Brooks and the Southeast Side (78223): The Old Air Force Base, Mission del Lago, and What's Actually South of Loop 410

Brooks City-Base closed as an Air Force installation under BRAC 2005 and has been redeveloping ever since as just "Brooks" — 1,300 acres of mixed-use south of SE Loop 410, managed by the Brooks Development Authority. That single project is why 78223 looks nothing like it did fifteen years ago, and why the southeast side is one of the few parts of Bexar County where you can still find new-construction single-family under the countywide median.

If you're being sent to Brooks for a medical job, you're moving to San Antonio on a south-side budget, or you're comparing East Central ISD to what you'd get in Converse, this is the piece.

Where 78223 actually is

78223 is the southeast-side ZIP bordered roughly by SE Military Drive on the north, I-37 on the west, Loop 1604 on the south, and the Salado Creek corridor on the east. It's the ZIP that contains Brooks itself, Highland Hills, Villa Coronado, Camelot I and II (further east into 78244/78219), and — depending on how you draw the line — the northern edge of Mission del Lago before the ZIP transitions to 78221.

Commute-wise, 78223 is closer to downtown than most of the north side realizes:

• Downtown / Alamo Plaza: 12–15 minutes via I-37 N
• JBSA-Fort Sam Houston: 18–22 minutes via I-37 to I-35
• JBSA-Randolph: 20–25 minutes via SE Loop 410 E
• JBSA-Lackland (main gate): 25–30 minutes via Loop 410 W
• Port San Antonio: 20 minutes via 410 W
• Toyota Manufacturing (far south): 15 minutes via I-37 S

That last one matters. Toyota's Tundra/Tacoma plant and its supplier park anchor a lot of the housing demand south of Loop 410, and 78223 is one of the closer ZIPs with anything resembling suburban product.

What Brooks is now, and what it isn't

Brooks is not a base. There is no gate, no ID check, no flightline activity. What's there:

• Mission Trail Baptist Hospital — a full acute-care hospital that is one of the largest employers on the south side
• DPT Laboratories and other biotech / pharma tenants that stayed after the Air Force left
• The University of the Incarnate Word School of Osteopathic Medicine — the DO school that opened at Brooks in 2017
• Retail along SE Military and Brooks Parkway — HEB, restaurants, the standard suburban pad sites
• Multifamily and single-family built new inside the Brooks footprint over the last decade

What that means for a renter or buyer: you can now live at Brooks in an apartment or newer townhome, walk to a hospital job or the DO school, and be inside Loop 410 with 10-minute access to downtown. That combination didn't exist on the south side before 2010.

The school district question

This is where most people trip. 78223 is split across at least four districts, and where the line falls matters more than the ZIP.

District	Where in 78223	Notes
East Central ISD	East of Salado Creek, most of Brooks proper	Rural-to-suburban district, own high school off FM 1628
Harlandale ISD	West/central 78223 near SE Military	Older urban district, McCollum HS
Southside ISD	Far south, including most of Mission del Lago	Small district, rapidly growing enrollment
SAISD	Northern edge near Highland Park / Denver Heights	Highlands HS attendance zone in parts

Don't guess from the address. Pull the attendance zone on the specific ISD's boundary map before you sign anything. Two houses on the same street in Highland Hills can be in different districts.

Mission del Lago and the new-construction question

Mission del Lago is the master-planned community on the far south side, off Southton Road roughly 3 miles south of Loop 410. It's the reason a lot of new-construction searches for "south San Antonio" land in Southside ISD without the buyer realizing it. The community itself has a public golf course, an amenity center, and a decade-plus of phased build-out from national builders — Lennar, DR Horton, Pulte have all been active in that stretch.

What you're getting for the price:

• New or near-new construction, typically 3–5 bedrooms, 1,700–2,800 sq ft
• Southside ISD schools (small district, K–12 on essentially one campus footprint)
• 20-minute drive to downtown, longer at rush hour once I-37 backs up
• No independent city services — this is unincorporated Bexar or City of San Antonio ETJ depending on the section

Compared to the far northwest (Alamo Ranch, 78253) or the northeast corridor (Cibolo, Schertz), Mission del Lago is meaningfully cheaper for equivalent square footage, at the cost of a longer drive to any of the JBSA installations except the airfield at Kelly.

What renting actually costs down here

RentInSA's active listings across San Antonio show a citywide median asking rent of $1,695/mo as of August 2026, with 3-bedroom homes at a $1,700 median. Southeast-side product — the 78223 / 78221 / 78214 belt — consistently prices below that median. You can still find 3BR/2BA single-family rentals in Highland Hills or the older Brooks-adjacent subdivisions in the $1,400–$1,700 range, and newer Mission del Lago product tends to run $1,700–$2,100 depending on square footage and how new it is.

Compare that to Cibolo at a $2,175 median or Boerne at $2,895, and the tradeoff is obvious: you're accepting Southside ISD or Harlandale ISD instead of SCUCISD or Boerne ISD, and you're accepting an older housing stock in the non-Brooks/non-Mission-del-Lago sections.

What most people get wrong about 78223

Confusing Brooks with a functioning military base. Brooks City-Base rebranded to just "Brooks" years ago. There's no BAH benefit to living there specifically, no commissary access, no gate. If you need base access, you're commuting to Fort Sam, Randolph, or Lackland like anyone else.

Assuming the ZIP tells you the school district. 78223 hits four districts. Highland Hills addresses on the same block can split between Harlandale ISD and East Central ISD. Pull the attendance zone from the district's own boundary tool — not from the listing agent's summary, not from a third-party school-rating site.

Confusing Mission del Lago with Mission Espada. Mission Espada is the southernmost of the four Spanish colonial missions in the UNESCO World Heritage inscription, on the Mission Reach of the San Antonio River. Mission del Lago is a 2000s-era master-planned subdivision named for the mission, a few miles further south. Different places, different value propositions.

Underestimating the flood plain. Salado Creek and its tributaries run through 78223, and parts of Highland Hills and the older Camelot subdivisions have real FEMA flood zone designations. Pull the FEMA flood map for the specific parcel — not just the neighborhood — before you close on a purchase, and confirm what the seller disclosed on TREC's OP-H Seller's Disclosure Notice. Section 5.008 of the Texas Property Code requires sellers to disclose known flooding history; that disclosure is not optional and it's the first document you should re-read.

Assuming "south of 410" means a bad commute to downtown. Brooks is 12–15 minutes from Alamo Plaza on I-37 in normal traffic. That's faster than most of Stone Oak, and materially faster than anywhere in Alamo Ranch or Boerne. The south side's reputation for being "far" is a north-side habit, not a map fact.

Not checking who's actually incorporated. Parts of 78223 are inside the City of San Antonio; parts are in unincorporated Bexar County; a few sections are in San Antonio's ETJ. That controls trash pickup, code enforcement, permitting, and — for landlords — whether the city's Proactive Apartment Inspection program applies. Ask, and get the answer in writing.

The bottom line on the southeast side

78223 is the ZIP where an old Air Force base became a working submarket, where you can still buy or rent new construction at a below-median price, and where the school district question decides most of the outcome. If Harlandale or East Central ISD works for your family — or you don't have school-age kids — the southeast side buys you a downtown commute and a Brooks-adjacent job market that the rest of the city undervalues.

Browse active southeast-side rentals at /rentals, filter by ZIP for 78223 and 78221 to see what Brooks, Highland Hills, and Mission del Lago are asking this month, or list your south-side rental free at /list-your-home if you're on the owner side of this equation. More neighborhood breakdowns are at /resources.