Albuquerque Development Thread

[ABQalex]

Downtown Albuquerque News had these two pics earlier this week showing the refurbished Dog House sign on Central Avenue/Route 66 that was made possible by the city’s grant program to restore and improve such signs along the route.

https://downtownalbuquerquenews.com/





Here are a couple of pics showing how the Dog House sign looked previously.





DAN also had this pic today showing the new sign going up at the Arrive Hotel location at Central and 7th Street. You can also spot some of the other finishing touches that have recently gone up on the building, such as the Arrive lettering, new stucco and paint scheme.

https://downtownalbuquerquenews.com/



Here's the rendering of the completed sign to compare with what's been constructed so far.

[ABQalex]

A new mural will be coming to Downtown Albuquerque next week. The mural will be painted during the monthly Art Walk that will take place next Friday. The project was announced recently by Art Walk and the Downtown Arts and Cultural District on their social media accounts. They haven't revealed details on what it will look like or where exactly it will be located, apart from saying that it will include "Downtown ABQ" in the design.

https://www.instagram.com/abqartwalk/p/DBboWxZPZEX/



The artist for the new mural will be Juliana Chavez aka "Little Lady Wolf" who is a New Mexico-based artist. She also worked on the interactive mural on the side of the Broadstone Nob Hill apartments, which has gotten a fair bit of national attention since it was completed. Here, she didn't create the design, merely carried it out and painted it.

https://www.instagram.com/dtabq.acd/p/DBwkmRZCfBG/



Here's another mural in Downtown Albuquerque that the artist previously worked on in collaboration with another artist. It was completed late last year and is located along the east side of 3rd Street in the alley between Gold and Silver avenues.

https://www.instagram.com/littlelady...p/C0g8W67L2Gq/

[ABQalex]

Munch 'n Boba had its soft opening this week and will have its grand opening on Monday. Below are a few more pics that they posted this past week showing the new location and some of their offerings.

https://www.instagram.com/munchnboba/p/DBpI9WWRuiC/



https://www.instagram.com/munchnboba/p/DBq-U5HRxo5/



https://www.instagram.com/munchnboba/p/DBtmc12xNX6/



Here also a couple more pics and another story about the new Gravity Bound location that Albuquerque Business First recently had. I like the pic of their existing location because it shows the new outdoor patio area and shade structure that they announced earlier this year. It's the first pic showing the project that I've seen and been able to find. It apparently was just recently completed in the past few days.

https://www.bizjournals.com/albuquer...w-concept.html

A Downtown brewery is opening a new concept near its current location.

Gravity Bound Brewing Co. signed a five-year lease “about a week ago” to take over the old Boese Brothers Brewery space at 601 Gold Ave SW, said Chris Frigon, Gravity Bound general manager and co-owner.

He declined to disclose the monthly lease amount the brewery will pay to its landlord, Peterson Properties LLC.

The new concept will be a German lager house with a coffeehouse aspect. A name hasn’t been chosen yet, Frigon said.

Gravity Bound Brewing, located at 816 Third St. NW, got the inspiration for its new venture from breweries and craft beer drinkers in “beer-centric” cities that are starting to focus more on lager production and consumption, Frigon said.

“We also love coffee,” Frigon said. “So, we were just like, ‘All right, why not just double up on these two things?’ We think we can do a pretty good job on both.”

Frigon said the new location will use a decoction brewing process with specialized equipment, such as horizontal instead of vertical lager tanks. Frigon described this process as unique — especially in the current New Mexico brewing scene.

Gravity Bound, which opened in June 2020, decided to take the opportunity to expand Downtown so that it could invest in the area and because its current production capacity isn’t keeping up with demand.

"How do we expand our production but also invest into Downtown and do something we're seeing in other beer-centric cities," Frigon said. "We have to make the investment of buying the appropriate equipment and make a really nice space [to] add to Downtown."

The additional production space will supplement Gravity Bound’s tap list and enable it to offer four packs of beer more consistently, Frigon said.

Frigon said he hopes the remodel will finish in spring 2025. The general contractor on the more than 9,000-square-foot brewery space is Habitation Inc. Gravity Bound is working with an architect on the design but has not signed an agreement with them yet. Frigon declined to disclose the architect’s name.

The new location will be open seven days a week from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. Frigon estimated it will employ between 10 and 15 people.

Here's the rendering of the patio project that they posted earlier this year to compare with the built result shown above.

https://www.instagram.com/gravitybou...p/C2vmrgbPc3x/



Below is another pic of the patio structure that was recently included in a post by the Dark Side Brew Crew beer blog about the new operation that was also posted a few days ago. They mention that work was still going on for the structure while they were interviewing the Frigon brothers for their story. It's a long post with more details about the overall project. I'll quote just parts of it below as well.

https://nmdarksidebrewcrew.com/2024/...a-lager-house/

One brewery wanted to expand its production. Another brewery wanted to scale back on one of its locations.

That is the genesis of a unique new partnership between Gravity Bound Brewing and Boese Brothers Brewery, one which will see the former take over the latter’s downtown taproom space, while both breweries will share use of the production brewing space in the back.

I caught up with Gravity Bound co-owners/brothers Cameron and Chris Frigon to go over their plans for this new venture, what it means for their existing brewery, and more.

“It’s kind of a long story, but we’ve been super thin on (brewing) capacity here for a long time,” said Cameron, who is also Gravity Bound’s brewer. “It’s been a huge stressor for us personally and from a business standpoint. And so, we’ve been seeking out some ways to alleviate that issue. A few things have come and gone.

“One night, just through the small Albuquerque grapevine, we heard that Boese was moving up to Rio Rancho. We thought like, hey, we want to take over an existing production space. We didn’t want to try to build from scratch. The amount of headache increases exponentially when you do that. So we were just looking for an existing production space.”

Considering the current lack of contractors available to turn a regular building into a brewery, the move made total sense, even if there is not the usual miles upon miles between the two locations.

“Obviously, usually the strategy is you have a location and then you go much further away and open up another location,” Cameron said. “You kind of like to spread out. (But) we’re really downtown people. This is our neighborhood. It challenged us to sort of think of a new concept, or something else we’d like to try. Some new avenues we’d just like to explore. The coffee/lager house is what we started dreaming up. We’re pretty excited to branch out a little bit here. Try some new things or just variations on an old thing.”

The Boese space at Sixth Street and Gold Avenue will have a different name from Gravity Bound, and a different concept. It will be both a coffee shop and a lager house, the latter of which is something Albuquerque has been lacking for a long time.

...

Chris said they are still working on the right name for the new space, just to help differentiate it from Gravity Bound and Boese Brothers.

“It’s going to be a completely different brand, different concept,” he said. “We understand the proximity to Boese’s location. Gravity Bound is supposed to be a little bit more on the forefront of styles where we’re offering a wider range. A different kind of setting.

...

Now comes the tough question: When will the new space be up and running?

“We’re always optimistic with our timelines, but you never know what’s going to happen,” Chris said. “We’re aiming for spring 2025. We’re doing a lot of (renovations), just remodel the taproom, too. It’s not like a cut-and-paste taproom. It’s something we really care about and we really want to make comfortable. Especially with this shared use of coffee and lager, which both have a lot of similarities. It’s just people hanging around, working or just visiting with each other. We’re going to make it as comfortable as possible. I think we’ll be able to pull it off.”

Chris said it will be a nice complement to the Ex Novo location just a block-plus away.

“Downtown just needs more stuff,” he said. “I think it plays well off each other, too.”

[ABQalex]

Downtown Albuquerque News recently had a story about the deal falling through for the county to buy the Anthea @ The Granite structure at the northern edge of Downtown Albuquerque for affordable senior housing. I had posted about this deal last year over at SSC but never got around to posting it here.

The structure was originally built as an extended-stay hotel back in 2015. It was converted to a regular apartment building back in 2022.

It has struggled to ever find tenants for its ground-floor commercial space. It has 23 units on its upper two floors, most of which are furnished. The county had touted the possibility that more units could be created from the unused space on the ground floor (its sale listing says about 11 units), but the entire deal has now fallen through because of the ownership structure for the building and the property that it sits on.

https://downtownalbuquerquenews.com/

Deal to buy building in north Downtown for senior housing falls through

For Bernalillo County, it seemed like a match made in heaven. The building was in good shape, for sale, and had 23 units plus room to add a few more. The county had federal funding lined up to pay for the acquisition, and HUD housing vouchers in hand to turn it into affordable housing for seniors (DAN, 11/6/23). A year ago, the County Commission signed off on the purchase of the Anthea at the Granite building (Fourth and Granite), and it seemed like a done deal.

"It was kind of an opportunity that popped up," Deputy County Manager Enrico Gradi told the Wells Park Neighborhood Association at the time. "We like it because it's not that old and we don't have to do that much."

Then came the snag - the building and the property on which it stood had different owners, county spokesman Estevan Vásquez told DAN, and the federal American Recovery Plan Act funding required the county to buy both.

"The building owner was attempting to purchase the land, so that both could be sold to the county," Vásquez said. "Unfortunately the building owner and land owner were not able to come to terms so BernCo was unable to complete the acquisition."

The building is still on the market.

Here are a few more pics of the structure from its listings on the Loopnet and Apartments.com websites, including a neat aerial showing the surrounding area and Downtown Albuquerque.

https://www.loopnet.com/Listing/950-...e-NM/17976053/

[ABQalex]

The Bernalillo County Commission is again considering the help that Jim Long is seeking for his projects in the Sawmill Area. Last week, the commissioners unanimously approved the acceptance and consideration of a little more than $162 million in industrial revenue bonds for the first three Sawmill District projects.

The IRBs had first been introduced for consideration two years ago but were never brought to a vote or acted on. The commissioners are supposed to have a final vote to approve the IRBs for the projects within a few weeks.

The IRBs are broken down into three parts, $15.7 million for the commercial portion of the apartment building/mixed-use structure, $70.4 million for the extended-stay hotel structure, and $76.3 million for the regular hotel structure.















Here are a couple of pics of the 20th and Bellamah project in the Sawmill Area that Downtown Albuquerque News recently shared. Construction did indeed begin last week for the project.

https://downtownalbuquerquenews.com/





And here's another rendering of the project and the intersection of the two streets that the Albuquerque Journal recently had in a story about the project.

https://www.abqjournal.com/business/...89c728c33.html

[ABQalex]

Downtown Albuquerque News reported this morning that the Land Use Hearing Officer has granted the appeal against Jay Rembe's George at Country Club Plaza project. I knew this would happen, the LUHO seems to think it's his responsibility to advocate for the neighbors and find any reason to send these approvals into question or disarray. I hope that the city council will reject his recommendation to grant the neighbors' appeal.

Central Avenue is our most urban street in Albuquerque, if we cannot build urban projects along it by right and without threat of NIMBY obstruction then we are doomed in transforming our city for the better and going forward. Our city's stated goals and the efforts of our community have always been to have Central Avenue become a transit-oriented stretch with urban density in a walkable environment, and to move away from the auto-oriented hellscape it often exhibits today.

Caving and catering to NIMBY interests along the stretch goes against and undermines all those efforts to see this vision realized. It rejects all of those stated goals and the city and community's efforts thus far to transform and improve the street. I hope the city council will instead reject this sort of obstruction and these baseless arguments against the project.

https://downtownalbuquerquenews.com/

Controversial apartment complex breaks city development rules, hearing officer concludes

Since the idea of building a 34-unit apartment complex on Central near Laguna first bubbled up into public view two years ago, nearby neighbors have raised a wide variety of objections, mostly related to plans that call for stashing resident parking out back and providing access to it through Sixteenth, a quiet and narrow street that has the feel of a suburban cul de sac.

Tenant traffic would make the street unsafe and unpleasant, they argued, all while impeding emergency vehicles and likely causing the city to remove essential on-street parking spots (the city disputed the last two points - DAN, 12/4/23).

Yet at every turn, developer Jay Rembe - who also put up the nearby Country Club Plaza - managed to beat the objections, obtaining the right stamps of approval from the usual collection of city departments and alphabet-soup hearing boards. All the while, he argued that putting parking out back would help bolster Central's walkable vibe because it would allow the building to be close to the street without adding a curb cut - a feature that is widely seen as detracting from the urban pedestrian experience.

But that winning streak has come to an abrupt end. Following a last-ditch appeal mounted by neighbors and the Downtown Neighborhoods Association, the city's Land Use Hearing Officer concluded last week that the development as presently planned breaks local land use rules dealing with how cars get to properties on that particular stretch of Central.

At issue is something called a character protection overlay, a feature of the city's Integrated Development Ordinance that allows for different rules to apply in a handful of isolated areas. The property where the apartment complex would go sits in a CPO that includes most of the Downtown Neighborhoods, and the rules specify that for properties along Central west of Fourteenth, "primary vehicular access" shall be from Central.

Rembe knew that going in, and so over two years ago had sought to clarify how that would apply to his project in particular. In response, the city's Zoning Enforcement Officer ruled that in order to pass muster, the complex's residents could use the lot at the end of Sixteenth Street but the commercial/retail spaces fronting Central could not. They would have to find parking elsewhere or figure out some other way to access the building.

The plan, Rembe told Land Use Hearing Officer Steven Chávez last month, is to direct anyone patronizing future storefronts there - and anyone doing maintenance in the apartments - to curbside parking spots along Central. Those trips could well add up to more vehicular visits than the residents themselves would make, he argued, particularly given post-COVID work-from-home trends and the fact that someone living in such a complex might choose to not have a car anyway.

"Whatever has more traffic than the other - that's primary to me," Rembe said. "They're going somewhere … primary vehicular access is from Central Avenue."

But Chávez didn't buy the reasoning, calling the lack of a driveway onto the property from Central a "striking violation" of the rules. The argument, which was also proffered by the city at last month's hearing, "turns a blind eye to the facts in the record," he wrote, creating "a theoretical fiction to get around the restriction."

By Chávez's own account, he was disappointed to have reached that conclusion. At the hearing, he showed little interest in the other points made by the neighbors (he ultimately dismissed them all) but zeroed in on the access point while also expressing sympathy for Rembe's position.

"I almost teared up when I saw that provision because I don't see how you get around it," Chávez told the developer.

Though the hearing Chávez presided over has some of the trappings of a judicial inquiry, he is in fact acting as an agent of the City Council in the matter. His opinion is, formally speaking, a recommendation to them on what to do. Though the council typically signs off on the LUHO's recommendations, it reserves the right to reject them. The matter is slated to be heard at the November 18 meeting.

[ABQalex]

Albuquerque Business First today had a story with pics about Jay Rembe's Griegos Farms project in the North Valley. They say that the first units may be finished and available to rent in January.

https://www.bizjournals.com/albuquer...n-january.html

Rembe Urban Design + Development expects to finish the first phase of its North Valley project by January 2025, Development Associate Jack Rembe said.

Griegos Farms, a rental community at 4520 Guadalupe Church St. NW, was inspired by Seattle-based architect Ross Chapin’s pocket neighborhood design. It combines the pocket neighborhood design with the cottage court concept.

More common in the Pacific Northwest, the pocket neighborhood encourages walkability and neighbor interaction by building freestanding units that face internal landscape spaces.

At Griegos Farms, that looks like seven to 16 units facing inward around a small grassy space filled with fruit trees, such as pomegranate and fig.

After studying Chapin’s work and visiting several of his projects, Rembe said the development firm decided to bring the concept to New Mexico.

“[It] is just an innovative housing type that doesn’t really exist here in New Mexico,” Rembe said. “There’s no shared walls, [and] there’s no garages. You’re kind of forcing the resident to meander through these pathways that we’ll have throughout the property.”

The development group, wanting to tailor the community to the region, added design concepts familiar to Northern New Mexico, such as pitched roofs, vertical windows and an emphasis on landscaping, Rembe said.

The first cottage court at Griegos Farms is 70% leased, Rembe said, even though its lowest rents are $200 more per month than Albuquerque’s median monthly rent, according to Zillow data. The cottages are between 880 square feet and 1,070 square feet with monthly rent payments ranging from $1,850 to $2,450, Rembe said.

“[Demand] has been pretty strong,” Rembe said. “I’d say the demographic has accepted the concept.”

This is Rembe Urban Design + Development’s first-ever pocket neighborhood community. The local developer plans to do more of these communities in Albuquerque, Rembe said. He declined to disclose where in Albuquerque they plan to do these pocket communities, and it’s unclear how many more they will do.

Planning for the project began in 2020, and it broke ground in April. Abrazo Homes is the general contractor, and Kenny Meyers is the architect.

The project’s first phase has 42 cottages, and the final phase has about 48 cottages and a community building. The final phase is expected to be finished in the second or third quarter of 2025, Rembe said.

The community building will have a gym, patio space, co-working space and executive offices available for rent to accommodate tenants that work remote or hybrid, Rembe said.

The cottages are one story with parking behind the cottages in parking courts to encourage interaction among neighbors. The one-bedroom cottages have upstairs storage compartments.

Rembe Urban Design + Development will manage the property.

Here's another pic from a recent Albuquerque Journal story about the project.

https://www.abqjournal.com/business/...94546b7b5.html



And here are some nice aerial pics from the roofing contractor on the project. They were posted back at the end of September on their social media accounts.

https://www.instagram.com/level7tx/p/DAWju7Ctxda/

[ABQalex]

The Albuquerque Business First story above about Griegos Farms mentions that Jay Rembe has plans for more of these cottage court rental communities in Albuquerque, although he didn't reveal the details or where those projects might be built. I believe I've found some info about at least one of those future projects.

It looks like he and his development company have another such community planned on the Westside near Golf Course Drive and McMahon Boulevard NW. It's also just south of Westside Boulevard and the border with Rio Rancho, hence the name on the site plan. It will have 153 units arranged in clusters throughout the site. The units here look more like townhouses than cottages.





Another rental community in this area that I found out about earlier this year is a build-to-rent community of single family homes and duplexes along Unser Boulevard south of Paseo del Norte. It's being developed by JLM Living, which is also currently building a BTR community with 126 units in Rio Rancho adjacent to the Village at Rio Rancho project. The JLM Living project in Albuquerque will have 231 units.





Another BTR community with 344 units is also currently being built in this area of Northwest Albuquerque. The Bedrock at The Trails community got underway late last year at Paseo del Norte and Woodmont Avenue. It will consist of two phases/communities, one with 145 single family homes and another with 199 townhouse-style units.

https://laterradev.com/projects/bedrock-at-the-trails/

[ABQalex]

Albuquerque Business First also recently had a story about an Arizona real estate company buying Cottonwood Corners.

https://www.bizjournals.com/albuquer...nix-group.html

A Phoenix-based commercial development group acquired a 19.2-acre property Oct. 23 on Albuquerque's Westside.

SimonCRE purchased Cottonwood Corners at 3741 Ellison Road NW from Gibson-Cottonwood LLC, et al, according to the Bernalillo County Assessor’s Office. SimonCRE CEO and Founder Joshua Simon declined to disclose the purchase cost.

SimonCRE hasn’t had a presence in the Albuquerque area since before the Covid-19 pandemic. A property in Las Cruces is SimonCRE’s only other presence in the state, Simon said.

Cottonwood Corners has a total leasable area of 218,144 square feet. Current tenants include Barnes & Noble, Best Buy, Michaels and New Balance. The strip center still has 29,233 square feet of big-box space and 4,679 square feet of shop space available.

Base 5 Retail will handle the ongoing property leasing, according to a SimonCRE news release.

SimonCRE is actively working to add to its footprint in Albuquerque within the next six months, Simon said.

Before this story I had came across an interesting request before the Environmental Planning Commission back in September by the company to change the zoning for one of the parcels of Cottonwood Corners to allow for a future grocery store. They have the support of the neighbors for the zone change, with many saying they look forward to having a new grocery store in the area.

https://documents.cabq.gov/planning/...orners_ZMA.pdf



I do wonder what grocery store may be interested in locating here.

There are already two Smith's locations fairly nearby and an Albertsons location very nearby as well. Walmart, Sam's Club, Costco, Target and Sprouts are all also very nearby in the Cottonwood Mall area. The only brands or stores that I can think of that aren't nearby are Trader Joe's and Whole Foods, both of which are highly coveted and desired by people on the Westside and Rio Rancho. I'm also hoping/wondering whether Aldi might finally be expanding to Albuquerque and New Mexico at this location.

The story says that they have about 29,000 sq ft of vacant big box space, which I'm guessing is the space next to Michaels. I looked it up and Aldi stores seem to have an average size/minimum requirement of 22,000 sq ft.

https://corporate.aldi.us/real-estat...-requirements/

Trader Joe's stores I know are usually smaller than that and around the 15,000 sq ft range. Whole Foods stores average about 40,000 sq ft, with new Whole Foods stores tending to be quite a bit larger at about 50,000 sq ft, but it's not at all unusual for them to be smaller, especially their older locations. A 29,000 sq ft Whole Foods store would certainly not be unusual, I think.

I suppose it could also be a case of an existing store moving to new and renovated space, but it will certainly be interesting to find out what the grocery store will be. I hope it's revealed soon! By the way, the EPC did grant the zoning change request.

https://documents.cabq.gov/planning/...2024-00043.pdf