McCombs Enterprises

McCombs Enterprises is the San Antonio family investment and development company founded by Red McCombs. Its holdings have spanned automotive retail, energy, ranching and real estate, and its development arm takes on downtown San Antonio projects with long horizons. The company bought the 1929 Tower Life Building in 2022 from descendants of construction magnate H.B. Zachry and is converting the 31-storey Art Deco landmark into roughly 244 apartments as Tower Life Residences, working with investor Jon Wiegand and developer Ed Cross. The project runs on federal historic tax credits, with half the units targeted to qualify as affordable under city definitions.

The company is organized into five divisions, automotive, real estate, energy, investments and a family foundation, and the development work that lands in downtown San Antonio headlines is only one of them.

Automotive came first and is still described as the foundation of the business. Red McCombs opened his first dealership in 1953; the group now operates as Red McCombs Automotive across 13 San Antonio locations, including Red McCombs Ford, McCombs Ford West, Red McCombs Toyota, Red McCombs Universal Toyota, Red McCombs Hyundai and Hyundai Northwest, Genesis of Northwest San Antonio, and Outlaw Offroad + Performance. The energy division goes back to the 1960s and holds ownership interests in production across southern states along with international oil and gas positions. The investments arm makes direct private equity commitments in established companies seeking financial, strategic or management capital.

Real estate is where the civic footprint is clearest. The Tower of the Americas and the Alamodome both came out of Red McCombs’ push to build for a bigger San Antonio. Alongside the Tower Life redevelopment, the company has a residential project planned for the River Walk next to the San Antonio Museum of Art. On the Texas coast it is the developer and luxury home builder behind Palmilla Beach and The Reserve at St. Charles Bay, two waterfront communities.

Ownership has stayed inside the family. Marsha Shields, daughter of Red and Charline McCombs, is CEO and managing partner, working alongside Lynda McCombs, Connie McNab, Carson Rubey, Joseph Shields and Easton McNab. Family giving has passed $175 million, and the name is attached to the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin and the McCombs Institute for the Early Detection and Treatment of Cancer at MD Anderson. For anyone weighing the Tower Life conversion or the River Walk site, that ownership structure is the relevant fact: the company is still owned and led by the McCombs family rather than by outside partners.