Tourist attractions to vacate Alamo Plaza buildings, making way for new museum and visitor center

Removing a major obstacle to the long-anticipated makeover of Alamo Plaza, an operator of tourist attractions has agreed to vacate two buildings on the west side of the plaza to make way for a $140 million Alamo museum and visitor center. Phillips Entertainment Inc., a San Antonio-based firm, leases space in the historic Woolworth and Palace buildings for three attractions: Tomb Rider 3D Adventure Ride & Arcade, the Guinness World Records Museum and Ripley’s Haunted Adventure. The company’s lease runs through 2027 and 2028 for different portions of the two buildings. That posed a problem for the redevelopment of the site because the 100,000-square-foot Alamo museum is scheduled to be completed in 2026.

On Wednesday, the Texas General Land Office announced that it had reached an agreement with Phillips to vacate the leased space by Oct. 31. The GLO acquired the two buildings and a third in the same block in 2015. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed The deal removes what had been a significant hurdle to development of the museum and visitor center. The project is the showpiece of a nearly $400 million public-private makeover of the Alamo mission and battle site. “We are pleased that we have been able to reach a mutual agreement with the General Land Office regarding the future of some of our Alamo Plaza businesses,” Phillips Entertainment said in a statement issued by its president and CEO, Davis Phillips. The company has leased space in the two buildings since 2002. The Land Office called the agreement “a landmark step towards the creation of the future Alamo museum and visitor center.”