Booming growth: Alamo Ranch’s many changes the last 17 years – mySA

In 2020 alone, a wave of subdivisions behind Alamo Ranch Marketplace and beyond led to population growth rates of 325% and 298%. Nowadays, we know Alamo Ranch as the place where you can find Target, Chick-fil-A, Mama Margie's, and one of Santikos' biggest movie theaters, Casa Blanca.

This is the Culebra Road as we know it today.

Head down Alamo Ranch Parkway, you can find new retail centers popping up outside growing subdivisions, including a fairly new H-E-B.

The area looked quite different 17 years ago. Save for a Jim's Restaurant on the corner of Culebra and 1604, most knew that driving past that would only lead you to Taft High School, the Cordi Marian Sisters, and miles of country leading you right to the shores of Medina Lake.

On the left, is a Google satellite image from 1989, and on the right is Alamo Ranch in 2020.

MySA dug through the archives to look at some of the key moments that brought Alamo Ranch to where it is today.

Press play below to see a time lapse of Alamo Ranch's growth.

Cordi Marian Sisters sold off about 160 acres of their land to area developers. New homes can be seen encroaching on their complex behind the statue of Jesus.

If anyone saw the boom of housing coming, it was the Cordi Marian Sisters, who sold about 160 acres for $2 million to Alamo Ranch developers Walt Busby and Brad Galo of Galo Properties around 2005.

New homes in the Alamo Ranch area were merely slabs in 2006.

Michigan-based Pulte Homes started with 1,600 acres for the Alamo Ranch subdivision near Loop 1604 and Potranco Road, not far from the Del Webb Hill Country Retreat, an upscale retirement community, according to Express-News archives.

New roadways had to be created as developers started on some of the first subdivisions being built around Hill Country Retreat.

At the time, Dale Kane of San Antonio-based First American Realty told the Express-News that builders planned 5,000 homes per year to reach 70,000 homes by 2016.

Construction crews were just getting started on Alamo Ranch Marketplace in 2006.

In 2007, developer Archon Group had just laid out plans for the Alamo Ranch Marketplace 900,000 square feet of retail development on 120 acres off Loop 1604 and Culebra Road.

In 2006, Alamo Ranch Marketplace was all dirt. Construction crews were just getting started.

Construction crews started turning dirt in September 2007 with plans to open the first phase of stores in 2008.

Alamo Ranch Marketplace was just a a few shell buildings in 2007.

Alamo Ranch Marketplace first opened in 2008.

Alamo Ranch Marketplace opened its first stores, including Ross and Target, in 2008.

A few hundred people wait in line outside the July 4th, 2013 opening of the area's first Steak 'n Shake. The first 150 people in line receive free food for a year.

Steak n' Shake opened its first location in San Antonio at Alamo Ranch. People lined up outside the building to be one of the first 150 people in the store, earning free food for a year. The burger shop hasn't been doing as well as once hoped.

This would kick off the opening of other restaurants like Dunkin' Donuts, Raising Cane's Chicken, and In n' Out.

TxDOT began construction on the Loop 1604 to State Highway 151 flyover in 2015.

More homes mean more traffic. TxDOT began construction on the Highway 151 at Loop 1604 flyover. The flyover turns into Alamo Ranch Parkway, leading people working in San Antonio back to their Alamo Ranch homes. It opened in 2017.

Santikos Casa Blanca Theater off Alamo Ranch Parkway off 1604 opened in 2016.

Santikos opened the Casa Blanca movie theater in 2016 featuring 16 all-laser projection screens and 16 bowling lanes with a full-service bar and kitchen.

H-E-B opened a new store in San Antonio at Alamo Ranch in 2017.

H-E-B already had a store at Culebra and 1604, but in 2017 it opened a store on Alamo Ranch Parkway. Now the area past this store is one of the fastest growing in Bexar County.

Cars navigate the intersection of Culebra Road and Westwood Loop in the Far West Side beyond Loop 1604, where traffic is a constant complaint. Three census tracts in the area had Bexar Countys fastest population increases from 2010 to 2020 one of them grew 468 percent.

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Booming growth: Alamo Ranch's many changes the last 17 years - mySA