(Seguin) — The city continues to move forward with its plans to purchase the Wells Fargo Bank building. The building is located on a full city block in the heart of downtown Seguin. The property is bordered by Nolte, Austin, Washington and River streets, and it is located across the street from Central Park.
Staff recently provided the Seguin City Council with an update on the revitalization and redevelopment project. Seguin Economic Development Director Josh Schneuker says the city started looking at this in the summer of 2023, and agreed that this would be a good investment for the city. The city will purchase the building for $2.5 million and has hired an architect to come up with a study for best uses for that space. Those studies lay the foundation for what’s expected to eventually lead to a partnership with a private developer who will bring the city’s vision for the property to life. Potential uses, identified in the study, include hotel rooms, conference space, restaurant and bar space, and room for retail and residential spaces.
Additional parking would also be addressed as part of any redevelopment of that area.
The city has a contract for the $2.5 million purchase price, which was approved several months ago, but the deal won’t close until the city’s due dilligence work is completed. Schneuker says most that work is complete and they are ready to move forward.
“We’re currently in our due diligence period right now. Per the contract, we had a 90 day due diligence period. We are getting very close to the end of the original feasibility period. At this time, it does not look like we’re going to need to invoke an optional period to extend the contract for that additional 60 days, based on what we’ve uncovered in our due diligence here. Once the feasibility period expires, we’ll then move into the closing period, and that is a 30 day period. We’ll have to close essentially no later than the end of January. I believe the date is January 29. Upon closing, we will enter into a lease agreement with Wells Fargo to lease back the portion of the building that they’re utilizing. It’s about 8,400 square feet that they’ll continue to use. This will be a lease for a period of up to 12 months,” said Schneuker.
Andrew Douglas, of TBA/Douglas Architects, has been working with the city on this project. He says the city has the ability to do something special with this space, as was revealed in the initial study conducted by the firm. Douglas says they will now start the process of engaging the community on what it wants to see happen with that space.
“We’re really looking for some initial input from the (city’s) leadership and stakeholder groups. Then we’ll go out to the community. Really what we’re trying to do, through this public process — and I know you’ve done a lot of this with the downtown plan and other efforts — we’re really looking to set the stage for the document that we go out to advertise (bids) for the project. So, we’re going to check off all those important boxes to build consensus, with the with the community’s input, and then go out to the developer community showing that we’ve gone through this (process) and we’ve vetted this and we have a plan that aligns with the community goals, which is very, very important,” said Douglas.
The process used will be similar to recent efforts to engage the community during the development of the city’s downtown and comprehensive master plans. Seguin Main Street and CVB Director Kyle Kramm says they will again ask the, council appointed, Main Street Advisory Board to play a pivotal role in moving this process forward.
“We used the Main Street Advisory Board as our project committee for the Downtown Master Plan, which kicked off about two years ago. So, they are very familiar with what we’ve what the community has heard, and what the community has said. Staff would like to recommend that they continue to be our project committee as we move forward with the Wells Fargo (project). They represent a diverse group of the community, as well as different businesses, property owners, downtown (stakeholders), and also just concerned citizens. So, I think they’ve been listening to the community for already over two years and (this) just continues that consistency of having them involved,” said Kramm.
Douglas utlimately they want to come up with a plan that will spell out what the community wants in that new space, but he says they first have to begin the community engagement process. He says those meetings will begin soon, as they must work through a number of phases, before they are able to present anything to private developers, who might want to bid on the redevelopment project.
“Our first mettings is going to focus on the downtown plan for this, and it’s the project overview. So, we’ll update them on the overview of what this is all about and then we’ll get into core considerations, and we’ll look at things like downtown character (and) public right away. A lot of this stuff has already been covered in the downtown (master) plan, but we’ll get a little more micro and look at the historic considerations, special requirements, and other thoughts that people may have. We always have an Other-Thoughts-Board, just to see if we’re missing something. Meetting (number) two, we’ll look at preliminary studies, economic impact and design character. So, the studies you’ve seen, we will probably share at that meeting. We won’t do that at the initial, because the initial meeting is more general information and really getting input on these studies. They are studies. They’re not necessarily the plan for development, and we want to get people’s reaction to this,” said Douglas.
The public input process will be key to this project. Schneuker says in addition to the groups they mentioned, they will also be reaching out to others to make sure that the community reaches a consensus on the development of what’s expected to be a major attraction in downtown Seguin.
“I just want to also kind of highlight in those public input processes, we are going to lean also on the Downtown Business Alliance and other stakeholders within the downtown area. So, it’s going to be very important to solicit that input from the downtown stakeholders and other stakeholders within the Seguin community as well. We really want this to…have a lot of community input and really represent (what) the community wants to see in this redevelopment project,” said Schneuker.
This is a major undertaking, and Schneuker says it has taken a great deal of work by city staff and by the architects. He says there’s a lot more work that lies ahead, but they believe that this will be a great thing for the Seguin community.
“This is a pretty large project. This is going to be, I think, a catalytic project for the downtown area. So again, I want to thank the the TBA/Douglas Architects team…and then our city team,” said Schneuker. “It’s really been a team effort on this and we’re really excited to move into these next steps.”
The city council voted at its last meeting to allow City Manager Steve Parker to move forward with the closing of the project. Again, that’s expected to take place by the end of the month.