San Antonio Black history museum looks toward new home in Kress-Grant building

A rendering shows the SAAACAM Cultural Center at the Kress-Grant building off of Houston Street in downtown San Antonio. Credit: Courtesy / Overland Partners

by Nicholas Frank

If all goes according to plan, the San Antonio African American Community Archive and Museum (SAAACAM) will have a new home in the historic Kress-Grant building downtown by mid-2026.

A former five-and-dime store in the basement was one of seven downtown lunch counters to be peacefully desegregated in 1960, giving the building a prominent place in the Black history of San Antonio.

On Juneteenth, with SAAACAM halfway to its $20 million fundraising goal to purchase the building, the Overland Partners architectural and design firm released renderings of a grand multi-story museum and events space tentatively named the SAAACAM Cultural Center.

The design is the result of a multi-step process that included a January visioning session with members of the SAAACAM community, said Overland Partners project manager and design leader Gregory Street.

“They have a really wide net of people who care deeply about the organization and the sustainability of the group, and wanted to be in [on] the process,” he said.

Street said Overland’s mission statement and guiding principles were informed by the Ghanian concept of sankofa, which he defined as remembering the past to progress into the future — appropriate for an institution that aims to tell the complete story of San Antonio’s Black history and present.

SAAACAM’s archives keep growing, said Executive Director Deborah Omowale Jarmon.

“Every day, we’re getting more and more information from the community about our history, and cataloging it and determining how to make it accessible,” Jarmon said.

The new cultural center would occupy the upper stories of both the Kress and Grant buildings, which are separate on the first and mezzanine levels but are connected on the upper floors. The Grant building would function as the center’s entrance, with a visually dramatic two-story entry hall featuring a café and gift shop.

A rendering shows the entry hall design at the SAAACAM Cultural Center. Credit: Courtesy / Overland Partners

An auditorium in the lower level would host performances, and the upper levels would contain 40,000 square feet of exhibition space, a lecture hall, an archivist’s office, a research library, an event space, and an elegant rooftop terrace atop the Grant building.

Perhaps unique to similar cultural centers, the upper floor of the historic Kress building would feature a 12- to 14-room boutique hotel, intended to help generate revenue to support SAAACAM’s overhead and programming, along with rental income from the first-floor occupant of the Kress building, currently the Texas de Brazil steakhouse.

With sustainability a key issue for many nonprofit cultural organizations, the inclusion of dedicated revenue in the design plan offers the opportunity for freedom from dependency on corporate sponsorships, philanthropy and grants, Jarmon said.

The fundraising goal is $20 million to acquire the building and $40 million to complete renovations, she said. While $10 million toward acquisition has already been raised from the City of San Antonio and Bexar County, a setback occurred when a bill authored by State Rep. Barbara Gervin-Hawkins (D-San Antonio) intended to contribute the remainder of the total was not passed by the Texas Legislature.

A slim possibility remains that the bill could be reconsidered in a special session, or it could be introduced in the next regular session in 2025, Jarmon said. Meanwhile, fundraising efforts continue, with several interested partners.

“The wonderful thing is community partners are embracing the project,” she said, citing support from the Kronkosky Foundation, Area Foundation, Bank of America and Valero.

A rendering shows the design of an exhibition space at the SAAACAM Cultural Center. Credit: Courtesy / Overland Partners

The SAAACAM Cultural Center is the latest iteration of a long-planned civil rights museum in the Kress building, first envisioned by former Trinity University professor Carey Latimore, who died in 2022.

Jarmon said she hopes to include Latimore’s vision in the new cultural center in some way, possibly in naming the research library after him.

SAAACAM’s first location was on West Cherry Street on the East Side. The organization then relocated to its current home in La Villita in 2021, offering exhibits based on oral histories gleaned from San Antonio residents, alongside other salient issues of the Black community.

A touring pop-up exhibit on the gospel legacy of San Antonio is on display at Antioch Missionary Baptist Church through June 28, and the annual Juneteenth pop-up at Ikea Live Oak is on view through the end of the month.

Read the original article on the San Antonio Report.

… [Trackback]

[…] Find More on that Topic: overlandpartners.com/san-antonio-black-history-museum-looks-toward-new-home-in-kress-grant-building/ […]

[…] There you can find 50366 more Information to that Topic: overlandpartners.com/san-antonio-black-history-museum-looks-toward-new-home-in-kress-grant-building/ […]

[…] Find More here on that Topic: overlandpartners.com/san-antonio-black-history-museum-looks-toward-new-home-in-kress-grant-building/ […]

[…] Read More on that Topic: overlandpartners.com/san-antonio-black-history-museum-looks-toward-new-home-in-kress-grant-building/ […]

soft music

relaxing bossa nova

[…] Info to that Topic: overlandpartners.com/san-antonio-black-history-museum-looks-toward-new-home-in-kress-grant-building/ […]

[…] Information to that Topic: overlandpartners.com/san-antonio-black-history-museum-looks-toward-new-home-in-kress-grant-building/ […]

[…] Find More Information here on that Topic: overlandpartners.com/san-antonio-black-history-museum-looks-toward-new-home-in-kress-grant-building/ […]

[…] Find More on to that Topic: overlandpartners.com/san-antonio-black-history-museum-looks-toward-new-home-in-kress-grant-building/ […]

[…] Information on that Topic: overlandpartners.com/san-antonio-black-history-museum-looks-toward-new-home-in-kress-grant-building/ […]

[…] Info on that Topic: overlandpartners.com/san-antonio-black-history-museum-looks-toward-new-home-in-kress-grant-building/ […]

[…] Read More Info here to that Topic: overlandpartners.com/san-antonio-black-history-museum-looks-toward-new-home-in-kress-grant-building/ […]

[…] There you will find 11151 more Info to that Topic: overlandpartners.com/san-antonio-black-history-museum-looks-toward-new-home-in-kress-grant-building/ […]

[…] Find More to that Topic: overlandpartners.com/san-antonio-black-history-museum-looks-toward-new-home-in-kress-grant-building/ […]

[…] Here you can find 47745 more Information to that Topic: overlandpartners.com/san-antonio-black-history-museum-looks-toward-new-home-in-kress-grant-building/ […]

[…] Here you will find 84758 additional Info on that Topic: overlandpartners.com/san-antonio-black-history-museum-looks-toward-new-home-in-kress-grant-building/ […]

[…] Read More here on that Topic: overlandpartners.com/san-antonio-black-history-museum-looks-toward-new-home-in-kress-grant-building/ […]

23 responses to “San Antonio Black history museum looks toward new home in Kress-Grant building”