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Monday, September 29, 2008
Developer Forges Ahead With Plans for Massive Community at Mesa del Sol
By Richard Metcalf
Copyright © 2008 Albuquerque Journal
Journal Staff Writer
Sony Pictures Imageworks' plans for a three-building campus at Mesa del Sol have stalled, but construction is still booming at the giant master-planned community south of the Albuquerque International Sunport.
The Culver City, Calif.-based special effects company has opened a local office with about 15 employees, and more to come, in about 11,000 square feet of leased space at Plaza Compaña, also known as the Qwest building, in Downtown. "Our plans on the mesa are on hold," said Sony spokesman Don Levy, citing broader economic and industry issues as the reason.
Elsewhere at Mesa del Sol, Boston-based Fidelity Investments, which launched its local human resource operation in temporary quarters in May, will move up to 350 employees into its new two-story, 216,000-square-foot office building in December. Fidelity has said it expects its local employment to grow to 1,200.
Ground was only broken on the building in February, but the project is six weeks ahead of schedule.
"You have to view it as a partnership," said Chris Anderson, director of commercial development at Forest City Covington, about the speed of the build-to-suit project for Fidelity. "We can only go as fast as the decisions they make."
The overall developer of the Mesa del Sol master-planned community, Forest City, estimates 4,100 jobs will be housed in the buildings currently in some phase of construction.
A quarter mile from the Fidelity building, the steel girders of Germany-based Schott Solar's 200,000-square-foot plant are being erected. Site work is underway on Long Beach, Calif.-based Molina Healthcare's 25,000-square-foot data center.
According to the original schedule, Sony Imageworks should've been moving into a two-story, 50,000-square-foot office building about now. Also planned were a 15,000-square-foot data center and a second 35,000-square-foot office building.
While Sony's plans have stalled, Mesa del Sol's existing film production complex is seeing substantial growth.
A sprawling studio
Albuquerque Studios has doubled in size since opening in spring 2007 and now encompasses 336,000 square feet on 28 acres.
The hallmark of ABQ Studios, as it's often called, are the eight sound stages totalling 168,000 square feet. The four largest sound stages are cavernous 24,000-square-foot buildings with 55-foot-high ceilings.
"These are the largest concrete tilt-up walls in the state," said Jason Hariton, vice president of operations at Albuquerque Studios, as he stood in the middle of one. "The (ceiling) grid is able to handle incredible loads. You can hang 10,000 pounds on any one point."
Six of the studio's eight sound stages are empty because production ended for "Terminator Salvation," the fourth movie installment in the "Terminator" series. Due for release next year, the big-budget film stars Christian Bale of "Dark Knight" fame as John Connor.
"They had enough explosives here to battle Kirtland," Hariton joked, referring to the nearby Air Force base.
The production involved 2,000 people working at one time or another at the studio, he said. With the exception of stars and movie executives, labor on the film was provided entirely by New Mexicans, he said.
Four hundred construction workers worked on "Terminator Salvation," he said, adding, "They spent many millions of dollars on lumber and steel."
The two soundstages now in use are for the production of the television series "Breaking Bad," which is set in New Mexico. The drama won two Emmy awards this year for best actor and best editing.
Employment at Albuquerque Studios ranges from a few hundred, as is the case now, to 2,500. Hariton said, "A thousand is really easy to make."
Center of town
Not much more than a stone's through from Albuquerque Studios is the three-story, 78,000-square-foot town center building, scheduled to open in November.
The first floor will house a cafe, 5,000-square-foot welcome center and assorted retail stores. The top two floors will be leased for offices, including 12,000 square feet to be occupied by Forest City.
Designed by noted Albuquerque architect Antoine Predock, the building's west-facing front is a wall of glass overlaid in pop art style with a honeycomb pattern. The pattern combines art with practical function.
"It actually provides 60 percent coverage of the glass," Anderson said. "It reduces the sun load, but you can still look out."
The town center building also faces a two-acre park that will serve as Mesa del Sol's main plaza. There's a scheme to hold movie screenings in the park, projecting the films on the exterior glass wall of the Predock-designed building.
Discussions are underway with potential developers of hotel and apartment projects in or near the town center, said Amy Coburn, director of planning and residential development at Forest City.
A few hundred yards away from the town center building, site work is under way on Mesa del Sol's first residential neighborhood.
The start of home construction appears to be a moving target, given the housing slump. The first model homes had been expected to open in the first quarter, but it now looks like next summer, Coburn said.
In a broader picture, home construction has stalled dramatically in the metro area. Only 76 building permits were issued in August for single-family homes, according to DataTraq. For comparison, the metro averaged 735 permits a month for single-family homes in 2005 — the peak year of the housing construction bubble.
But Forest City's "jobs first" development strategy will lead to workers at Mesa del Sol moving into the master-planned community's housing, said Mark Lautman, economic development director at Forest City. "We've expanded the concept of sustainable development from conserving water and energy to saving people's time," he said.
The opening residential phase will have about 200 homes in 10 different product types, ranging in size from 900 to 4,000 square feet. Prices will start at around $160,000. When built out, the first neighborhood near the town center building and Albuquerque Studios will have 580 homes.
In conjunction with the residential development, Forest City is planning in two or three years to build a 22,000-square-foot charter school next to the Fidelity building. Once the neighborhoods get big enough, the school will be relocated and the building turned into office or flex space.
Sustainable design
The sustainable approach to development can be illustrated by the 40,000-square-foot visitors parking lot at the Fidelity building, where pervious concrete was used as paving.
"It allows water to pass through the concrete and not run off," Anderson said.
Resembling pellets set in paste, pervious concrete is more common in wetter climates like the Southeast, so its use in a drier climate like Albuquerque's is a bit of a test run, he said. The question is whether soil will collect in the paving's rough surface to the point of being a nuisance.
"It's more durable than asphalt," he said. "The only maintenance might be vacuuming up silt and sand."
At the town center building, solar panels will be installed as shade over a third-story deck at the southeast corner. The panels will generate enough power to supply eight to nine houses, Anderson said.
Now in its sixth year, Mesa del Sol has a 40-50-year timeline for build out. Forest City has the rights to develop 9,000 out of the community's 12,900 total acres. The master plan calls for 37,500 houses, condos and apartments — about 10,000 more units than you'll find in Rio Rancho today — and more than 18 million square feet of office, industrial and retail space.
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