Lincoln Avenue Capital is seeking to buy 19.6 acres at Brooks to build an apartment complex and a housing community for older adults, with both projects including units for residents earning below the area median income.
Billy Calzada, San Antonio Express-News / Staff photographer
San Antonio Express-News
Madison Iszler, Staff Writer
The first affordable housing at Brooks could be coming to the site of the former Air Force base on the South Side that has been converted into a mix of apartments, hotels, manufacturing facilities, restaurants and stores.
Lincoln Avenue Capital is seeking to buy 19.6 acres along Research Plaza for $8.75 million from the Brooks Development Authority, which owns and manages the 1,308-acre campus.
The Santa Monica, Calif.-based company would partner with an arm of the nonprofit San Antonio Housing Trust to build an apartment complex with about 340 units and a housing community for older adults with about 240 units, said Connie Gonzalez, chief strategy officer at Brooks. Both projects are expected to include units for residents earning up to 30%, 60% and 70% of the area median income.
Expanding housing options at Brooks is a priority for the development authority.
“We exist to attract jobs, and in order for us to be able to attract jobs, employers are looking at where their employees are going to live and where their kiddos are going to go to school,” Gonzalez said.
There are 10 affordable housing properties within a 3-mile radius of Brooks, with occupancy averaging 96% or higher, “so we recognize that there is still a demand,” Gonzalez said.
More than 1,100 housing units have been built at Brooks, and another 1,200 units are in the works, including the first for-sale housing and built-to-rent, single-family homes at the campus.
Those figures do not include roughly the 580 units that Lincoln Avenue Capital wants to build. The development authority’s board recently authorized staff to negotiate and execute sales contracts with Lincoln Avenue Capital, and the transactions are expected to close in July 2024, Gonzalez said.
There are about 250 acres of undeveloped land at Brooks, which is exempt from property taxes as long as the development authority retains ownership of sites. The development authority wants to turn about 80 acres into single-family, for-sale homes and the remaining acreage into medical offices, retail and restaurants, Gonzalez said.