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Dignitaries gather for a group photo after the presentation off the kickoff event for a new building materials salvage center with the backdrop of the historic Kelly Bungalow Colony, a cluster of 1920s houses once occupied by Kelly Field and Kelly AFB commanders on Tuesday at Port San Antonio Bungalow Colony.

Attendees check out the building materials in the kickoff event for a new building materials salvage center with the backdrop of the historic Kelly Bungalow Colony, a cluster of 1920s houses once occupied by Kelly Field and Kelly AFB commanders on Tuesday at Port San Antonio Bungalow Colony.

Shanon Miller, director in the Office of Historic Preservation starts off the kickoff event for a new building materials salvage center with the backdrop of the historic Kelly Bungalow Colony, a cluster of 1920s houses once occupied by Kelly Field and Kelly AFB commanders on Tuesday at Port San Antonio Bungalow Colony.

Mayor Ron Nuremberg address the crowd in the kickoff event for a new building materials salvage center with the backdrop of the historic Kelly Bungalow Colony, a cluster of 1920s houses once occupied by Kelly Field and Kelly AFB commanders on Tuesday at Port San Antonio Bungalow Colony.

Shanon Miller, Director in the Office of Historic Preservation introduction Mayor Ron Nuremberg at the kickoff event for a new building materials salvage center with the backdrop of the historic Kelly Bungalow Colony, a cluster of 1920s houses once occupied by Kelly Field and Kelly AFB commanders on Tuesday at Port San Antonio Bungalow Colony.

SAN ANTONIO — A new center that will warehouse and distribute aged wood and old doors, windows, plumbing and light fixtures for reuse, rather than being thrown away, is open for business.

The Material Innovation Center is the “last stop before the landfill” — a hub for storage and research to support “the local circular economy for building materials and affordable housing and production,” officials said.

“Think of it as organ donorship,” Mayor Ron Nirenberg said at a kickoff event. “Like an organ donor, a building may have reached the end of its life, but its parts and pieces will help extend the lives of dozens of other buildings.”

On ExpressNews.com: City to require some houses to be disassembled, not demolished

Port San Antonio’s historic Bungalow Colony, made up of 15 structures that once housed Kelly air base commanders and other historic buildings from the 1920s, will be the city’s base of operations for construction material reuse on the 1,900-acre Southwest Side aerospace and technology campus.

City Council passed a deconstruction ordinance in September requiring contractors to salvage reusable items from razed homes, starting with demolitions ordered by the city, typically for unsafe structures. Aside from saving landfill space and costs, the program seeks to salvage materials for accessory dwellings and other affordable housing. Officials also hope to reduce potentially harmful airborne particulates from traditional tear-downs.

Shanon Miller, director of the city’s Office of Historic Preservation, said her staff wrestled with two key questions when considering deconstruction, starting with how to train a workforce. The city so far has trained 40 contractors on disassembly of structures for material salvage. A circa-1920s garage that will serve as the innovation center is the answer to the second question — “a place for material that the market wouldn’t just take immediately,” she said.

The city still supports retail outlets such as Pickers Paradise and the Habitat for Humanity ReStore that resell materials, but hopes to increase the volume of reused materials. Although the center will primarily store items from projects mandated under the deconstruction ordinance, it already has materials in stock that could be given, by appointment and at no cost, to contractors partnering with the city on affordable housing projects.

“As of now, if any of the materials that we have can be utilized in an active affordable housing project, we would absolutely make them available,” Miller said.

More than 500 buildings are demolished each year in San Antonio — a 68 percent increase in the past decade, resulting in $16 million worth of building materials left in landfills, according to the city. The goal for the program’s first year is to divert at least 50 demolitions and 2,800 tons of salvaged materials, valued at $350,000. The new rules began Oct. 1 on city-ordered demolitions, which account for 3 percent of demolition permits.

On ExpressNews.com: Restoring historic air base houses starts with windows

The city will expand the program to cover some houses built in 1920 or earlier, as well as others built in 1945 or earlier that are designated landmarks. In 2025, it will add some larger residential buildings built in 1945 or earlier and residential structures built in 1960 or earlier if they’re landmarks. The final phase is expected to cover about 40 percent of demolition permits in San Antonio.

Also planned is a community tool library, open to local residents, to operate in one of the bungalow houses. Miller said the city is working out details for the library and applying for grants to buy tools used in deconstruction, such as hand-held pneumatic denailers.

“It’ll be things that are probably beyond hammers and screwdrivers that people don’t tend to have on their own, and they just need to borrow temporarily,” she said.

For more information, contact info@sapreservation.com.

Scott Huddleston is a veteran staff writer, covering Bexar County government, local history, preservation and the Alamo. He has been a reporter at the Express-News since 1985, covering a variety of issues, including public safety, criminal justice, flooding, transportation, military, water and the environment. He is a native Texan and longtime San Antonian.