RFP released for first phase of Innovate ABQ
Board expects to select developer for Downtown site by June 30
The Innovate ABQ board of directors released a formal request for proposals on Friday for a developer to plan and execute the first phase of building out the sevenacre high-tech research and development site at Central Avenue and Broadway Boulevard Downtown.
The board will hold a presubmission conference on May 5 to orient developers about the RFP, and then bidders will have until June 1 to submit proposals, said University of New Mexico Chief Economic Development Officer Lisa Kuttilla. The board will interview selected companies in the second half of June, and choose a developer by June 30.
“We’re sending the RFP out to a broad list of developers and associations locally and nationally,” Kuuttila told the Journal. “We want to get it out to as many potentially interested parties as possible, with a 45-day window for them to respond.”
The selected developer will compile a comprehensive plan for the first phase of the Innovate ABQ site, which may eventually include 824,000 square feet of facility space, according to the master plan approved by the UNM Board of Regents in March.
It will be built in multiple phases over 10 to 20 years, and will include a mixture of research and laboratory facilities, business offices, administrative space, residential housing for students and others, and possibly a hotel and retail shops.
The developer chosen for the first phase will focus on the first administrative facilities to house UNM’s Science and Technology Corp., the Anderson School of Management’s Small Business Institute, and the Innovation Academy — a new academic program to provide entrepreneurial training for students. Those programs will be housed together as the site’s Rainforest & Innovate ABQ nucleus, occupying between 14,000 and 18,000 square feet of space, according to the RFP.
The first phase will also likely include some research and laboratory space for startup companies.
UNM expects a lot of developer interest in the RFP, since an initial request in January for developers to express interest in the project generated many local and national responses, Kuuttila said.
Alongside the RFP, Innovate ABQ’s first official website also went live on Friday. Located at www. innovateabq.com, the site provides background on the Innovation District and the core Innovate ABQ site Downtown.
It provides an interactive place for the public and the business community to get more information, ask questions and get involved, Kuuttila said.
“It offers developers a place to look at the RFP and retrieve related materials, so we thought it was important to launch at the same time that we sent out the RFP,” Kuuttila said.
Meanwhile the city of Albuquerque is also expected to launch an Innovate Central website on Monday that will focus on efforts to build out the broader Innovation District, which will eventually stretch from Downtown to UNM.