Better Block event has businesses seeing dollar signs

David Cerqueira, with his wife, Bianca Cerqueira, stops to smell roses for sale held by Wendy Reyes, of Fresh Urban Flowers, during the Alamo Plaza Better Block event in San Antonio on Saturday, August 18, 2012. less David Cerqueira, with his wife, Bianca Cerqueira, stops to smell roses for sale held by Wendy Reyes, of Fresh Urban Flowers, during the Alamo Plaza Better Block event in San Antonio on Saturday, August 18, ... more Photo: Lisa Krantz, Express-News Photo: Lisa Krantz, Express-News Image 1 of / 84 Caption Close Better Block event has businesses seeing dollar signs 1 / 84 Back to Gallery

Last weekend's Alamo Plaza Better Block Project drove a surge in sales and foot traffic for businesses along Alamo Street, encouraging store owners to believe a makeover of the plaza could attract many more locals in the future.

Organized by the city and Dallas-based urban planning group Team Better Block, the event Friday and Saturday invited San Antonio residents and visitors to participate in a community revitalization effort to help officials decide how to spend $1 million that voters approved for the historic grounds in a May bond issue.

“I'm running the numbers right now, and they look good,” Davis Phillips, president of Phillips Entertainment, which operates Ripley's Haunted Adventure, said Monday. “Last year, school started today. This year, we have an extra week before school, which meant it would be a good weekend anyway.”

But “the plaza was obviously busier because of the event. I'm seeing (sales) increases of 30 to 40 percent.”

Thousands of people flocked to the sunny plaza to enjoy arts and crafts, live music, food trucks and alcohol vendors, a concept that consultants and retailers have suggested could happen on an occasional or weekly basis.

“I only come when I'm hosting friends or family,” said Natalie Spencer, a 30-year-old Boerne resident who chained her bike to a pole Friday.

“It's nice to see drummers and food and fun here though,” she said. “I can see myself finding an excuse to park and ride (my bike) to the plaza if the city keeps this up.”

That's exactly what organizers and storeowners hoped to hear: Residents rediscovering and spending their time — and money — alongside tourists on the plaza.

In July, consultants from Project for Public Spaces released a report detailing a number of issues residents and tourists encounter at the plaza, including a lack of good seating, shade, public restrooms and dining and retail options.

The consultants recommended several solutions, such as limiting the Alamo Plaza roadway to pedestrian and bicycle traffic between Houston and Crockett streets.

Team Better Block put their “lighter, quicker, cheaper” concepts into action last weekend, said Lori Houston, assistant director with the Center City Development Office.

“One of the biggest challenges we've had with the plaza is locals don't use it, though they could,” Houston said. “One of the goals of Team Better Block is to reintroduce the plaza to our locals and our tourists and make it a place where both can use it.

“By activating it, it will benefit the retail in the surrounding area and potentially (add) more neighborhood-type of retail,” such as restaurants and coffee shops, she said.

Her office and Team Better Block gathered feedback from participants to determine what they did right, what they could do better and whether the event has enough momentum to warrant any sequels. This fall, the interviews and surveys collected will help inform an update to a plaza development plan written in 1994.

Storeowners said they did not stray much from business as usual to prepare for the festivities and were treating the weekend as any other. However, after welcoming the mixed crowds of locals and the expected summer tourists, retailers saw dollar signs in the vision of a new plaza.

Though the opportunity for growth delighted retailers, the presence of even more commercialism on the hallowed ground rankled some Alamophiles.

While many simply wanted to stop new businesses from opening on the plaza, others wanted to go a step further and require all stores to relocate from the Alamo's original boundaries.

That is not an option for Phillips.

“Obviously the No. 1 reason people come here is the Alamo,” he said, “then they look for things to do and things to entertain their families and children.

“They vote with their pocketbooks every single day.... Visitors enjoy the Alamo and the attractions,” Phillips added. “You can have a blend of both history and entertainment. It's not mutually exclusive.”

nmorton@express-news.net