City faces tough choices on Midtown Campus
As Mayor Alan Webber said when a national development company recently pulled out of trying to remake the city-owned Midtown Campus site, Santa Fe now faces making some “really hard decisions” about what to do with the 64-acre property.
For the past couple of years, there’s been excitement about what the campus could become after its former tenant, the for-profit Santa Fe University of Art and Design, closed two years ago. Much public comment was collected and conceptual designs, most of them innovative and futuristic, were submitted for what was described as an unprecedented opportunity to create a new neighborhood in the city’s geographical center.
But things have taken a hard turn since Texasbased KDC Real Estate and Development pulled out of the project just last month.
At a City Council meeting Wednesday, a consultant described the site and its decades-old buildings as “a distressed asset.” Ouch.
KDC’s own report on the campus property, obtained by Journal North reporter Kyle Land, recommended demolishing 17 buildings on the site and preserving only eight.
“The remaining buildings that will not be preserved will need to be demolished to reduce the City’s holding costs and liabilities, and clear a path for new development and users on the campus,” the report stated.
Now, there’s discussion of just selling the property outright. The debt service on the campus, purchased by the city in 2009 when the old College of Santa Fe collapsed, is $1.7 million a year.
“It’s a tremendous drain on the city’s resources,” said former City Councilor Mike Harris, a vocal advocate for redevelopment of the St. Michael’s Drive corridor that includes the campus. “The city of Santa Fe is going to have to probably do more than what they have in the past. If we can’t make that happen, then I think there needs to be a serious discussion about selling the property.”
On the table is whether the city should undertake the additional expense of demolishing or rehabilitating campus buildings, or even adding infrastructure improvements to enhance the site’s value or attraction to development partners.
The basic question, really, is whether the city should just bail on having a part in redevelopment other than standard zoning and other city code requirements that a new owner would have to follow.
The city borrowed $30 million to buy and improve the campus in 2009, but the cost has, of course, actually become much more than that with the continuing interest on financing added in.
One idea would be to devise a master plan for the campus that interested developers would have to follow as a way to put the public interest first. That’s what happened when the city purchased the Railyard in the 1990s in the face of public concerns that overdevelopment would be undertaken by private owners.
The city still owns the Railyard land. The businesses that have moved in under the master plan, while owning their buildings, are in fact lessees.
Of course, it’s taken a quarter of a century for the Railyard to get to where it is now and there were years, particularly during the Great Recession, when the project stalled. And going this route at this point for the Midtown Campus would essentially mean starting all over again.
The city also could impose its own zoning plan on the campus before selling it off — designating parcels for apartments or single-family homes, office space, health care facilities, educational institutions and retail or entertainment options that have been mentioned in the best-laid plans discussed over the past couple of years.
Of course, there’s still a chance a major development partner may emerge. There were several other groups, including one that included dozens of locals that envisioned an attractive, multi-faceted $400 million build-out, that filed formal “expressions of interest” before KDC was chosen for the project.
Will the poor condition of most of the campus buildings, other drawbacks such as asbestos in the structures or a reduced market for office space postCOVID scare them off now?
The cost of the campus to city taxpayers mounts with every debt service payment. So, while it’s time for a collective deep breath while City Hall tries to figure out where to go next with the campus, the delay can’t be indefinite.
It will be a tough call. Should Santa Fe spend more money to fix up or clear the campus in hopes of attracting a willing and enthusiastic master developer attuned to the city’s needs and wants? Negotiate with one of the parties rejected before KDC was chosen?
Or sell the campus, eliminating the cost of debt service, and hope for the best?
After all, given the public build-up over the positive things the campus could be used for — including affordable housing, a public amphitheater, George Martin taking over the Greer Garson Theatre, etc. — just selling the property for an unspecified purpose, even if that’s the most practical solution, would be a real disappointment.
Everyone who lives here is aware not only of New Mexico’s ranking in terms of education, but also other measurements, such as child well-being, poverty and so on. It’s easy to get discouraged about these things and feel like our state is not a good place. It’s easy to feel not only discouragement about this state, but also that New Mexico will never pull itself out of these problems. These issues are longstanding, complicated and hard to solve.
Of course, COVID made this trickier. Our state has responded well in so many ways to this crisis. It has been painful for many people, but the state response overall has been excellent, thoughtful and serious. Then again, once COVID becomes less of a problem, once we’re vaccinated and things return to normal, New Mexicans are faced with the same problems again.
I’m a teacher. I consider myself lucky to have taught English for three years at Capital High in Santa Fe. When it comes to helping New Mexico improve, that’s my area — education. I love what I teach and hope that I can make a difference. I want to give students what I was lucky enough to have access to as a young person: an introduction to the richness of culture, the wisdom inherent in it, and the kind of mind training that comes from reading, writing and so forth.
One of the best things about working in the public education system here is the sense that we can make things better, help others and actually improve the system itself. That’s what I want to talk about. Improving our public schools is not a new idea. In fact, it’s something that gets repeated so much that it’s become a cliché or, at least, a debate people come back to again and again. How to improve schools?
There are many factors, funding being perhaps the biggest one. It’s a very complicated situation. However, I’m not very knowledgeable about that side of education and I wanted to talk about something different, a way to think about education that we don’t hear about.
Again, one of the best things about being a teacher in this state is the sense that we can change things, that the system is open to change. There’s a feeling among a lot of educators that we should try different things out and see how it goes. If a technique works, keep it. If not, move on and try something else.
Let me get to the point. I think our schools do good work, but they can improve. It’s hard to argue that. People debate and argue endlessly about how to make things better. The trend, right now, is to talk about things such as data, as if teachers were scientists. The trend is to analyze schools as if they were businesses, in terms of efficiency, problem-solving, leveraging, action steps. The “core standards” are everlooming, hanging over the heads of educators and supposedly providing a sensible and clear structure for what we teach.
Does that sound boring? It’s extremely boring. But boredom isn’t the worst thing — beyond that, it’s soul deadening, taking the richness and vitality out of what should be fascinating subjects. It makes what should be a journey of discovery, and turns it into a routine and lifeless process. Our culture is so full of life, but what about our schools? Students are suspicious of these places, and for good reason. My suggestion is a move away from the soulless core standards and pseudo-scientific trends in teaching.
As I said, I was lucky enough to get a good education. I want to open that door for my students. I want public schools to become more like private schools. Do you see rich families rushing to enroll their kids in public schools? There’s a reason for that. We have a chance, now, to change things. Let’s head in the right direction.