Underutilized parcels need to be part of campus plan
About 75 people representing a wide variety of development-related entities recently signed on to catch briefings and tours of the city’s midtown campus, with nearly all of them in attendance to understand how to respond to the official request for expressions of interest — a key step in transforming the property once inhabited by the Santa Fe University of Art and Design.
The city wants a master developer who will propose something so amazing and complete that the city can choose that conglomeration of visionaries, financiers, land planners, engineers, architects, builders, property sellers and property managers to take on the whole darn thing.
That entity should be the consummate political player, with sensitivity to neighborhoods, first and foremost, but also knowing how to get five votes on the City Council. Then there’s the critical political necessity of working with the state of New Mexico, the U.S. Forest Service and Santa Fe Public Schools to bring their large, underutilized parcels into the ultimate master plan. Immediately.
All midtown campus planning has been hamstrung by the unresolved status of institutionally owned lands between the campus’ chain-linked southern perimeter and the wide expanse of ballfields, playgrounds and skate parks in Franklin E. Miles Park. State and federal land also blocks access to Nava Elementary, a school that could be on the chopping block due to enrollment issues. A thousand new housing units nearby would help that cause.
The city, under the previous administration, had worked out a land swap deal with the state to get control of state parcels in exchange for city land on the south side of town by Valdes Business Park and state police property on lower Cerrillos Road. It was a complicated dual track process of writing and shepherding the state’s enabling legislation while also crafting a complementary city resolution to follow the terms of the deal.
It was masterful and complete but couldn’t get done before the recent changes of administrations at the city and the state. At this point, the city has no news. In fact, the city may be pinning its hopes on a master developer getting it done between the state and city, which is not impossible to imagine. The state is flush with cash, and the outlines of a trade have already been proposed between the city and the state.
What’s more complicated and just as important is the U.S. Forest Service property, which is surrounded by city offices on Siringo Road, Nava Elementary, various state parcels, the campus proper and vacant school district property to the north. It blocks connectivity to everything. The largely vacant federal parcel, roughly 7 acres, is mostly an empty parking lot with a few derelict machines and buildings ready to fall down.
It’s not a lot in comparison to the state property, but at 30 dwelling units per acre or more, that’s over 200 potential housing units adjacent to a big public park and a school.
Unlike negotiating with the state and its Legislature, with available staff to drop in and chat within our capital city, the federal bureaucracy of the Forest Service is a far different animal. Bringing in the federal property is a job for our congressional delegation. It’ll probably take some high-level arm-twisting or headlocking, but it needs to be done.
Santa Fe’s hope for a magical master developer may not be so far-fetched. It’s a big deal for our city, but it’s not rocket science.
Kim Shanahan is a longtime Santa Fe builder and former executive officer of the Santa Fe Area Home Builders Association.