The work that began in 2015 to turn 40 acres of prime downtown San Antonio real estate — that had been essentially abandoned and left uninviting for over four decades — is not yet complete.
But the man who accepted the challenge in 2011 to make a former fairgrounds into a new kind of urban destination known as Hemisfair where both locals and visitors now flock is handing off the baton.
In February, the board of the Hemisfair Park Area Redevelopment Corporation, which oversees the park project, announced that Hemisfair CEO Andres Andujar plans to retire on April 1.
The board has appointed Hemisfair Director of Real Estate and Finance Melissa Robinson as interim CEO, and plans a nationwide search for a permanent leader starting in May, with a final selection expected in 2026.
Andujar’s retirement, said the statement from the board, marks “the culmination of an extraordinary career.”
With the second phase of the project opening fully in March, plans for a third phase in the works — and the city eyeing Hemisfair for a major sports and entertainment development — Andujar says he leaves fulfilled and gratified.
“I feel such pride,” he said.
But as work on Civic Park was nearing an end, Andujar felt the milestone was also a turning point in his career. He thought to himself: “This is maybe a good time,” to retire, he said.
While what’s next for Hemisfair could take another 10 to 20 years and be “very exciting,” the first phases have exceeded expectations, he said, “delivering such results, such acceptance, such community use and love.”
The sentiment is echoed by those who know him.
‘New and big is never easy’
Tech entrepreneur and Rackspace founder Dirk Elmendorf said he met Andujar in the early days of the project.
“I cared about downtown and I was told this was a project that could be important,” Elmendorf said of the days before Yanaguana Garden was built.
The grand vision for a park for both locals and tourists is what motivated him to get involved, he said, but it was a struggle to make progress.
“Doing something new and big is never easy,” he said. “But when I go to Hemisfair today and it is packed at all hours, I marvel at seeing so much of his dream has become reality. Without Andres and his commitment to the park and our city, it would still be a sign that downtown isn’t for us.”
Andujar began his working career 44 years ago after graduating from the University of Texas at Austin with an architectural engineering degree.
When he reflects on the final 14 years of his career, Andujar credits a culture of open-mindedness and adaptability that buffered the team and the project from swinging marketing conditions and other challenges.
“I think one of the virtues that I learned here that served us well is the concept of fluidity,” he said. “It’s never exactly what you think it’s going to be. That’s why I like to tell my team that one of our virtues needs to be fluidity. Things constantly are evolving and morphing into its final shape.”
What’s next for Hemisfair?
The mission — to create a great public park central to the city’s main tourism, commercial and historic residential districts — has unfolded over a period of time that Andujar said was not unexpected.
“What happens is that development depends on funding flow,” and public investments weaving their way through bond committees and public input sessions takes time, he said. “The city always is looking at how do we maximize the bond, and that means testing every project.”
All that public input gave park planning teams confidence in what people most desired at Hemisfair — water features and shade trees. “The wisdom of the crowd was a tool that we could use to find assurances or perceptions,” Andujar said.
A little luck combined with effort and know-how also came into play, he said.
“I think that serendipity is a powerful force, and sometimes it’s better than the planning,” he said. “[Also], it helped that I went to school and that I am an engineer, and that I can design. Those are all qualifications and they served me well in this effort.”
Now a new, larger and far more expensive — but also controversial — project for the Hemisfair footprint is on the drawing board. It is one that Andujar said he didn’t see coming.
“Although I like the idea,” he said of Project Marvel and plans to build a sports and entertainment district anchored in Hemisfair. “I think that big infrastructure is better served by being close to each other.”
Andujar draws a comparison to Hemisfair when he says he also thinks the massive undertaking to build a new arena, land bridge, hotel and more, is altogether doable.
“We were not just asking for investment from the city and the private sector, we were asking people to change their opinion about a place that had become abandoned and embarrassing,” he said.
What’s next for Andujar?
Andujar’s reason for exiting at age 67 is pragmatic: “I reached retirement age.”
He looks forward to traveling abroad more and already has a trip planned for April “to just decompress,” and set aside his cell phone and email for the first time in many years.
In retirement, he said it’s possible he could someday be found strolling through what’s planned for Hemisfair as an area where people his age specifically can enjoy the park.
The design is in its final stages and funding received from the Kronkosky Charitable Foundation, he said.
Parks instill a sense of pride in a community, and Hemisfair achieves that because the planners stayed true to a simple vision, he said.
“We were persistent in our clarity and in our vision, and at the end of the day, that is creating one of the world’s great public places,” he said. “Why would you spend money and time in trying to come up with a large superlative?”
