Revitalizing old school
Ex-Catholic classrooms will be work, play gathering center
Over the past few decades, local businessman Ted Harrison has passed 314 S. Guadalupe thousands of times on his way to work. Nearly 50 years ago, the Pueblo Revival-style building not far from the Railyard District was a Catholic elementary school.
The building has been used on and off for other operations but for the past three years has been empty. Harrison became intrigued by the mysterious structure with its tall ceilings and large windows. He saw its vacancy as a missed opportunity.
In redeveloping the building, Harrison hopes to bring back its status as a “well-loved and fully engaging” social center. “This building should be a community gathering place, as it served in its original function as a school,” he said.
The project, Common Ground, is intended to be a place where people can both work and play. The 8,300-square-foot facility will include a cafe, two yoga studios, a seasonal ice cream stand and a backyard area with spaces for bocce ball and bean bag games.
About half of the building’s usable space will be configured into a co-working space for rent to local businesses and entrepreneurs. Several offices and spaces have already been reserved, Harrison said.
The Archdiocese of Santa Fe still owns the building at the corner of Guadalupe and Agua Fria. It was built in 1926 as a parochial school for the nearby Our Lady of Guadalupe church, according to archdiocese
archivist Bernadette Lucero. The school closed in 1969.
Since then, the archdiocese has leased it out as office space and, until about three years ago, it was used as a furniture store.
Common Ground is scheduled to open in three phases. The cafe is set to start operations in early May, the yoga studios by June 1 and the co-working offices and desk spaces by late June.
With a 25-year lease from the archdiocese, this is Harrison’s first venture into building a retail-type facility. He has been the president and founder of Commonweal Conservancy, a preservation organization that has aimed to protect the Galisteo Basin Preserve, since 2003 and is on the board of the Santa Fe Community Foundation.
Common Ground’s yoga studios will be operated by YogaSource, a local business with locations on San Mateo and Early Street.
Harrison couldn’t say who will be operating the cafe in Common Ground, as the owners are being “protective” about making their own announcement. But he described the business as “a very successful, muchloved cafe operator that has multiple locations in Santa Fe.”