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City planners consider Alamo's past and $450 million future

With hopes to triple tourism within 10 years, history in conflict with modern expectations

By , San Antonio Express-News
This rendering of a $450 million plan to overhaul Alamo Plaza depicts an open space with fewer shade trees, glass walls to represent long-lost portions of the complex, fewer points of access and other changes. If approved, construction should be complete by 2024.
This rendering of a $450 million plan to overhaul Alamo Plaza depicts an open space with fewer shade trees, glass walls to represent long-lost portions of the complex, fewer points of access and other changes. If approved, construction should be complete by 2024.Courtesy/Texas General Land Office

The unveiling of a multimillion-dollar plan last week to alter the look and feel of Alamo Plaza has divided those wanting to return the plaza to its distant past as an enclosed courtyard in a battle site of international historic significance and others insisting it remain a traffic-laden urban square.

Still others who value the Alamo's patriotic legacy are dead-set against a proposal to move the 1930s Cenotaph, a tribute to Texian and Tejano defenders killed by a much larger Mexican force in 1836, to return open space to the plaza for historical interpretation and commemorative events.

Projects in the plan, crafted for the city, Texas General Land Office and nonprofit Alamo Endowment, are targeted to be complete by 2024 - the 300th anniversary of the site's founding as the third and final location of the mission. The $450 million plan includes up to $110 million to renovate three state-owned buildings on the plaza to serve as a modern museum.

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Officials are hopeful the plaza makeover and new amenities could triple the number of visitors to the Texas shrine, now estimated at about 1.6 million people annually, in the next 10 years.

The planning team estimates the project would add more than 2,000 jobs downtown, for a total of nearly 6,500 supported by visitation to the Alamo, one of five San Antonio missions collectively inscribed in 2015 as the first UNESCO World Heritage Site in Texas.

But to reach that success, the updated Alamo, while achieving historical accuracy, has to appeal to generations that followed those who grew up with movie or television images of John Wayne or Fess Parker playing the Alamo's most famed defender, frontiersman David Crockett, officials said.

Gene Powell, Alamo Endowment board member, said private fundraising can begin once a master plan has been approved, to match some $225 million in land and financing committed or proposed by the city and state.

"A lot of the children that will be going to this museum and to the compound are not even born today," Powell told the City Council. "Technology is going to change. Children are going to want things that are more exciting and more fun. They want to be able to see things."

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Decaying shrine

At the same time, the planning team has to address structural problems with the iconic 250-year-old Alamo church, which is afflicted with ground moisture, the effects of air conditioning and the weight of a concrete roof installed in the 1920s. It needs about $40 million in preservation work not included in this plan.

Radar and x-ray images have revealed the outer walls of the church, built by several stone masons over several decades, were poorly constructed, with stone and mortar on either side and loose rubble, rather that interior reinforcement, in the middle of the walls.

"We are literally witnessing a disintegration of the church right before our very eyes," George Skarmeas of Philadelphia, a nationally renowned heritage site consultant and lead Alamo master planner, told about 200 people at a public presentation and question-and-answer session last week.

Despite being heralded as the Shrine of Texas Liberty and the state's top visitor site, the Alamo long has been the subject of complaints that it's hard to find, small and unimpressive.

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The plan would remove nonhistoric walls around the state-owned Alamo Gardens, making them more publicly accessible, and add about 5.5 acres to the Alamo area, for a total of 12 acres, Powell said.

From 1724 to 1793, the burial of up to 1,000 or more mission inhabitants was documented in the area of what today is the Alamo. The mission was secularized and occupied in the 1800s by Spanish troops, then Mexican forces, before it was captured by Texian rebels in December 1835.

In an event depicted in books, movies, folk songs and even a stage musical, at least 189 Alamo defenders endured frequent bombardment during a 13-day siege, surrounded by a much larger Mexican force, while delegates gathered about 100 miles to the east and declared Texas an independent republic.

All of the defenders were killed in an early morning battle or executed afterward on March 6, 1836. About 300 to 500 Mexican soldiers were killed or wounded.

After news of the battle spread, the Texans won independence at San Jacinto on April 21, 1836. But Mexican forces destroyed much of the Alamo, rendering it useless as a fortress. As San Antonio grew, urban development engulfed the Alamo's two remaining buildings - the church and Long Barrack.

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Skirmish over glass walls

A city advisory panel studied the idea of an Alamo Plaza makeover in 1994, and abandoned reconstruction of the compound, yet recommended closure of the plaza to traffic. But only a short street between the Cenotaph and Alamo Long Barrack, known as Alamo Plaza East, was closed, in response to concerns from Native American groups about it being on a burial site.

Now, as leaders of the Alamo planning process meet in coming weeks with business, heritage and conservation groups and other stakeholders, consternation over the proposed vertical glass walls are sure to arise repeatedly.

Skarmeas has said the German-made glass, used in other outdoor sites, is scratch-proof, easy to clean and provides perspective on the dimensions of the Alamo walls and main gate without blocking views of the famous church that people associate with the battle.

The design team plans to have text and images etched into the glass to help tell the story of the Alamo.

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Filmmaker and historical interpreter Gary Foreman, a longtime advocate for reconstructing the 1836 Alamo's outer walls, chambers and cannon ramps, said he supports removing the Cenotaph and traffic from the plaza, but feels the walls could be made of the same materials as the church without creating a false sense of history - a frequent concern among preservationists today.

"This has been done throughout the world, and people want to be near the texture," Foreman said at the public meeting, comparing his Alamo vision to a 1930s reconstruction of Mission San José - now known as the "Queen of Missions" on the South Side.

Downtown resident Susan Green said she also was worried that the glass walls would be "a stark, modern looking contrast to the architecture in all of downtown."

Access point angst

Although the plan calls for closing the plaza at about 10:30 each night for security reasons and will direct visitors to enter through the southern main gate feature as part of a historically authentic experience, Skarmeas said he will recommend other points of access to the plaza from the River Walk and from Crockett and Houston streets.

Still, the idea of any kind of wall around the plaza does not please some San Antonians. Mark Kellman, who has a master's in architecture, said the plaza is not just a historic site but also an urban center - a place where people gathered, traded, bartered and ate food served on makeshift tables by local women known as "chili queens" in the late 1800s.

"It's no longer the center of everything when you restrict the entry," he said.

Laurence Seiterle, a downtown property manager and president of the Paseo del Rio Association, which represents River Walk interests, said he opposes the street closures, reduction of shade in the plaza and vertical barriers that keep people out - physically and mentally.

"Walls don't build communities," he said.

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