San Antonio Area Roads & More State Highway 211 (Texas Research Parkway)

This page last updated January 02, 2010

While the concept of a north-south highway in far western Bexar County has been around since the late 1960s, it wasn't until the mid '80s that the actual need for such a road materialized.  In 1986, land was donated for the Texas Research Park, a planned campus of biomedical research organizations and pharmaceutical companies in far western Bexar County just off FM 1957 (Potranco Rd.)  This location was served only by Potranco and local leaders knew that to make it successful, they would need better access.  Taking their cue from the then-recently built SH 151, where the land for the road was entirely donated, officials lined-up donated land to build a highway from US 90 to the front door of the research park at Potranco.  The State Dept. of Highways and Public Transportation (now TxDOT) accepted the land and built the highway, SH 211.  The road opened in 1990 and was built as a two-lane rural highway, but enough right-of-way was acquired for a future freeway. 

With that segment built, developers, realizing the growth potential of the area, decided to keep the momentum going and get the highway extended northward to SH 16 (Bandera Rd.)  Again, using donated land, the first segment of this extension, from Bandera Rd. south to FM 471 (Culebra Rd.), was completed in 1991.  However, land owners along the proposed route between Culebra and Potranco were resistant to the project, and efforts to acquire the right-of-way for that section stalled.

Meanwhile, more virulent opposition emerged when the highway department announced they were planning yet another extension of 211 from Bandera Rd. over to I-10 West near Leon Springs in far northwest Bexar County.  The owners of the property just north of Bandera Rd. offered to donate land for the road.  However, this limited the possible route of the highway and required it to run through the middle of the adjacent ranch.  The owners of that ranch vehemently opposed the road and fought the highway department, hiring a lawyer and an environmental preservationist to devise reasons to stop the highway.  A smorgasbord of items, ranging from the ubiquitous endangered species issues to water quality to archeological finds, was presented to TxDOT.  Efforts were made by TxDOT at a compromise, but to no avail.  Eventually, the owners enlisted the support of their neighbors, including the inheritor of the land north of SH 16 that was to have been donated.  After much ballyhooing, the proposal for that extension was shelved, and as of today, there are no plans to resurrect it.

With growth now exploding in western Bexar County, officials began working again in 2007 to acquire the necessary right-of-way and funding for the missing middle segment from Potranco to Culebra, and TxDOT began the process to update its environmental reviews for the entire corridor both in anticipation of constructing the middle section as well as for possible future upgrades of the corridor to a divided highway or freeway.  In late 2009, Bexar County and the Texas Transportation Commission approved a pass-through financing agreement whereby the county will build the missing segment and be reimbursed by the state over several years.  Construction is expected to begin in 2012 and take two years to complete.

(SH 211 is authorized by Minute Order 88108 [November 29, 1988]. The order includes the section from SH 16 to I-10.)