UTSA to buy GrayStreet Properties Amid Downtown Expansion

The University of Texas at San Antonio is poised to ramp up its downtown expansion, while GrayStreet Partners continues its selling spree.

UTSA wants to buy an assemblage of dilapidated buildings, totaling 68,500 square feet, and a parking lot with 125 spaces next to its $90 million School of Data Science and National Security Collaboration Center, the San Antonio Express-News reported.

While it’s unclear how much San Antonio-based GrayStreet expects to make in the sale, the university will not pay above fair market value. A sale is expected to be finalized in the coming months.

The 1.5-acre property, bounded by South Flores, Nueva and Dolorosa streets, is valued at $7.7 million by the countywide taxing agency, the Bexar Appraisal District. That’s about $5,133 per acre.

For UTSA, the acquisition would bolster its ongoing expansion plan, with expectations of housing 10,000 students across a 32-acre downtown campus by 2028.

“It makes sense as a real estate transaction, but it really helps us with our goals as we look at expanding our footprints around all three of our campuses downtown,” Corrina Green, UTSA’s associate vice president of real estate, construction and planning, told the outlet.

The university opened the 167,000-square-foot School of Data Science and National Security Collaboration Center, also known as San Pedro I, last year. UTSA is constructing the $131 million Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Careers building, also called San Pedro II, set to open in January 2026.

Looking ahead, UTSA plans to establish a college dedicated to fields like artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, computing and data science.

Although the newly acquired buildings are in poor condition, their local historic designation adds a layer of complexity. The university is evaluating whether the facades could be preserved and maintained, although the university isn’t subject to local jurisdictions, the outlet reported.

GrayStreet, meanwhile, has been working to offload some of its downtown portfolio. The firm sold La Villita Assembly Building — a 245,000-square-foot riverfront event venue previously owned by CPS Energy — to MLSA Ventures earlier this year. GrayStreet also just listed low-rise retail buildings at 100 and 108 Soledad Street.

It’s possible that the firm is trying to raise capital for its various large-scale projects in San Antonio, including the 15-acre BESA District and the redevelopment of San Antonio’s old Lone Star Brewery, a $600 million project that would transform the 32-acre site into a mixed-use hub.

—Quinn Donoghue