HemisFair Field
The State of Texas Pavilion was a brutalist concrete structure built for HemisFair ’68. It was later rechristened the Institute of Texan Cultures, a museum celebrating the diverse cultures that defined the state’s history. As the decades passed, the city’s nearby convention center grew under the shadow of the Tower of the Americas, the most visible relic from the fair. In 2009 the HemisFair Park Area Redevelopment Corporation was created and began planning and implementing a series of improvements to the former fairgrounds. Then, in April of this year, it was announced that the museum would be closing and that the building would be demolished.
Although official details are scant, the generally accepted rumor is that a new arena for the San Antonio Spurs will be built near where the Institute now sits. In many ways this makes sense: the site sits just across the interstate from the Alamodome, a stadium built by the city in 1993 in hopes of attracting an NFL franchise. That effort failed and although the facility also served as the home of the San Antonio Spurs, the 64,000-seat capacity of its interior was too large for basketball and the Spurs moved into their current home (now known as the Frost Bank Center) less than a decade later. There is certainly logic to creating a dedicated sports district near all the other tourist attractions of downtown San Antonio (indeed, the Spurs spent their first two decades in an arena in HemisFair) but it is unfortunate that the old State of Texas Pavilion must be sacrificed in order to make such a district possible.
I’m personally not convinced that it does.
Even if the rational for using public funds to rebuild new sports facilities every few decades should be debated, there is ample space within the 96 acres of the former fairgrounds. But an indoor arena is essentially an opaque box: once the basketball game begins, no real connection exists between it and the outside world. In other words, a downtown basketball arena does not enhance the experience of the game itself.
The same can’t be said of a downtown baseball field.
Some of the most beloved classic ballparks - think Wrigley in Chicago or Fenway in Boston - are wedged into tight city blocks. Even newer facilities turn such constraints into memorable conditions. At Oracle Field, for example, home runs belted over the right field fence splash into San Francisco Bay. PNC Park offers fans breathtaking views across the Allegheny River to the Pittsburg skyline while closer to home, Whataburger Field overlooks the Corpus Christi Harbor Bridge.
A new home for the San Antonio Missions could similarly overlook the Tower of the Americas and the rest of the city’s downtown skyline. To achieve this view, the infield would need to be located where the Institute of Texan Cultures now stands, but that structure could be incorporated into the stadium itself.
A portion of the pavilion’s distinctive angled concrete walls could be preserved and adapted to house the luxury skyboxes required of new ballpark design. Similarly, its roof could be modified to provide shade for the infield seating.
A pedestrian bridge over Interstate 37 could allow the ballpark to make use of the existing parking lots of the Alamodome. This would allow the land within HemisFair currently dedicated to parking to become restaurants, sports bars, or other complimentary development.
I’m certainly not the first to propose a downtown baseball stadium for San Antonio nor will I be the last. Given the economic and political complexity of such developments, plans are often developed in secret for years before they are made public. Indeed, the fate of the State of Texas Pavilion may have been sealed for some time, but that doesn’t mean we can’t imagine how it could live on as something more.
