Project Marvel Heads to Another Public Vote: Council Puts a $442 Million Bond Package Before Voters in May 2027
City Council voted unanimously Thursday to send a $442 million bond package to the May 2027 ballot, including $35 million for Hemisfair infrastructure tied to Project Marvel — after the mayor's bid to move that $35 million elsewhere failed 6-4.
San Antonio voters will get another chance to weigh in on Project Marvel next year. City Council on Thursday unanimously agreed to put a $442 million bond package before voters that includes downtown infrastructure upgrades tied to the multibillion-dollar sports and entertainment complex planned at Hemisfair, according to the San Antonio Current's report of the session, read in full this cycle.
Voters will decide the package — described in the reporting as the city's smallest bond in more than two decades — in May 2027. The proposition includes $35 million for infrastructure improvements at Hemisfair that city staff deem necessary for Project Marvel to move forward. Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones proposed an amendment Thursday to reallocate that $35 million toward other improvements, saying the city could identify other funding sources for the Project Marvel work; her amendment failed on a 6-4 vote. By keeping the package at $442 million, the reporting says, San Antonio taxpayers will be spared another near-term property tax rate increase, which would have been necessary if the bond had exceeded that sum.
The vote comes in a week when significant aspects of Project Marvel were scaled back, no date has been set for arena construction to begin, and negotiations between the city and Spurs Sports & Entertainment continue. Whether those developments have changed voters' attitudes toward the project remains to be seen, the Current notes. This story is the bond decision itself; the separate $850 million convention center expansion proposal in the same downtown plan was filed earlier today as SQ-20261030-044 and is held staged there for a real venue photo.
