Felix Padron

Creating Access: Defining Neighborhoods As Destinations

Posted by Felix Padron, Dec 09, 2011 0 comments


Felix Padron

Felix Padron

I am excited about San Antonio in that it feels like the conversations are finally leading to a collective common ground.

For the past ten years or so, San Antonio has had its share of independent strategic planning efforts related to art and culture, and their relationship with inner-city revitalization, economic development, and tourism. Most of these plans have had little return on investment, in part because of a lack of clear vision and dedicated resources.

Now, however, the mayor’s SA2020 initiative may help jump-start strategies that had never seen the light of day but are still relevant in today's cultural environment. SA2020 has also signaled a new political willingness to shift from a passive planning mode to a more proactive "Just Do It" mindset. This is a good set of circumstances to pave the way for real transformation.

More important, the arts have reached credible acceptance throughout the community. Together with its various art & culture partners, the Office of Cultural Affairs (OCA) maintains a productive working relationship with city departments and agencies such as the Convention Visitors Bureau, Economic Development, International Affairs, the county, the San Antonio River Authority, and the Metropolitan Transit System. This level of engagement has given cultural organizations and artists a place at the table as the city and affiliated agencies all move forward with new, tangible initiatives.

One initiative worth noting is the development of a series of cultural corridors throughout the city, with the goal of bringing more visibility, and public, to the cultural assets within these corridors.

Unlike many large cities, San Antonio does not have a centralized arts district defined by a cluster of big cultural organizations. Instead, the city’s core four-mile center is constituted by 27 historical districts, loosely anchored by spread-out cultural organizations and activities.

Three years ago OCA responded to a widespread community call for greater connectivity, devising a strategy to define these cultural corridors. The strategy contextualized the various destinations, developing a web-based tool to promote the diverse experiences beyond the Alamo and the Riverwalk.

The San Antonio Neighborhood Tours project was completed in 2009, highlighting the distinct characteristics of the potential corridors: The Museum/Broadway Corridor, the Mexican-American West Side, and the African-American Eastside.

The tour project has been successful at two levels.

First, it created a consolidated menu of cultural assets within each corridor that speak to cuisine, art, history, and architecture.

And second, more importantly, it helped discover inherent shortcomings, and pinpointed the required investments for continued development and success.

The apparent deficiencies had an organic catalytic effect, prompting the formation of corridor-specific work groups anchored by cultural organizations. It also sparked the development of the cultural corridor guiding principles, and a wish list of key infrastructure projects that responded to the needs of each specific corridor. These needs are now being evaluated for the upcoming 2012 bond issue.

Of course, public art will play an integral role, providing identity and connectivity for the destinations. And the first phase of a new downtown streetcar line that will connect the Center City, Broadway, and the Eastside corridor, is slated for completion in 2017.

Equally exciting is that these tours have given OCA the opportunity to expand the cultural vocabulary of these destinations by engaging local filmmakers. Since 2010, the neighborhood film competition project has yielded 78 professional and student short films that portray these destinations with a fresh perspective.

An offshoot of the neighborhood film competitions is a social media marketing campaign being devised by OCA and the CVB, featuring artists and other creative individuals from San Antonio. Take a sneak peek.

There are a number of other initiatives slated to receive significant funding coming from the 2012 bond issue that could further enhance cultural access and awareness. But for now I am banking on more focused strategies that include consistent levels of funding, and have the transformational potential to create a more dynamic San Antonio.

I am optimistic.

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