Paul Basaldua, President & CEO, VersaTerra Development
Paul Basaldua, president and CEO of VersaTerra Development, spoke with Invest: about adapting land development and infrastructure strategies to support San Antonio’s rapid population growth. “As we see the growth trend toward a side of town that has long been neither appreciated nor invested in, private investment is arriving there, and we’re all in a hurry to get the public to support investment into infrastructure.”
How do you view the state of the San Antonio real estate market?
We will see 750,000 people moving to San Antonio by 2040, so we are positive about the long-term future of the housing industry. In the short term, interest rates remain high, and the economy is moving slowly. Sales have slowed in the past year, so those of us in the industry are gearing up for when it picks up. At VersaTerra, we have 6,000 lots in development. Lone Oak is a 1,000-lot project; the first 200 lots are currently being built. We are building a major lift station to service the area. We will see that area grow rapidly after those first 200 lots go down. We also own commercial lots at the corner of that intersection. Another project we have is called Condalia, a master plan community with between 4,000 and 5,000 single-family residential lots. We have 400 acres of mixed-use on the southern end that is geared toward industrial, with manufacturing and data center potential. We also have another 400-500 acres of mixed-use on the commercial side for retail, schools, and multifamily units. We received an entitlement from the city: a tax increment reinvestment zone. We are moving toward our master development plan being approved by the city, working with traffic engineering and services agreements. We hope to break ground on the first phase in June 2026.
What specific sectors do you expect to see the strongest growth in over the next few years?
Housing will still be strong. We have a housing supply challenge in San Antonio because we have so many people moving from out of state into our community. Geographically, the far west side and the I-90 west area have been strong in the last decade. We are starting to see a shift in demand to the South Side. The South Side used to make up 4% or less of new home sales in the MSA for San Antonio, which will soon shift to 21%-22% of the MSA later this year. With that opportunity comes the challenge for the community to build enough infrastructure to be prepared for that growth. As we see the growth trend toward a side of town that has long been neither appreciated nor invested in, private investment is arriving there, and we’re all in a hurry to get the public to support investment into infrastructure.
How are you involved in ensuring a mix of luxury and affordable housing segments?
We are donating 50 acres for multifamily development to the San Antonio Housing Trust. They will decide when they will move forward with developing a project there. They could also sell that land in the future for a larger sum of money and use the money for affordable housing in a different location. Our goal is to start in the $315,000 range and protect the beginning of that community with trees, landscaping, and amenities. We want to get the marketplace up and running. Once we build a nicer product there, by nature, we will have people in the multifamily side and market-rate, affordable side. We want to see a mixture of incomes in this neighborhood, and we do it by starting with higher market rate values and slowly building toward the affordable market rate homes.
Affordable housing at all levels, on both the subsidized and market rate side, is a challenge. Infrastructure is the gateway to solving that challenge. We need to continue communicating with our governmental entities to make sure they are aware of where the growth is going and how to invest in the infrastructure so that we can reduce the cost of housing.
How is the Condalia neighborhood helping attract employers to create economic development in the region?
Some of the major manufacturing employers on the South Side, such as Toyota, Navistar, and JCB, want their employees to work as close as possible to their jobs. Our locations at Condolia and Lone Oak are roughly 8-10 minute drives to those major employers. Proximity to employment is important. The data shows that if it takes longer than 45 minutes to get to your office via public transit, you only have access to less than 10% of the jobs in San Antonio. The more our community starts to dive into the manufacturing sector, the more important it will be to have housing nearby.
How is VersaTerra attracting and retaining top talent to manage and develop these new projects?
Most developers are light on HR. I rely on my civil construction group and civil engineers, and we outsource a lot of work to those groups. We ensure the right people are hired at civil engineering companies, environmental engineering companies, and banks. The most important workers are at the construction level. We need skilled laborers installing sewer pipes and water pipes. We need to keep those workers happy to get our project completed.
How are you leveraging technology to enhance your efficiency and transparency?
We have less use for technology. We have a few end users, most of whom are homebuilders. We find the right external consultants to help through the process of figuring out if a project works and is efficiently designed. Our interest is more in those companies having access to the latest technologies. We are focused on buying land and managing our civil engineers to design land plans and give us probable costs for those land plans. We take our financial analysis and run models to see if a project works and at what sale price for each lot.
What are your top priorities for the next two to three years?
Our priorities over the next three years are to get dry and wet utilities to our sites, to sell 300-400 lots, and to continue to build the value of our commercial and nonresidential holdings. The more rooftops we put in our neighborhoods, the more value all the other uses have.
