Battle over San Antonio's Project Marvel heats up with dueling rallies over the weekend

Four-time NBA champion Manu Ginobili speaks in favor of a new downtown basketball arena during a pro-Project Marvel rally held by the Spurs on Saturday. Credit: Michael Karlis

Need another sign the battle over Project Marvel is reaching fever pitch? Spurs Sports & Entertainment and watchdog group COPS/Metro held dueling rallies over the weekend to build support for their causes.

SS&E held its rally Saturday in partnership with the San Antonio Stock Show and Rodeo. The objective: to encourage residents to vote in favor of propositions A and B in November, both of which would pave the way for Project Marvel, a $4 billion downtown sports-and-entertainment complex that will include a new Spurs arena.

“The potential is huge,” four-time NBA Champion Manu Ginobili told the crowd of 750-plus attendees at Idle Beer Hall & Brewery. “But, as you all know, greatness doesn’t just come alive. It depends on you and the choices that we make together. Now is the time to stay together, get together and shape the future of this city.”

Prop A will ask voters whether they’re willing to let Bexar County raise its visitor tax to 2% and use $200 million from the revenue to pay for upgrades at Freeman Coliseum and Frost Bank Center to help the area become a year-round draw akin to the Fort Worth Stockyards.

Meanwhile, Prop B — the more controversial of the ballot measures — will ask voters to raise the city’s visitor tax to help pay for a new the new downtown arena that would replace Frost Bank Center as the Spurs’ home.

Longtime San Antonio political consultant Andrew Solano organized the pro-Project Marvel event, which was attended by District 7 Councilwoman Marina Alderete Gavito, District 10 Councilman Marc Whyte and former Mayor Ron Nirenberg.

An attendee shows off a sign at the Spurs’ pro-Project Marvel rally on Saturday. Credit: Michael Karlis

Spurs General Manager RC Buford and SS&E Chairman Peter J. Holt also made the rounds, taking photos and answering questions from fans.

Meanwhile, community watchdog group COPS/Metro held its own rally Sunday at a Southeast San Antonio church. That gathering drew nearly 500 people, organizers said.

COPS/Metro’s rally featured a guest lecture from UTSA public policy professor emeritus Heywood Sanders, who discussed a recent column of his published in the San Antonio Current. Professor Geoffrey Propheter from the University of Colorado at Denver showed a video presentation that deflated some of the claims Project Marvel’s backers have made about the development being an economic game changer for the city.

Nearly 500 people attended COPS/Metro’s anti-Project Marvel rally on Sunday, organizers said. Credit: Michael Karlis

“The Spurs are not any different from any other business, in that they’re competing for the same consumer dollar, and that implies redistribution of economic activity rather than growing economic activity,” Propheter said.

Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones, who’s joined COPS/Metro in calling for a second economic impact study on Project Marvel, did’t attend either groups’s rally. Her office declined to say why.

COPS/Metro’s gathering was less sexy than the prior day’s SS&E rally, which featured an open bar and photo ops with the team’s five Larry O’Brien trophies. Just the same, Sunday’s turnout made it clear the watchdog organization isn’t going to let an arena vote happen without significant, well-organized opposition.

So far, COPS/Metro has racked up “several thousand signatures” for a petition calling on the public to reject Prop B. Even so, the group voted during Sunday’s meeting to remain neutral on Prop A’s renovation projects.

Father Dennis Schafer gives a speech during COPS/Metro’s opposition event on Sunday. Credit: Michael Karlis

COPS/Metro organizers called on those in attendance to collect 20 signatures each by Sept. 15. Organizers plans to continue that strategy until election day, Nov. 4.

“It is our birthright to change our reality for our families to fight the pharaohs of today — no more golden calves,” Father Dennis Schafer told the crowd to loud applause. “The owners of the [Spurs] are worth $143 billion. We are being asked to give away our resources so that others can enrich themselves. They can pay, and they can build their potent capital. Empty promises and flashy publicity campaigns will not seduce us.”

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Battle over San Antonio’s Project Marvel heats up with dueling rallies over the weekend

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