New Santa Fe Place Mall Transit Center Improvements Considered

City of Santa Fe officials are pushing ahead with plans to acquire over half an acre of land for a permanent transit hub at Santa Fe Place mall.

If a sale goes though, the city will begin work on around $750,000 worth of improvements. Plans include new shelters, lighting, bike racks, trash cans and information kiosks.

“It will be safe. It will operate more efficiently. It will be ADA compliant. We’ll have new technology,” Santa Fe Transit Division director Jon Bulthuis said.

The city is looking at buying a little less than 0.78 acres in the mall’s south parking lot, along the corridor the bus system currently uses. The sale price is likely to be between $250,000 and $300,000, Bulthuis said.

For the past twenty years or so, Santa Fe Trails has been operating its Santa Fe Place center out of what’s essentially a landscaping island, Bulthuis said. The situation was initially intended to be temporary.