URL: http://www.abqjournal.com/north/308900north_news02-24-05.htm

Thursday, February 24, 2005
DOT Has Plans for Complex
By John T. Huddy
Journal Staff Writer
    The state Department of Transportation has plans to raze most of its office complex at Cerrillos and Cordova roads and build in its place a new state office complex along with retail stores, condominiums and a regional commuter rail depot.
    State Transportation Secretary Rhonda Faught presented the state's plans for the 26-acre project Wednesday to the Santa Fe City Council.
    Faught and other department officials emphasized that the plans, shown in conceptual drawings to the council, were very preliminary. "This is a pre-master plan to the master plan," Faught said.
    The idea of putting a rail depot on the Transportation Department site is that commuters using rail service proposed to connect Albuquerque and Santa Fe could hop off the train and walk to nearby state offices. The massive South Capitol complex of state government buildings is just east of the Transportation Department site, along St. Francis.
    Gov. Bill Richardson has pushed for rail service to, first, connect Belen through Albuquerque to Bernalillo and then on northward into Santa Fe. The governor recently predicted commuter trains will be running between Albuquerque and Santa Fe in about three years.
    For commuters with jobs in Downtown Santa Fe, the state will work with local and regional transit systems to provide shuttle and bus service, the council was told. Also, the commuter rail service also will continue north into the Downtown Railyard.
    And for state employees who want to live a stone's throw from their desks, a large chunk of the Transportation Department's redevelopment project may be designated for residential use, including apartments, condominiums and possibly houses.
    "The idea is to open it (the transportation complex) more for people to stay here," Faught said outside the council's chambers.
    Faught said one building, a historic structure on the site, "will not be demolished."
    She did not have an estimate for the development's costs. "That will have to be worked out with the developer," she said. The state "is putting in all the infrastructure," Faught said.
    Councilors were excited about the project, though they cautioned against overdeveloping the area with retail stores to the detriment of bordering neighborhoods. The council also emphasized the importance of continuing the commuter line into the city-owned Railyard property Downtown.
    "We would hate for this to supplant what the Railyard is supposed to be," as the hub for rail services, Councilor Karen Heldmeyer said.
    That will not change, Faught told the councilors.
    A request for proposals from developers to draft the project's master plan will go out "in the next two weeks or so," Faught said. She hopes a developer will be on board by early April.