Preservationists mobilize support to save historic San Juan Hotel building

3 months ago 102

SAN JUAN, Texas – Simply calling their cause “Save the San Juan Hotel,” opponents of the planned demolition of the historic building gathered to discuss options and proposals to present to the San Juan City Council.

The San Juan Hotel, which was opened in 1920 and recognized as a landmark in 1985, recently made Preservation Texas’ 2024 Most Endangered Places List amid news of the city’s plans to tear down the building and construct a conference center in its place.

The co-organizers of the strategy session were Gabriel Ozuna, preservation chair for the Hidalgo County Historical Commission, and Stephanie Alvarez, associate professor of Mexican American studies at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. Both have made public pleas advocating for the hotel’s preservation. Ozuna, who has attended San Juan City Council meetings, wrote an open letter to San Juan Mayor Mario Garza, asking for the city to “mothball” the hotel to protect it from further deterioration until final decisions have been made. Alvarez, who has studied the history of the hotel, rallied community members on Facebook and created flyers and social media posts about the importance of the downtown landmark.

“The purpose of this meeting was to hear from members of the community, give them on update on what we’ve kind of been trying to organize, some of the initial efforts – what we knew, when we knew it – share that with everybody so that they’re kind of aware of where we are on this process,” said Ozuna. “But now, … this is in the community’s hands, and it’s really up to them.”

The city, which bought the hotel in November 2023, commissioned architecture firm ERO Architects to design the proposed conference center at a cost of $40,000. The firm had previously worked on San Juan City Hall, completed in 2021 to much acclaim. Brian Godinez, CEO and principal at ERO Architects, shared the draft with San Juan councilmembers at their Jan. 23 city council meeting. Plans were scheduled to move forward, until Ozuna attended a San Juan City Commission workshop and raised questions about the slated demolishment.

Ozuna then communicated with San Juan City Manager Benjamin Aronja and Godinez and made a public records request for any recent inspection reports of the hotel, which ERO Architects claims is unsalvageable. This has become a point of contention as Ozuna is skeptical of the firm’s assessment. The condition reports provided by the city say nothing of the building’s structural integrity, and Ozuna says an expert preservationist should be hired to do a thorough evaluation. It was also noted at the strategy meeting that the hotel was being used as a haunted house as recently as last Halloween, a month before it was purchased by the city.

Another area of dispute is the process by which the City of San Juan can demolish an established landmark. Ozuna points to the city’s own preservation ordinance from 2002, which creates a historic preservation commission and requires its approval for any proposed alteration, construction or renovation to a recognized historic property. As a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark, the city would also have to maintain a dialogue with the Texas Historical Commission and its designated local architectural reviewer even if demolishment is the ultimate resolution. Without these steps, Ozuna warned city leaders that if they planned to use federal funds or grants for the proposed conference center, they would be running up against the National Historic Preservation Act and be ineligible from a large funding source.

Former San Juan Mayor Arturo Guajardo, who was in office when the hotel received its landmark designation, attended the community meeting and expressed his concern after hearing the news of the planned demolishment. He wrote to Garza, asking him to reconsider tearing the building down, and read his response to the group.

“‘I have nothing to do with that,’” Guajardo read. “‘That comes from the [San Juan] EDC [Economic Development Corporation]. I do not sit on the EDC. Nothing is concrete. We will be good.’”

With his dual role as the executive director for the San Juan EDC and city manager for San Juan, the focused seemed to be placed on Arjona as the impetus for the project. However, Godinez also received some barbs, with Guajardo calling him “a businessman” who was “only interested in money.”

Still, the group reasoned that whatever they proposed as an alternative to the city council’s plans would have to be sustainable. Some expressed a desire to see it functioning as a regular hotel again, where many weddings were once held. Others liked the idea of updating parts of the hotel to serve as the desired conference center. But the majority seemed drawn to the idea of a civil rights museum, dedicated to the different movements that were founded in the area.

Alvarez explained that the hotel is one of the few remaining historical buildings in the Rio Grande Valley with great importance for the Hispanic community. The hotel’s Texas Historical Commission marker honors Tom Mayfield, a former Texas Ranger and the Pharr-San Juan-Alamo Deputy Constable from 1938 to 1963. Alvarez says her research has shown that the San Juan Hotel was one of the places in the Valley where violence against Mexican-Americans, like the La Matanza of 1915, was perpetrated by state agents like Mayfield. She hopes the hotel can be saved as a “site for reconciliation and consciousness.”

“The Valley has been subjected to a lot of painful history of colonization, and that colonization involved state-sanctioned violence against Mexicans and Mexican-Americans for many years,” said Alvarez. “… So, a civil rights museum would tell that painful history, but would also talk about and tell the history of how ordinary people in the Rio Grande Valley came together to change the Valley for the better, to end segregation. And those are stories that I think that we need to hear. Our children need to hear it. Citizens need to hear it because that’s how we know change is possible. And it’s also how we don’t repeat history. We need to be able to see ourselves in history to know that we also can be actors in history and make history happen.”

Since the meeting, Arjona has said that the San Juan Hotel will be placed on the city council agenda in the next two months. The city is still weighing the cost of preserving the building versus demolishing it.

For those interested in its preservation, Save the San Juan Hotel has started a petition on MoveOn.org and created a Facebook page to post updates.

Editor’s Note: San Juan City Manager Benjamin Aronja has also announced a Downtown Development Open House, to be held June 26, 2024, at the San Juan Memorial Library, from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. Here is a flyer the City of San Juan has produced for the event: