One of the more bizarre episodes in San Antonio's architectural history appears headed toward a highly favorable conclusion with the redesign and impending completion of a long-dormant mixed-use project on the northern fringe of downtown.

Construction on the two-square-block residential and commercial complex, dubbed Villaje del Rio by original developer-designer George Geis, stopped in 2004 when the project fell into a financial and legal morass of Tolstoyan complication. The Colina Del Rio partnership, headed by developer and former San Antonio planning commissioner Ed Cross, acquired the property in 2006, although Geis is still disputing the title.

As originally designed, Villaje del Rio had a severe, industrial countenance that suited its context but was not particularly inviting or consistent with its picturesque name. Cross deromanticized the name -- it's now the 1221 Broadway Lofts -- and asked OCO Architects (architect of record) and Lake-Flato Architects to improve the appearance and function.

The new team admirably corrected flaws in the original design -- most notably its deadly dull interfaces with the surrounding streets -- and added a fifth level to some of the residential buildings, raising the number of units from 253 to 300.

Geis's plan, most of which will endure in the bones of the complex, deserves more credit than it has generally received. Not least of its felicities is  its location, fronting on Broadway and stretching back two blocks to Avenue A, a few steps from the San Antonio River and a slightly longer stroll from the San Antonio Museum of Art. Years before the River North concept was born, Geis was the first developer to recognize the value-creating potential of the then-planned conversion of the river to a linear park, now  under construction.

Geis placed a four-story commercial building on the Broadway frontage, a steel-frame parking garage behind it, and on the remaining block and a half he built 19 structurally independent four-story residential buildings, organized around several intimate courtyards and connected by open-air walkways. In a period when even the most expensive multifamily projects generally use stick-frame construction, Geis's commercial and residential buildings were poured-in-place concrete, including the walls between residential units and some exterior walls. (Those who like to keep tabs on their neighbors' musical tastes and sexual practices might be happier elsewhere.)

Geis raised the residential buildings on piers to keep the apartments above the 100-year flood plain. (That's no longer a problem with completion of the floodwater-diversion tunnel.) Along Avenue A, where the slope allowed sufficient height, he planned to keep the space under the building open to connect the sidewalk and the courtyard. He planned two pedestrian bridges across Avenue B to provide access from the west block to the parking garage.

It was a very complex scheme, dealing ingeniously with difficult site conditions. Each of the courtyards was distinct in plan and spatially interesting, and the open-air corridors around them promised animation and a sense of community.

But from the surrounding streets the residential buildings promised to look like the kind that are administered by wardens. Geis provided few balconies facing the streets and little surface articulation. Windows ranged from small to tiny, giving the facades a sullen, introvert look. He complemented the concrete frame with contextually appropriate fill materials -- D'Hanis clay tile on the commercial building, aerated concrete block on the residential buildings -- but didn't use them in a comely way. Because of the flood-plain problem, no street-level retail space was planned for the residential buildings.

OCO and Lake-Flato addressed these problems by stripping the commercial and residential buildings down to their structural bones, redesigning their facades to add dimension and articulation, expanding the materials palette, and finding productive uses for the residual spaces below the first level of apartments. 

On the residential buildings, where Geis had provided small punched windows in concrete-block fill, OCO and Lake-Flato propose large areas of floor-to-ceiling glass in metal storefront systems, with alternating opaque bays of stucco or flat-seam metal panels. The redesign has a profusion of balconies, projecting from some bays and inset in others. Metal sunscreens project from the top floor. The buildings on the west and south, with views toward the river, are to get an additional floor.

Together, these alterations give the facades a lively, varied rhythm in both vertical and horizontal dimensions and put more eyes on the street. Even when residents aren't perched on their balconies, their bicycles, potted plants and outdoor furniture will be. Such visible signs of human habitation enhance both the delight and the safety of urban life. People generally want to be where other people  are.

Geis had placed a rooftop swimming pool on the corner nearest the river. The renovation architects are enhancing it with a deck projecting beyond the facade and supported by metal struts. A window to be cut into the concrete will give swimmers an underwater view of the river, the San Antonio Museum of Art on the opposite bank and the downtown skyline beyond.

Corner retail sites are being created at street level on Avenue B, and most of the space under the apartments on the west block is to be fitted with private garages.

On the commercial building, the architects inset the street-level facade to allow a more generous sidewalk. (Under the River North Master Plan, whose future is uncertain at the moment because of opposition from Geis, among others, the sidewalk would be widened further and planted with trees.) The open-air atrium in the middle is to be filled in with office space. Geis's  straightforward D'Hanis tile fill will reappear in a variety of sizes and textures on panels within a glass-and-metal storefront system. A high concrete wall is to be built along the Roy Smith Street sidewalk to shield a corner plaza from nearby freeway noise and make the space more agreeable for outdoor dining.

The history of this project has been disputatious, to say the least, and the venom has spilled over to afflict River North planning. Yet the paradoxical result in the redesign of the 1221 Broadway Lofts is a remarkably fruitful, if unintended, collaboration. Geis is a passionate and serious urbanist, as are Cross and his architectural team. Together, albeit from opposing bunkers, they are about to give San Antonio one of its liveliest and most interesting urban mixed-use projects.