14 Dec Brooks City Base Unveils Re-Purposed AF Barracks
San Antonio (Bexar Co.) – Aviator at Brooks City Base, a new apartment complex, celebrated its grand opening Thursday Dec. 7 with a ceremony and “passport tour.”
Constructed in part from the re-purposed barracks of the former Brooks Air Force Base, the apartment homes range from studio to three-bedroom layouts and include contemporary amenities such as a recreation room with billiards and ping pong.
Following a ceremony hosted by singer and Fox San Antonio and WOAI-TV personality Erica Gonzaba, guests toured the unique, modern spaces while sampling food from different countries from Thailand to France, a nod to Brooks’ history as an international Air Force base.
Once slated for demolition, the old barracks for enlisted personnel and students received a new lease on life when Brooks’ leadership chose instead to make them a model for adaptive reuse. The apartment’s leasing office used to be the dining hall, while the pavilion located at the apartment once held meetings for the servicemen and women.
“Though Brooks is no longer a military base, that history is what makes us unique,” said Leo Gomez, President & CEO of Brooks. “As we grow into a thriving, mixed-use community, we are preserving pieces of that legacy while meeting today’s needs, turning these buildings into places where folks can once again live, work and play. We are immensely proud of the Aviator project and think it’s going to create a lively new community here at Brooks.”