The firm received approval from San Antonio's Historic and Design Review Commission to convert the Nix Building into 314 residential units and ground-floor retail.

The building would also have ground-floor units with walk-in entry on both streets to “help animate” the streets, one design document states.

Barry Bester, the entrepreneur behind Topps Tiles, has lodged plans to add an extra floor on his two-storey 1980s block building.