A landmark in the heart of downtown San Antonio, Villita Assembly Building (VAB) recently celebrated a milestone – 50 years of bringing together hundreds of thousands of visitors for community gatherings.

In addition to CPS Energy-related meetings, VAB has averaged 150 events a year – for a total of approximately 7,500 large gatherings – hosted by non-profit and civic groups.  The nominal rental fees for this facility have enabled organizations to raise untold thousands of dollars to benefit the community.

VAB, located at the corner of Villita and South Presa streets in La Villita (Little Village), replaced Station A, a power plant built by the forerunners of CPS Energy.  Station A came on line in 1888 and generated 1,500 kilowatts of electricity.  It also was called Berg Station after L. S. Berg, who chartered the Berg Light and Power Co., a year earlier.  The plant was decommissioned after serving 70 years and was torn down in 1957.

While dismantling the plant, workers were surprised to find a reel of copper cable sealed into a room in the basement.  It seems that farsighted engineers had tucked away a spare reel just in case problems developed in the cables linking Station A and Station B (Mission Road Power Plant).  During World War II, obtaining a replacement cable would have been expensive and slow.  The engineers solved the problem by keeping a spare… and bricking up the door of the storage room so the reel wouldn’t “disappear.”

The old Station A structure was demolished when it was determined renovation would be far more costly than erecting a new structure.  In 1956, City Public Service General Manager Victor H. Braunig proposed the concept of a new, medium-sized auditorium for civic events and conventions, a need that came about after the war as San Antonio expanded rapidly, doubling its population within a decade.

The San Antonio Light, a local newspaper, endorsed the idea in an editorial published March 6, 1956, especially because the design would harmonize with the historic buildings in La Villita.  It cited the following argument from the Chamber of Commerce: “We have been losing conventions, and that means dollars, because we don’t have a well-arranged hall with a meeting room, dining area and space for 150 to 200 commercial exhibits.”

The CPS Board of Trustees wanted a building design that would be in complete harmony with restoration of adjacent La Villita, a small Mexican village of the 1700s.  Architects O’Neil Ford & Associates provided the solution – a building simple in details yet distinguished by circular shape, color and texture.

A most notable VAB feature is the roof, suspended on 200 steel cables attached to an outer ring 132 feet in diameter and a 40-foot inner ring.  This type of roof construction – one of only a few in the nation – does away with columns and permits unobstructed views to all parts of the hall.  VAB can be easily identified from the air because of the huge daisy painted on the roof.

The building’s circular design, the product of much research, was chosen to resemble the bull ring, so typical of Mexican villages of yesteryear.  The suspension-type roof gives the impression of a circular-shaped arena with seats ascending from the center when viewed from the air or a tall building.

To complete the historic ties, six large emblems representing the seals of the six nations whose flags flew over Texas are displayed on the exterior of the building.  The designs, which adhered with great fidelity to the period in which the flags flew over Texas, were hand crafted in ceramics by Lynn Ford, brother of the architect.

VAB opened its doors for the first time Tuesday, May 26, 1959, when 1,000 Chamber of Commerce officials, members and guests gathered for the chamber’s annual banquet.  Dignitaries included CPS Board Chairman Willard Simpson, who dedicated the building to the gas and electric company’s employees and to the City of San Antonio; O.W. Sommers, CPS general manager; and Braunig, who continued to serve CPS as a management consultant after his retirement as general manager.  Mayor J. Edwin Kuykendall accepted the building on behalf of the City.

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