improve on what has been presented so far this idea that I was opposed to of a single entry point it seemed rather constricting it's a concept of access to an axis where you enter on a church where you enter a site where that is to make a place and to begin an experience and my view of the historic buildings if you walk in front of them you can see just about 8 feet in front of the facade where the walls of the Alamo used to be and my view is if it's too close there's no need to demolish the buildings can be relocated a lot of the buildings on Commerce Street were relocated in 1950s on the street wire the Alamo National Bank was moved 15 feet just with manpower we have much more better technology now so there's things that can be done and I think overall the concept of making this a better place to tell the story is all around well done and I appreciate the efforts Commissioner Brenson Thank you Commissioner everyone for asking these questions as far as what is going on there seems to be a lot of questions not answered we have a lot of questions here today and commenting on some of these things that we have interpretation seems very vague of what is actually being done so I do have a question as far as the transportation study is there also any real data done or anything that we can show community or what we have? Well as we move forward with the plan as you see today you have a concept plan and then when you go from concept you go to schematic and as you do that you take all those studies and put them together and then we come forward with the final plan you combine the pedestrian information with the traffic information the landscape design along the streets and those are the next steps that we will do in the plan and combine all of that information So as you are saying there is still not enough information to say give enough people what they need to know about locking off roads only making a pedestrian even though we are suggesting that and also changing the mobility around the outcome You were asking I thought specifically about pedestrians it is just like all of the plan because the design team hasn't selected the rail it hasn't selected the type of surface in the plaza the type of trees where the trees will go so the exact pedestrian plan the exact sidewalk plans those have not been worked out yet that's the next step in the plan Thank you As far as the lease Thank you that was all As far as the lease is concerned I would like I guess the clarification maybe not just for me but others the year lease I guess what was 25 Do you have a quote there as far as what it is specifically How long the lease is the term of the lease is 50 initial term of 50 years which can be extended for two additional 25 year periods Was there any mention of a third party that I heard earlier about the addition in there After the expiration After the expiration of any term GLO has an option to purchase at market price but again the city has to approve that and at the end of any if they don't extend the lease or at the end of the second term extended term then the lease terminates and the property goes back to the city Thank you Is there still a representative from the conservation society here Susan? Yes Yes As it says in your letter about the third paragraph down equally concerning are the lease terms Could you elaborate on that It says equally concerning on the lease terms which will require all admins to pass through a single entrance term That's Patty's We do have a concern with the single entry And why is that? I think it's managing people I think most of this was done to manage people and you have access I think if people were allowed to go in and you didn't have the one access there but they were allowed to go in then you could roam through the plaza like you can now You still would have the option to go to the museum but there's just the focus on the world class museum for the one entry And as it also says here extensive discussion and design regarding the mission period from 1836 How do you think that would be compromised or not enhanced? I'm sorry That's the last paragraph on your letter Sorry she spedied hers We've been discussing this for some time We really wanted just to be sure There's been so much focus all along about the mission period the battle and not coming forward The plaza has a long history and also the history that we talked about with the Woolworth building that we think is very important Those buildings are important I hate to point back on the buildings but they really are important and it is one of those things that once they're gone they're gone You can redo the streets you have to redo everything but not the building and so much of the buildings and the rest of the plaza has to do with the history So to us it's important not to stick plaque up there and say just what here are the lunch counters but to have the building and have things that represent the rest of the history around the plaza and not just the battle The battle is important but there is so much more in your case as far as what's important as well so that you're able to tell the entire story is important And are you in partnership still with the daughters? No I am a daughter but we are not in partnership and we do stand-along on our statements Alright I believe we have a question down to Gina Bortnaz Mr. Chairman I'd like to follow up on my previous comment I know that there's been a lot of thought and effort and energy put into this design and I appreciate everyone at all I would just like to see a little bit more detail before considering the constant for consensual approval I do have a question about the museum At the on-site meeting recently at the Castle of Trevino you mentioned the possibility of including the Hyatt Garage and I wonder if that's still a consideration Yeah, we're always looking for opportunities and that is something that's ongoing that's not solidified just yet so we hope to see that be a part of the project potentially but it's like any other piece of this project is as people learn more and more about the work that's happening at the Alamo we're seeing more and more workers come in and join us for this potential project I think the conclusion of that facility would take some of the pressure off the demolition of the historic buildings and also the sale down on potentially and I would say we've never stated that our goal in any way is to demolish those buildings whatsoever and incorporate them and it is part of our vision and guiding principles to tell all the stories at the Alamo My apologies to the planning commission and one of the commissioners often made a questioning and I do apologize for that I think we're all getting laid trying to see each other but please do continue and again my apologies Thank you Laura is also asking the questions as far as the community is concerned at Alamo Dixon can you come up please citizen representation of your wife and the daughters and moving them to the senate how is that important to you as far as where it is now to where it will be located what the idea is the senate has in terms of the original agreements between the United States the city designated where it was going to be and it in my viewpoint they made the right decision it is where it should be and I think it should be calculated Thank you very much I'm just in my opinion as well moving this in a time that is almost in my personal kind of life it's like moving the Washington Monument and how the police don't know yet it's not a big deal here in Alamo but it's also talking about moving trees and also walking things yes they are to the right we have a picture up above and it's closed as it is now I would just like a little bit more detail as far as pedestrian safety mobility things that say that's the next step that says if you've already approved something and have sold this lot it's already going forward with something that a lot of information is not being carried over from police to maybe public meetings and also obviously a lot of people in this room have questions thank you for your participation and everything that you all have done here and for sitting this long and doing this I would like to hear more from the community as far as people and all different ages and it's great to have these technical questions but also I'd like to know more technicalities and everything to the specific because there are a lot of loopholes that's kind of first in my actual contest I would just like to remind members of the planning commission that our purview is the street closure tender lease agreement and nothing else so when you're considering for your vote only take those two items into consideration we're not responsible for the senate to have for the other ages it's actually the first three bullets on the agenda and when you're already to make a motion you'll put the agenda back up there so you'll see it we have one more commission on this and comments from the ACRC great thanks everybody for your comments today everybody on both sides I feel like it's very passionate about moving this project in the right direction and the way it's best for the city we've heard a lot of discussion about detail and you know that are very important to move forward historically and as an architect I feel like the comments that have been made about where we are and this process is accurate I mean we are very much on the we're not even to the schematic design yet we're in that conceptual pre-schematic phase where we're trying to uncover all of the problems and we're trying to do our research to get the data where we can make that decision the best design possible I've seen the list of the selected designers that have put their hat in for this project and it's really impressive it's world class people who base their living off of being sensitive to these issues and making decisions that are best for the entire city so I think that says a lot to me about the way that this group is approaching this project and it gives me a little bit of comfort on the next steps and on the details that we can see in the future today we're basically giving them permission to move forward with design on some of these concepts and to kind of cover some of the detail and I think that that's really important the research that we've done regarding the restructuring of the senate staff you know again the parade routes capturing back some of this sacred space for our civilians and for the citizens of San Antonio I think it's critical capturing that place and making it a place you know again it's not captured it's not even not by the city it's becoming its own place again and I think that's really important so I thank you all for your comments it's made an impression on me to get to the next round of these discussions and to ask more questions and to be very sensitive to the things that you guys are wanting more information on and more data on so I just wanted to say thank you to the commissioners as well thank you thank you I want to thank everyone who's here to stay so long and committed to this I appreciate everyone's comments I especially want to thank staff and everyone that's been involved I'm sure it wasn't just a couple of years in the making I'm sure it was several years in the making and I appreciate everyone's input and all of the commissioners as well I have a question for I guess the city attorney with respect to the lease terms I assume a defined term of animal plan will be its intent is as amended correct I assume the animal plan consists of construction plans and designs that will come later on correct I mean it's based on the current animal plan but it does envision that that animal plan will evolve as the details are added on once we get into past concept and into the studies and design elements it does allow for that flexibility okay and I assume you all may have discussed this or at least documented this that neither I don't want to say neither the city but the GLO will claim any kind of sovereign immunity from any breaches or damages against the GLO no that's why it's structured as a lease that's a good question I'm not sure it is a lease Commissioner Garcia can we bring the slide up with the I guess the after hours access points I have a little question of Commissioner Cosh just was asking so the dash line represents what area would be closed out to the public after hours and I can totally understand I wanted to protect the animal and the long variants and we've already heard the story of the rock star doing things doing there but how close and how will we be able to still experience those buildings and are we going to still be able to enjoy the little photographs or is it a case where you don't have to be tipping tone over a privacy fence and that kind of thing? No in fact it's pretty much what you experienced today and so the idea is to make sure that the artifacts which are going to be undergoing a very significant amount of rehabilitation study next month that is a critical part of this plan currently the site the church and long variants are protected at night people can walk up take a picture and that will exist in this plan as well so that line basically represents essentially what is there today Okay because it looks like it's quite a bit of weight in the chapel and it's been a while since so that's why I'm kind of wondering It's right up against the long variants It's right up against the long variants but I'm just saying on the chapel portion the postcard version of the Alamo I notice there's quite a bit of distance There's a long piece that's there and we can I think we can demonstrate that you're pretty much right there right in front of the church but that as close as people can So I'm going to take the question Excuse me Can you today stand at night in front of the church or you have to go where the lawn I can't step on the lawn today but can you go past that point to the door Not at night You can't do that at night You have to stand with the lawn on your back and the church in the back and the distance of the door and the mess Thank you Walk up the door Now if you can Thank you One question on actions but it still seems to be hard for others I understand during museum hours we'll have that one access As I'm speaking out loud it does make sense again that you get the story and you go to the middle and go to the end and so we're directing and we're unlike again in Boston unlike the freedom fair we start anywhere and I'm kind of lost and I'm not getting a story like it probably should have but so I think that's our purpose and intent If we do get the numbers and the crowd and we do see people waiting is that not an easy fix in the future to add an additional access or two or three because we already do have additional access points after hours Yes, again it's also outlining the lease in terms of the goal of online is to not have any weight loss I mean that is not part of the plan and certainly not part of the successful direction of the museum So what we intend to do is create a formal entry that is robust that is going to address all those concerns that are going to be doing all the studies necessary working with the preeminent design team to help address those issues We have built in two additional access points we feel that those are definitely enough of course around the entire site I mean it's quite porous outside the museum First I'd like to thank everybody for being here I'll be real brief I'd like to specifically thank the staff for keeping the commissioners very well informed on this in the weeks prior and answering many of our questions ahead of this so a lot of what's happening here are reiterating the questions and I have one very specific question that hasn't come up and that has to do with the Paseo del Alamo and any structures that would be associated with the visitor center and the museum that would occur over the Paseo del Alamo that piece of property and would call them the first two of these here so you isn't correct Well it's a combination of both because we anticipate using the museum slash visitor center as a way to connect us down to the river level and so it is it's kind of a combination of two That would likely be an element that we would have a chance to comment on That is correct I would like, I mean this is like our co-commissioner this is the beginning of a very good decision I implore you all to involve your next generation you're all talking about who you descend from and I don't see any young person that are talking on you or like as the next generation which will be the generation that actually enjoys this so I don't want to make an instance I just wanted to tell you They got school They know where they come from They know the stories They don't know where they come from Okay No further questions from the Planning Commission I guess at this point in time I will close the public hearing from the Planning Commission portion of this meeting I said it earlier and I just want to reiterate that while I'm getting ready to ask for a motion on this item so while you're considering how you're going to vote please remember that you're only voting on the cat if you could put it up you're only voting on the closure the repurposing of the road and the lease agreement the rest of the stuff that we discussed today is not going to the Planning Commission to base your vote on that Some motion do I have to read off the reader Yes if you could Question 2 Approve the closing, vacating and abandoning sections of right away located on Alamo Street Alamo Plaza and Houston Street The restriction of right away located on Alamo Plaza Alamo Street, Blum Street Crockett Street and East Houston Street Pedestrian and emergency vehicle use only The execution of a master lease agreement with the Texas General Land Office for Property Located in the Historic Alamo Mission Bookprint and Property Required for the Development and Management of the proposed Alamo Museum Conceptual Approval of the Treatment That's all I will second the motion Okay, so we have a motion for approval by Commissioner Gonzalez We have a second by Commissioner Christopher Garcia Commissioner Cedarola Yes Commissioner Gonzalez Yes Commissioner Christopher Garcia Yes Commissioner Zuna Yes Commissioner Kostik I think we have is fine I still have concerns about the lease agreement and what concerns me the most is there's no assurance that those three commercial buildings will be preserved That's right So there's no discussion, we just need to know whether you abstain, yes or no I want you to put down why I'm abstaining, thank you Commissioner Brunson Chairwoman Brunson Close the HDRC portion and we will be seeking a motion Mr. Chairman I move to conceptually approve the treatment of the historic Mission San Antonio de Vallejo Plaza site and general design concepts to conceptually approve the treatment of public garadaway including Eastern Street to the East and the last historic Mission Bookprint and Crawford Street, Bloom Street and the last historic Mission Bookprint to conceptually approve the alterations to the percentage of Alamo and Maverick block areas to include the new street level connection to the Soya Street and alterations to the torture friendship area to include a new connection to the river wall and the final approval to dismantle, repair and reassemble the Santa Fe in Alamo Plaza at the approximate location of the existing landscape and the second commissioners will be a role called Commissioner Fish Commissioner Wolfe Commissioner Bustamante Commissioner Carpenter Commissioner Group Commissioner Bowman Commissioner Lafoun Commissioner Vargas Commissioner Borrino Borrino, I'm sorry, Borrino That's okay because my students from South Texas are going to be Borrino and I'm getting used to it So anyway, I am going to go Yes, Mr. Chairman prior to you all adjourned I would like to move for a resolution I would like to move for a resolution that it be resolved that as the river building blocks and palace theater are historically important and necessary to keep understanding of Alamo Plaza is the sense of the commission that these buildings should be preserved at Alamo Plaza in the design of the river motion in a second There's always a favor sitting by Mr. Chairman as opposed to saying so then motion passed Mr. Chairman, please refrain from talking there's still meeting going on Excuse me Committee members, the resolution which is put forth is not agenda it isn't something that you can make a motion for and actually pass You can I think you've made it very clear that you want that entry into the minutes and that can be captured that way Thank you Okay at this point is 9.43 and I am closing the planning commission portion of this meeting and I am closing the commission motion we are adjourned