The $25-million project Thursday won a crucial zoning change from the City of San Antonio. After squaring away remaining platting issues, dirt should move by early November, says Andy Besing of Hill-Granados Retail Partners, the developer. The center should be open in about a year.

The 42-acre site is vacant land and the project could serve to jumpstart retail development inside Loop 410, Besing tells GlobeSt.com. "That whole inner city, inside Loop 410, has been ignored over the past 30 years," he says. "We feel that this project is going to be a catalyst for development in the inner city."

Letters of intent have been signed with several soft-goods retailers, but Besing isn't ready to announce who they are. The pads are aimed at fast-food restaurants and a bank.

The zoning change, which came after eight months of negotiations with neighbors, switched parts of the site from residential to commercial. To win the OK of residents, the developer agreed to improve traffic flow on Vance Jackson Road, improve storm water drainage and increase landscaping. "We are planting 40% more landscaping than what the city code says we have to," Besing says. The project's architect is MDN Architecture of San Antonio.

Other Hill-Granados projects are a shopping center that formerly housed a Kmart near NorthStar Mall in north central San Antonio and redevelopment of Lake Air Mall in Waco.