Welcome to The Vistana: the first U-verse Centric Urban High Rise

Over the last four months, local commercial real estate developer, Ed Cross, and I have been having a series of breakfast meetings at our editorial offices at the Olmos Soda Fountain (formerly the Olmos Park Pharmacy.)

In between a whole lot of poached eggs, oatmeal, coffee and Betty, Ed started to share with me his vision taking a leading role in helping to make a positive difference in the urban residential landscape of San Antonio. His company, Cross & Company specializes in commercial real estate.  Calling Ed a real estate guy would be like calling Keith Richards some guy who just plays the guitar.

Ed is passionate about helping to transform San Antonio’s urban residential landscape.  It  wasn’t until one morning that we went for a drive through various parts of downtown and he started to show me some of the buildings and land that his company either owned, was in the process of acquiring, or was being managed that it became clear to me that Ed and I had a whole lot in common.

When we came to the square where Santa Rose Hospital is located, he told me about his plans for his latest initiative, The Vistana, which was unveiled today.

The Vistana will be a 14-floor, 530,000 square foot, art deco apartment building that will include 30,000 square feet of retail on the first floor, a four-floor parking garage with over 450 spaces, and 246 market rate rental apartments. 

Ed is bringing to downtown San Antonio its first high-rise, mixed use building that features retail, parking and rental homes- and the first building in the US to offer AT&T’s U-verse services.

The Vistana is located on the near west side of downtown at 100 North Santa Rosa Street, and will occupy a full city block bounded by Santa Rosa, Houston and Commerce streets, directly east of Milam Park.  The management team will begin accepting reservations for the apartments in late 2007, and is slated to open the building in late spring 2008. ( For more details, you may read the press release by clicking here: Download vistana_press_release_unveiling_060823_final.pdf  

 We’re both are of like minds that AT&T’s transition to offering bundled communications services such as U-verse could lend itself to helping to create new types of communities and perhaps new in-building broadcast services. 

Ed and I plan to noodle some more on what could be done having an IP-based communications network with Betty pouring the coffee. 

Future posts to come, so stay tuned.

And congratulations to Ed and his team!