ZerNona Black cultural community center delayed to summer 2024

When construction on the ZerNona Black Multi-generational Cultural Community Center began in the parking lot of Mount Zion First Baptist Church in April 2022, the city said it would be completed February 2023. 

As of the first days of 2024, the project site appears far from completion, but officials say construction is on track for a new date: The summer of 2024. 

The center being built at 333 Martin Luther King Dr. will open as a community facility with resources for the East Side neighborhood. It will provide preschool and after-school programs, a senior day care and activities.

At the time of the groundbreaking, the city said the initial total budget for the center was $3.2 million, but more funds raised for the project expanded the budget to $3.5 million. The center is funded by local dollars: $1 million that the church raised through raffles, banquets and donations, a $2 million allocation from the 2017-2022 San Antonio city bond program to fund construction, and $500,000 from Bexar County.

Months-long delays have cost $2.5 million more, the city’s public works department said, totaling around $6 million. The additional $2.5 million will be reimbursed to the city by the contractor’s bonding company for not finishing the project, said Razi Hosseini, director of the public works department.

The costly delays stemmed from construction material rotting from stormwater damage at the site, requiring the demolition of progress the original contractor, M. Company General Contractors, Inc. had made.

The delays on the project stemmed from disagreements and issues with M. Company General Contractors, Inc., which according to Mt. Zion Pastor Otis I. Mitchell and the city’s public works department could not provide a solid completion date and was not able to meet the project schedule.

“The original contractor [wasn’t] able to make the schedule of the project. … Finally early 2023, we decided to terminate their contract and now we have a new contractor who started late last year and will finish Summer,” said Hosseini.

Frankenmuth, the surety bonding company responsible for finishing the contractor’s project, stepped in. 

There was almost no movement between the months of February 2023 and November 2023, said Mitchell, who has a bird’s-eye view of the project from his office door on the second floor.

“We had to demo some of the original work. Not only that, but also material [costs] increased in 2022, now we got to think about 2023-2024. Overall because of COVID, everything has gone up … There’s inflation on everything, inflation on labor,” he said. “Labor is getting more pay today than three years ago.”

After the extra funding was secured in September, construction resumed and the project is on track to be completed by July, Mitchell said.

“It’s been depressing to see the building’s progress and now to see it regress and have to begin again. That’s very discouraging, but we are people of faith,” Mitchell said. “The congregation has become impatient, but what can we do?”

ZerNona Black, who died in 2005, was an educator and activist and the wife of the Rev. Claude Black, a former City Council member, noted civil rights activist and the longtime pastor of Mt. Zion. ZerNona Black worked as an instructor at St. Philip’s College and advocated for citizenship education through classes on communication, drama, speech and radio.

The center was supposed to house after-school tutoring and other educational resources starting in September 2023, a product of a $2.3 million federal award granted to historically Black churches to boost students’ success. 

Those programs are now underway semiweekly, but they take place inside the church building until the center is built.

None of the funds from the federal grant went toward building the ZerNona Black center, Mitchell said, but went into funding technology for students to use in an area of the church.

“It’s designed to be a program that ensures that children get their homework done and they excel in the classes they have. And introduces them to new teaching methods,” Mitchell said. 

The center is being built right across the street from Douglass Academy, a school affected by San Antonio ISD school closures. Mitchell said the center is needed to house programs for youth and children especially at this moment in time.

There haven’t been changes to the design: The center will still total 10,000 square feet among two buildings, a landscaped courtyard, multipurpose rooms and classroom spaces, catering kitchen, bathrooms and support spaces.

On Wednesday, Mitchell propped his office door open with an antique metal ashtray that has been at the church for decades, letting in the view of the construction site. As Mitchell spoke, he pointed to a photo of ZerNona Black and Claude Black that hung on his office wall.

“ZerNona Black was the first lady of this church, but she loved the community,” Mitchell said. She was always there with him, but some of it was her, not him, pushing him to be involved with the neighborhood and the community. It’s befitting the center bears her name and continues her legacy of service.”