SATX 360: March 2022

President POV

I catch myself often referring to the business community as a living entity. “This is how the business community feels,” or “how would that impact the business community”. In fact, I’ve caught myself often saying that our business community has gone All In on our region’s economic development. But what does that really mean? 

The term “business community,” conjures up images of a small inner circle, sitting high up in a tower and calling the shots. That’s just not who we are as a San Antonio community. We’re a majority-minority community and represent the new face of the state and the nation. Whether leading in the board room or building on the assembly line – we’re all one community. 

San Antonians love coming together. We come together to celebrate our culture during Fiesta and to cheer on our Spurs on game day. But most importantly, we always come together to overcome our toughest challenges. 

March marks two years since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. These last few years surfaced systemic inequities in our community. Just this month, San Antonio was simultaneously ranked as one of the top markets for tech worker growth and the large U.S. metro with the highest poverty rate. Low educational attainment, high poverty rates, and the digital divide are not new nor are they unique issues for San Antonio. But what sets us apart from the rest is how we’ve come together to fundamentally shift how we invest in our people and our place to drive greater prosperity for all San Antonians. Those investments include SA: Ready to Work, 2-year and 4-year free tuition programs, and SA Digital Connects – helping all San Antonians reach their fullest potential. Thus helping our region as a whole reach its greatest potential.

Our community is more than the businesses in it. We are one community of employees,  students, parents, and neighbors. And we all want to see our San Antonio region become an even greater place to live and to work. Together, as one community, we’re doing just that.

Recent Growth

The Greater San Antonio region is heating up. In the last month, we’ve announced 4 new companies that will create nearly 1000 new jobs across multiple industries. Read more about the plans TrendyMinds, Kroger, and Bakerly have for growth in SATX.

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TrendyMinds / Contour Ridge

TrendyMinds, a digital marketing firm based in Indianapolis, announced their regional office expansion into San Antonio, bringing hundreds of new tech and marketing jobs in the coming years.

San Antonio-based private equity firm Contour Ridge announced an eight-figure investment in TrendyMinds that is helping to accelerate the company’s focus on hiring top talent and  expanding its new regional offices. TrendyMinds‘ emphasis on technology, biosciences, and financial services industries aligns well with the San Antonio region’s core strengths.

greater:SATX team is proud to support TrendyMinds’ growth within the region.

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Kroger Fulfillment Center

Kroger is expanding in #SATX with a 67,000-square-foot fulfillment center will provide 160 new jobs in technology, operations, logistics and transportation, inventory and quality management, and customer service and engagement.

The fulfillment center will serve customers without brick-and-mortar stores in response to increasing trends for online grocery ordering. The delivery network relies on highly automated fulfillment centers. At the hub sites, more than 1,000 bots whizz around giant 3D grids, orchestrated by proprietary air-traffic control systems in the unlicensed spectrum. The grid, known as The Hive, contains totes with products and ready-to-deliver customer orders.

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Bakerly

Bakerly, a French-style bread and pastry manufacturer, is constructing a $35 million facility at Brooks on San Antonio’s South Side.

Regional Updates

Trends in San Antonio Development
By: Sarah Carabias Rush

San Antonio is one of the largest cities in the United States still ripe with opportunity, but our greatest strength is our people. In recent years, the region has made an unprecedented investment in developing our people and place to continue attracting jobs within our target growth industries. San Antonio should expect to be on the top of the list for commercial real estate developers. We are in the midst of a global transformation of many critical sectors — many of which align perfectly with the strengths of the San Antonio market.

Investor Spotlight

Vaco, a premier San Antonio-based staffing and recruiting firm is leading the industry as the pandemic has made major shifts in how we work. With an emphasis on technology and security, read the full article to learn how they adapt to changing workforce trends.

In the News

San Antonio’s tech sector sees job gains during pandemic – SA Report

Overlooked and underfunded: How 2-year HBCUs are building critical tech-talent pipelines despite the odds – SABJ

Commentary: UTSA growing, taking on challenges threatening society Express News

Stay up-to-date with news from the Greater SATX region by subscribing to greater:SATX News of the Day.

2021 Annual Report

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