The Shops at La Cantera

The Shops at La Cantera blends the visual heritage of San Antonio and the Texas Hill Country with the stylishness appropriate to a luxury retail and upscale shopping setting. The 1.4 million square foot regional shopping center is anchored by Neiman-Marcus, Nordstrom, Dillard's and Macy's. This open-air marketplace is designed to blend the pedestrian-friendly plan of a regional mall with the ease of use of a lifestyle center in a distinctive, landscape-focused environment.

Created as a prototype for future development of regional scale outdoor centers by General Growth Properties, the design addresses both environmental concerns about land use and nature conservancy, and changes in shopping patterns that have evolved over the last decade.

Overall planning for the center was developed with the goal of preserving as much natural landscape as practical. Site edges were preserved largely as found in the wild, an approach that provides a greenbelt buffer to the adjacent freeway and creates a sense of transition into the site from the feeder roads.

The shopping center itself was oriented to step down the grade naturally in a series of buildings clustered around an ever-changing linear series of courtyards, paseos and gardens. This rambling layout, emulative of the walkways of Spanish Colonial San Antonio that follow the meandering San Antonio River Walk, encourages pedestrians to round the next corner. Shaded seated areas and a year-round blooming landscape provide places to rest, relax and refuel for more shopping.

Located in an environmentally aware community, The Shops at La Cantera is particularly sensitive to the conservation of natural resources. Leading the way as an example of large scale retail development that works with the natural landscape, the overall design expands its environmental responses to include the water features that both minimize water loss through evaporation and look good as natural features when turned off in drought season. This is coupled with an emphasis on xeriscaping and selection of hardy, low-water foundation plantings, which naturally focus on native plants found in the region, throughout the project. Additionally, the design team hired a climate consultant to assist in the shaping of both the spaces and the shading devices that modulate the sun in the various seasons.