The Big Picture
(Important News)
Madeline Anz Slay on cover of SA Women Magazine
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NRP Group plans to build Balcones Lofts, a mixed-use project featuring 84 lofts along Hillcrest Drive
"To sustain and prosper, the city has to use every square foot to its best and highest use," said Lorenzo Nastasi, the city's community initiatives director.
See Story HERE
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I-TEAM Evaluating the red-light cameras in Balcones Heights - KENS 5, Joe Conger interviews Balcones Heights Director of Community Initiatives, Lorenzo Nastasi.
“If you don’t run the red light, there’s nothing to fear from a red-light camera,” said Lorenzo Nastasi, Balcones Heights’ Director of Community Initiatives.
See Story HERE
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On April 11, 2013, News4-WOAI (NBC) broadcast a significant story about Balcones Heights City Council
adopting a new ordinance strongly regulating credit access operations (payday/title loan companies).
Click Here to Learn more...
On Thursday, January 14, 2010, Balcones Heights Director of Visitor Initiatives,
Lorenzo Nastasi, spoke on behalf of Mayor Suzanne de Leone at the renaming ceremony for Wonderland of the Americas Mall, formerly Crossroads Mall. The following is an excerpt of his remarks:
Welcome to the ‘burg’ known as Balcones!
The City of Balcones Heights congratulates Stanley Rosenberg, his team, and everyone associated with Wonderland of the Americas on this very exciting undertaking.
Today is particularly momentous for all of us in Balcones Heights. Balcones Heights is different from many of its sister cities in San Antonio in that it is 80 per cent commercial property, 20 per cent residential. This is the reverse of many other suburbs, and this property, Wonderland of the Americas, is the biggest jewel
in that shining tiara of commercial property.
Balcones heights, including this magnificent property, sits at the new nexus of the entire region, loop 410 and i-10, with the most efficient freeway access in all directions of any comparable highway exchange.
Balcones Heights and Wonderland of the Amercias sits mid-way on a corridor that was selected as the pilot corridor program for VIA’s Primo Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system. Why? Look at the bookends: UTSA campuses at each end, downtown
at one end, the South Texas Medical Center at the other. In addition to the medical center, major employment centers such as USAA, Valero Energy, and scores of other commercial enterprises straddle the corridor.
Neighborhoods such the Deco District, Jefferson- Woodlawn Lake-Monticello, and Oak Hills, bracket the corridor. As a matter of fact, Balcones Heights last year spearheaded
the creation of a pro-active coalition of these very neighbors to the south and to the north to create the Coalition for Fredericksburg Road Economic development:: C-FRED.
The plans for Wonderland of the Americas will help take the C-FRED initiative to exciting new heights, helping the entire corridor reach its fullest potential as this new decade advances. .That is a very good thing. Good for Balcones Heights, good for our coalition partners, and good for Wonderland of the Americas.
Balcones Heights is a City of many distinctions:
- St. Gregory the Great Catholic church and School
- San Antonio’s only Dave & Buster’s
- Methodist TexSan Heart Hospital
- The Bijou Cinema Café, a first for San Antonio
- San antonio’s oldest Indian restaurant, simi’s India Cuisine
- THE ANNUAL BALCONES HEIGHTS JAZZ FESTIVAL – this summer celebrating 19 years as one of south texas’ premier JAZZ events… right here at wonderland of the amercias
- Norris Conference Centers
It is interesting to note that Balcones Heights is home to,
not one, but two of the top ten meeting facilities in San Antonio:
Norris Conference centers here in the mall, and Dave & Buster’s, right next door to the mall. And now adding to these distinctions, Balcones Heights is home to the new, dynamic, and very exciting Wonderland of the Americas, a distinction Balcones Heights is proud to own.
The future is indeed exciting. This past summer Balcones Heights adopted a sweeping master plan to transform this once sleepy suburb of San Antonio, into a sustainable, prosperous urban center, an urban center we recently coined San Antonio Ccentral – the new Balcones Heights. What Mr. Rosenberg and his team plan for Wonderland of
the Americas will be a quantum step forward in creating this new urban center - San Antonio Central - with Wonderland of the Americas at its very core.
MySA.com article
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