The Pearl Is Expanding Again: Here’s What San Antonio Can Expect
The Pearl is entering its next phase: more retail, more walking, more reasons to stay beyond brunch and dinner.
The Pearl most San Antonians know today is already much bigger than the abandoned brewery Silver Ventures purchased 25 years ago. Soon, it will grow again.
Oxbow Development Group, the development arm of Pearl owner Silver Ventures, plans to add 10 retail buildings and roughly 85,000 square feet of shopping space along Avenue A. The project would replace two vacant buildings and part of a surface parking lot while also redesigning Pearl Parkway with more shade, seating, and pedestrian space.
And this retail project is only one piece of a larger transformation.
What’s Changing on Avenue A
If you’ve visited Pearl on a Saturday night or Sunday morning, the idea that it needs more foot traffic might sound strange. But the developers say the problem is what happens between those busy periods.
Oxbow Development Director Omar Gonzalez said the Pearl is currently about 70% food and beverage, making it easy to spend a few hours there for brunch, dinner, or drinks but leaving fewer reasons to stay during slower weekday afternoons.
The plan is to change that balance by creating a larger shopping district along Avenue A. Oxbow is working with Dallas‑based 3‑O Real Estate Partners to recruit a mix of local, regional, national, and potentially global brands. No new tenants have been announced yet, although Oxbow expects to reveal them around the time construction begins.
Pearl currently has 14 apparel, gift, home goods, and book stores, along with a spa. The new buildings could also include space for one additional restaurant.
Demolition and Historic Review
Making room for the shopping district means demolishing the former can‑recycling building at 300 E. Grayson St. and the old Pearl Brewery Garage Building at 250 E. Grayson St., near Stable Hall and 1100 Springs Plaza, plus extending development onto an existing surface parking lot on the east side of Avenue A.
The Garage Building is the more complicated of the two. Built in 1939, it’s a designated historic landmark, meaning Oxbow can’t simply tear it down.
San Antonio’s historic preservation rules require applicants seeking to demolish a landmark to demonstrate an unreasonable economic hardship associated with keeping it; Oxbow has argued that the building’s elevated floor, limited accessibility, street orientation, and narrow surrounding sidewalks have made redevelopment difficult, and that previous concepts for an entertainment venue and a brewery‑restaurant were abandoned because of construction costs.
The company plans to appear before the city’s Historic and Design Review Commission on October 7, 2026, to seek approval for the demolition. If demolition is approved, some pieces of the Garage Building would survive: Oxbow has proposed salvaging materials including its brick, windows, skylights, clay coping, iron downspouts, and stone date marker for reuse in the new development.
Street and Parking Changes
Pearl Parkway would also get a makeover.
The street, closed to through traffic since 2020, would be repaved and redesigned with shade trees, benches, and clearer areas separating pedestrians from delivery and emergency vehicles.
Some surface parking would disappear, but existing lots beneath the highway are expected to remain open. Visitors can also use the Oxbow Building garage at 1803 Broadway St.
Beyond Avenue A: The Wider Pearl Expansion
The Avenue A project is only one part of Oxbow’s continued development around Pearl.
Across the San Antonio River, the company has completed the 262-unit Coopers Row apartment complex and is building another 75 apartments nearby, along with Perlen House, a hotel expected to open in late spring or early summer 2027. Oxbow is also constructing a 323-unit apartment complex and parking garage at 1315 E. Elmira St.
Closer to Pearl, a planned project at 102 E. Josephine St. would add about 140,000 square feet of office space, 86 apartments, and 20,000 square feet of restaurant and retail space. Together, the developments are part of Oxbow’s effort to create a larger mixed-use urban district around Pearl.
When Will the New Pearl Expansion Open?
There are still several steps between the proposal and a shopping spree.
The historic Garage Building demolition needs city approval, and plans filed with the state remain preliminary. If the project moves forward as expected, construction is scheduled to begin in early 2027 and finish in 2028. The Express-News reports that state filings put the project’s estimated construction cost at $18 million.
Which retailers actually move in won’t be known until closer to groundbreaking.
What is clear is the direction Pearl is heading. The former brewery has spent years building its reputation around restaurants, markets, events, and nightlife. Its next phase puts considerably more emphasis on what happens between meals: shopping, walking, working, living, and finding enough reasons to stick around for the afternoon.
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