An expansive downtown redevelopment plan known as Project Marvel took a big step forward with city and county leaders last week, but new polling from UTSA’s Center for Public Opinion Research suggests voters are divided on their support for it.
The project involves building the San Antonio Spurs basketball team a new downtown arena, estimated to cost between $1.2 billion and $1.5 billion.
Additionally, Project Marvel calls for a number of other surrounding developments that would create an new downtown entertainment district, complete with a land bridge over Interstate 37, a renovated convention center, a new live entertainment venue and a new hotel.
Though the project will not be on the May 3 ballot, UTSA’s poll asked San Antonians who are likely to vote in that election their opinion on it.
Roughly 41% of respondents said leaders should move forward with the plan, while 36% said they should not. About 20% were undecided, while 3% had no opinion.
The survey interviewed 683 likely voters and has a +/- 3.8% margin of error. It was conducted from Feb. 17 to Feb. 20 — before several big public discussions about the project occurred last week.
Last week city and county officials voted to give their respective leaders’ authority to negotiate behind the scenes and see if a deal is even possible with the finite resources they’ve identified.
But that permission comes as some elected officials have already been raising concern about a lack of public input and engagement on an idea that will dominate San Antonio and Bexar County’s project bandwidth for years to come.
“We provided folks with a little bit of background about Project Marvel, what it would entail,” UTSA’s Center for Public Opinion Research Director Bryan Gervais told reporters on Tuesday. “We see overall… tepid support.”
Voters will ultimately have to give their approval for at least one, if not more, public funding sources to make the project happen.
The county’s venue tax is considered a critical piece of the funding model for the new Spurs arena.
At the same time, the City Council is considering asking voters to approve a bond on the same November ballot, to fund some components of an entertainment district such as roads, sidewalks, utilities and parking.
UTSA’s poll indicated that support for using public funding was a little less popular than support for the overall project, with 42% of San Antonio municipal election likely voters saying they would support using the county’s venue tax and 41% saying they would not.
That decision would go to voters during an election this November, according to the most recent plans, and would include all Bexar County voters, not just those who live in San Antonio.
But Gervais said the voter sentiment of this poll largely matched UTSA’s polling on the issue when put before a November electorate in September of last year.
At the time 41% of voters said they would not be in favor of a new Spurs arena moving to downtown San Antonio, citing concerns about the bill to taxpayers and potential traffic congestion. Another 36% said they were in favor, while almost 12% had no opinion and about 11% were not sure.
“Although the two samples here, by design, are very, very different… The levels of support were almost identical,” Gervais said.
Missions’ minor league baseball stadium
UTSA’s February poll also surveyed voters about plans for a new minor league baseball stadium for the San Antonio Missions in Northwest downtown.
The baseball stadium deal is much further along in its development than Project Marvel, and relies more heavily on private funding. The public funding component comes from a Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone that voters don’t have to approve.
The survey results were similar to Project Marvel, with 41% in support of the baseball stadium. A larger share of the respondents, 20%, said they weren’t familiar with the project, while 35% were opposed to it.
VIA Metropolitan Transit’s Green Line
UTSA’s survey also offered some of the first public polling on VIA Metropolitan Transit’s plans for a high-frequency bus route down San Pedro Avenue.
The so-called Green Line is expected to be the first of two Advanced Rapid Transit routes that use dedicated lanes to operate more like rail.
It was made possible by a voter-approved one-eighth-cent sales tax for transit that starts in 2026, which allowed VIA to secure 60% of the money needed for a $480 million project from the federal government.
The first steps include utility relocation, which will start in the summer of 2025. The Green Line is expected to open for operation in late 2027 or early 2028.
UTSA’s survey provided some background on the project’s funding and about nearby neighborhood leaders’ concerns. After reading that description, 50% of voters surveyed support the Green Line, while 25% opposed it.
VIA also has plans for a second ART route, running east-west, known as the Silver Line. Its funding source has yet to be locked down.
