Vision & Goals

In 2040, Midtown will reflect the diversity of San Antonio’s people and families. Historic neighborhoods, rooted communities, iconic waterways and parks, and places of culture and learning will continue to characterize the area.

 

Unique destinations will each include an abundance of places to live, work, learn and enjoy, yet each will have a distinct character, featuring—and growing from—local culture and landscape.

 

Midtown’s neighborhoods will continue to convey historic character, and will have affordable homes and apartments for a diverse population. People of all ages and circumstances will be able to choose, stay, and call Midtown home.

 

Midtown’s multiple-purpose streets, trails, and public places will offer comfortable and convenient choices for walking, biking and transit riding, and make it easy to get exercise, socialize, and experience nature in a healthy environment.

Goal 1: Preserve Midtown’s Distinct Character

  • Preserve Midtown’s essential character-defining elements: the diversity of people and the unique character of individual places and neighborhoods.
  • Maintain buildings with exemplary historic character.
  • Highlight the history and heritage of the area and share stories through urban design, public art, and cultural events.
  • Continue to nurture Midtown’s identity as a welcoming place for diverse families.

Goal 2: Connect Neighborhoods and Destinations

  • Improve sidewalks and trails to safely connect regional destinations, neighborhoods, transit, employment, shopping, schools, and green spaces.
  • Improve connections across busy roads like San Pedro Avenue and highways like I-10, and make walking comfortable and enjoyable with lighting, trees, and slower traffic.
  • Make biking safe and enjoyable for people of all biking comfort levels.

Goal 3: Support Great Transit

  • Capitalize on Midtown’s central location, potential for comfortable walking, and concentration of housing, jobs, and destinations.
  • Build high capacity transit service and provide regular service improvements within Midtown and to destinations such as Downtown, Medical Center, UTSA, and Brooks.

Goal 4: Support Unique, Mixed Activity Areas

  • Foster an appropriate mix, density, and orientation of land uses in each part of Midtown to maintain the character of unique places, such as the North St. Mary’s Street music culture.
  • Accommodate growth while preserving distinct characteristics of each part of Midtown and providing thoughtful transitions between uses.
  • Support unique district cultures in Midtown, such as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Plus cultures  on Main Street.

Goal 5: Broaden Housing Choices

  • Offer a range of housing types and price-points to meet the diverse needs of residents such as, seniors, students, families, and others.
  • Conserve existing affordable housing and the existing diverse mix of housing types, and expand affordable housing options.
  • Rehabilitate or redevelop housing that is in poor condition.
  • Focus most new housing development closer to multimodal transportation corridors.

Goal 6: Improve Pedestrian- and Transit-Oriented Retail and Services

  • Building on the unique character and strengths in each retail corridor, support more diverse options, including small-scale markets, affordable healthy food, entertainment, and other amenities for Midtown’s diverse residents and visitors.
  • Encourage building maintenance and renovations to beautify commercial corridors and create walkable, active street areas next to buildings.

Goal 7: Stimulate a Thriving Economy

  • Create more employment opportunities to continue attracting a diverse residential population.
  • Leverage existing robust employment anchors such as University of Incarnate Word, San Antonio College, and Methodist Hospital.
  • Continue to improve Midtown’s great assets and public spaces, such as the Broadway Cultural Corridor, to attract more employers.
  • Cultivate target markets related to arts, culture, entertainment, technology, and wellness.

Goal 8: Improve Outdoor and Nature Experiences

  • Integrate nature and green space throughout Midtown, using creek-side trails (e.g., along San Pedro Springs Creek), Latin American-inspired plazas with vegetation, park-like streets, or other innovative spaces that include nature.
  • Sustain large canopy trees and mature landscaping as defining features of Midtown’s neighborhoods.

Goal 9: Promote Health and Sustainability

  • Improve access to affordable, healthy foods.
  • Encourage concentrations of places to live, work, and play.
  • Design streets and public places to make being outdoors delightful.
  • Achieve multiple community goals with green infrastructure: use large trees, landscaping, and stream restoration to clean stormwater, reduce flooding, make great public spaces, improve walkability, reduce urban heat, and leave a great legacy downstream.

Goal 10: Pursue Transformative Projects

  • Elevate Midtown’s aesthetic appeal, stimulate economic growth, and meet local needs by transforming vacant properties and older buildings through reuse, redevelopment, or new development.

Goal 11: Grow Unique Destinations

  • Fortify Midtown destinations with complementary housing, education, employment, entertainment and transportation choices.
  • Reinforce the Broadway Cultural Corridor, historic parks, San Antonio River, and San Pedro Springs Creek as places familiar to all San Antonians and welcoming to the world.
  • Support other thriving retail, entertainment, and cultural destinations that already have a community and successful identify, such as the Pearl District, St. Mary’s Street, and Main Street.
  • Support other corridors (such as Fredericksburg Road, San Pedro Avenue and McCullough Avenue) in building on their best qualities.

What is a Vision Statement?

A vision statement describes the desired state of a place in the future. With community support, an effective vision can influence decisions and inspire action to move toward that idealized future. Goals further describe the outcomes that will support the realization of the vision. These, in turn, are supported by more specific recommendations and strategies that will implement the bigger-picture vision and goals. These strategies will involve specific proposed projects, programs, policies, and other means of achieving the community vision.

The Midtown Regional Center Vision and Goals were developed with input from residents and community stakeholders through an iterative process of developing and refining these concepts. During preliminary community engagement efforts, community members articulated important values and identified Midtown’s assets, challenges, and opportunities. This community input became the basis for Midtown’s Vision and Goals, which were refined with feedback from the Planning Team and participants at a second Community Meeting.

Come find out How Your Voice Matters!