A ‘Pink Elephant’ Cisneros Can’t Forget : Cabinet: The failed San Antonio urban renewal project provides the HUD nominee with his own lesson in what not to do on a national level.

The broken windows of the great pink building are boarded up and most of the copper wiring has been stripped out by vandals.

Weeds are pushing up through the broken asphalt of the parking lot, and written on one wall is a now-fading word once meant to express hope for the failed project and impoverished neighborhood behind it: “Ole.”

This is the centerpiece of San Antonio’s Vista Verde South project, a once-ambitious commercial and public housing venture initiated by former Mayor Henry G. Cisneros. The building, dubbed the “pink elephant,” is the bulk of what the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has to show for its $18.8-million investment in Cisneros’ dream of rejuvenating the city’s poorest area.

Cisneros was nominated Thursday to serve as President-elect Bill Clinton’s HUD secretary. The Vista Verde project may serve as an object lesson in what Cisneros must avoid if he is confirmed by the Senate.

Cisneros, perhaps the most charismatic politician in this city’s history, leaves behind him a legacy of almost single-handedly transforming a somnolent San Antonio into a business center and a major tourist destination while mayor from 1981 to 1989.

But in doing so, he also set himself up for a certain amount of criticism within the community for overreaching, not paying attention to details and turning a deaf ear to those who differed with his vision.

“Henry has a tendency, when he sees something that he thinks is a good idea, to filter out negative information, to not be cautious, to roll over anybody who doesn’t want to do it,” said Rick Casey, a highly regarded columnist for the soon-to-be-defunct San Antonio Light.

As HUD secretary, Cisneros could find himself at the center of Clinton’s domestic agenda. In previous administrations, the appointment of a HUD secretary caused hardly a ripple. But given Clinton’s pledge to focus on domestic issues, coupled with the attention the Los Angeles riots brought to the nation’s lack of a coherent urban strategy, the HUD secretary’s job promises to be far more powerful than at any time in recent memory.

In nominating Cisneros, Clinton used the riots to underscore the urban crises facing America’s cities and called the former mayor a “visionary leader who will bring fresh energy to an agency that badly needs reform and revitalization.”

No one has ever accused Cisneros of lacking ideas. Indeed, his plethora of interests answers the reason for much of his inattention to detail. And his string of successes in San Antonio--much of it accomplished with HUD money--is impressive.

“If you look at the win and loss column, we probably stack up with the Lakers,” said former city manager Lou Fox, now the director of urban studies at San Antonio’s Trinity University.

During Cisneros’ tenure, HUD spent $230 million here for city improvements. During his eight years in office--a time of drastic federal cutbacks--Cisneros initiated or oversaw the spending of more than $4 billion in the city.

At a time when bond issues were being defeated with regularity around the country, San Antonio passed all seven that were on the ballot while Cisneros was mayor. The bond issues totaled $518 million, and the money was used to pay for streets, drainage, libraries, police and fire stations, as well as a new police training academy.

At Cisneros’ urging, voters approved a sales tax to pay for a controversial $174-million domed stadium, named the Alamodome but variously dubbed the Dillodome (because to some it looks like a dead armadillo with its feet in the air) as well as the Henrydome. There have been grumblings in San Antonio lately about the stadium because the city does not seem likely to get a National Football League team.

One of those grumblers is Van Henry Archer, a former city councilman and president of the Homeowner Taxpayer Assn. of Bexar County.

“It’s kind of ludicrous to think we’re ever going to get any events in the thing, except maybe a tractor pull or a square dance convention,” he said.

The backdrop to all this has been Cisneros’ grand vision of how his city ought to be. And putting his most visible success next to his most visible failure might offer a clue as to what works and what doesn’t.

The success is the RiverCenter Mall on the edge of downtown San Antonio. In this city, one of the key improvements in the last 20 years has been the development of land along the San Antonio River, which runs through the heart of the business district. The development, called the Riverwalk, was extended under Cisneros to the new mall, which came with a huge new Marriott high-rise hotel, an anchoring department store and was across the street from the convention center.

The mall was located inside the ring of highways surrounding downtown and was within easy walking distance of office buildings. Perhaps most important in measuring support for the project, $200 million in private money was invested in the complex, compared to $19 million in public funds.

The failure, of course, is Vista Verde South, which was supposed to be a 120-acre complex with a Mexican-theme shopping mall, a computer factory and a housing project in the desperately poor neighborhood west of downtown.

From the time he was a councilman in the late 1970s, Cisneros would talk at length about the area and his belief that something could be built that would not only improve the area but also provide jobs for the people who lived nearby.

The first seed money for the project was given by HUD in 1979, when Cisneros was still a council member but clearly the driving force behind Vista Verde.

Although the project was just on the other side of the interstate highway cutting through that part of town, and only a few hundred yards from Market Square, one of San Antonio’s hottest tourist spots, people did not bother to walk under the highway to Vista Verde. Merchants reported days when, if they sold anything, it was less than $5. Residents who lived nearby had little or no extra money to spend on the gift items sold in the shops.

The chief financiers were high-flying savings and loan types eager to curry Cisneros’ favor. And unlike RiverCenter, the developer was without a proven track record for a project of such scope. In terms of investment, the government and private money was almost equal, with $47.5 million in government funds versus $54.8 million in private monies.

Cisneros once took Britain’s Prince Charles on a tour during construction to highlight Vista Verde’s success, but the problems were evident from the start, said columnist Casey.

“Those problems were ignored because of political imperative,” he said. “Henry wanted to have this showcase on the near west side.”

The University of Texas at San Antonio was recently offered the “pink elephant” as a gift to house a downtown campus but is hesitating about taking it because of the location and condition of the buildings.

One former associate of Cisneros’, who asked not to be named, said the designated HUD secretary should be able to overcome his shortcomings if he appoints the right kind of staff members. He said two kinds are needed.

“One will have to be able to raise his hand and say, ‘Henry, that’s a dumb idea.’ The other kind will have to go around with him, take everything down and make sure the detail work is taken care of.”

Times staff writer Gebe Martinez in Orange County contributed to this story.