Plan would transform old Alvord school
Neighborhood meeting slated for Monday on property near Railyard
Perhaps no one knows the Railyard neighborhood better than Santa Fe real estate broker David Barker.
In 1999, Barker and his wife, Lisa, purchased the old Gross-Kelly Warehouse and renovated it into what is now the offices of Barker Real Estate, 530 S. Guadalupe St., as well as adjacent businesses. These include galleries, offices and a restaurant.
Now the couple, joined by brother John Barker, wants to take the former Alvord Elementary School and create a commercial and residential project that maintains the integrity of the 70-year-old building while creating more space for business.
“It would be a shame to tear it down,” Barker said of the school, which was closed by the Santa Fe Board of Education in 2010.
The building, at 551 Alarid St., sits on 2.9 acres and has been vacant for about six months. It is surrounded by a chain-link fence. It’s an unsightly spot for many neighbors, including Barker. He drives by the old school every day.
Barker’s plan is a work in progress, but he is
focusing on the school building that covers 31,000 square feet. The concept is to divide it into space for commercial businesses and artists, including an area for art storage, maybe a restaurant.
He wants to have some residential element as well, and is looking at six units which can be live-work spaces or purely residential, depending on demand and costs. The hope is to reinvent as much of the school building and its utility structure as possible and keep the budget for the project between $700,000 to $1 million.
Barker does not think it is cost-effective to add height to the building, and all the parking would be on-site — an issue that is of particular concern to neighbors. If the project is a success, Barker might look at future expansion of a residential area into what is now the school playground, an area estimated at eight-tenths of an acre.
But for now, just getting the main project going is a full-time job for Barker and architect Jeffrey Seres of Studio Southwest Architects.
An early neighborhood notification meeting is set for 5:30 p.m. Monday at the Farmers Market Pavilion. The proposal requires a rezone from residential to Business-Capitol District, the same category that covers the rest of the Santa Fe Railyard, and would have to be approved by both the city Planning Commission and the City Council.
Barker was one of the bidders for the property and the school district approved a sales contract in November for $2.55 million. But the purchase is contingent on rezoning approval.
Barker is already knocking on doors and asking adjacent homeowners what they want to see at the site, and if there are concerns about his ideas.
Jerry Richardson of the Guadalupe Historic Neighborhood Association has already met with Barker.
“We’re glad they are going to try and use the existing footprint of the building and not demolish it,” said Richardson. “Otherwise, we might end up with something denser on the site and not suitable.”
He said the neighborhood is inundated with visitors trying to park on the narrow side streets, especially when there are events at the city-owned Railyard and on Saturdays during the Farmers
Market hours. He and others want to make sure the primary access to the project is from Paseo de Peralta, not Alarid Street or another side street.
“What we’d like to see is not have traffic from this project come into the neighborhood,” Richardson said.
He has lived in the neighborhood since 1979 and has seen the families with children migrate to the outlying areas of Santa Fe, where housing is cheaper. He understands why the elementary school had to be closed, and now would like to see the fence come down and the property put to good use.
“It’s preferable to see something go in there than to see a vacant property. Eventually it needs to be used by someone or it will fall into disrepair,” he said.
Alvord was named after school board member Josefita “Fefe” Abeyta Hernandez Alvord, and cost $12,650 to build, according to historical information from Santa Fe Public Schools. The property was put on the market in 2011 for $3 million, but the price was reduced when the district didn’t get any offers.