The federal government has signed two leases worth a combined $51.2 million for office space in San Antonio, Texas, that federal records link to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The General Services Administration finds and manages office space for federal agencies. A review of federal contracting records shows it awarded the leases Tuesday and Wednesday to BOZIII-WatersEdge II LLC.
The company’s listed address belongs to a four-story office building at Brooks, a redevelopment of the former Brooks Air Force Base on the city’s Southeast Side.
Over their full terms, the leases are worth $42.5 million and $8.8 million in rent. GSA’s April solicitations called for 17-year leases, and the government could not end them during the first 15 years. After that, it could cancel either lease, or part of the space, with 90 days’ notice. The award notices do not say what terms GSA finally agreed to or how much rent the government will pay each year.
The award notices published this week do not name a tenant, which GSA often withholds on leases for agencies with special security needs. They carry project numbers 4TX0983 and 5TX0805, the same two numbers in a GSA order signed Oct. 30, 2025, that hired a real estate broker to work on the two lease projects. The order’s description reads “Agency: U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE),” with San Antonio listed as the location. Project Salt Box reported the connection in May.
The records do not say what ICE plans to do in the offices or how many employees will work there.
ICE said in a statement that it would not confirm office locations because “our officers are facing a coordinated campaign of violence against them including an 8,000% increase in death threats against them and a 1,600% increase in assaults against them.” The statement said ICE has added 12,000 officers and agents with funding from the 2025 budget law, a 120% increase in its workforce, and asked, “Is it really news that when a federal agency hires more personnel that they need more space?”
With the two leases, ICE has committed about $134.6 million in public funds to San Antonio property this year. The total also includes the $66.1 million purchase of a warehouse at 542 SE Loop 410 on the East Side and a $17.3 million order to GardaWorld Federal Services, signed Aug. 27, to renovate and run it.
The address listed for BOZIII-WatersEdge II, 7611 Inner Circle Drive, belongs to WatersEdge II, the newer of two four-story office buildings at Brooks, each with about 100,000 square feet. Listings posted this year described it as empty and offered it for sale. Combined, the leases cover about 65,800 square feet.
Texas business records list Stephanie L. Tavenner, an accounting manager at Cambridge Holdings LLC of Vienna, Va., as the registered agent for BOZIII-WatersEdge II. Cambridge’s website lists the firm as the developer and property manager of both WatersEdge buildings and names past projects for federal agencies, including a Drug Enforcement Administration laboratory in Miami and a Federal Aviation Administration charting office.
The Brooks Development Authority, a public agency that oversees the redevelopment of the former base, has its offices in WatersEdge I, the building next door. It promoted the WatersEdge project as the first high-end office space built on the city’s South Side.
Brooks lies in a federal Opportunity Zone under a program Congress created in 2017 to give investors tax breaks for putting money into low-income areas. The sale listing for WatersEdge II advertised the building’s location in the zone.
The warehouse ICE bought is on the city’s East Side, separate from Brooks, and the agency plans to hold 1,000 to 1,500 people there at a time while their immigration cases are processed. Then-acting ICE Director Todd Lyons told local officials the site would open by Sept. 30, but acting Director David J. Venturella moved the expected opening to early 2027 in a June letter to Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones. The GardaWorld order calls for work to run through Aug. 25, 2027.
San Antonio’s City Council passed a zoning rule in April that requires council approval for new detention centers near homes, schools, parks, and places of worship, but the rule does not apply to property the federal government owns or leases. Bexar County Commissioner Tommy Calvert organized an Oct. 3 march toward the warehouse to press city and county attorneys to sue.
Cambridge Holdings, the Brooks Development Authority, and the San Antonio mayor’s office did not respond to emailed requests for comment.
This story was updated Oct. 9 to include a statement from ICE.
It's good to know the names of the companies collaborating with the administration. They will still have to face the public long after this administration is gone.
Also, the 17 year lease doesn't mean much after January 20, 2029 if the new administration doesn't want to continue the lease. Otherwise the lease holder jeopardizes ever getting a contract with the government.