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I want to thank University of New Mexico President Bob Frank and Mayor Richard Berry for initiating the current discussion on a city-UNM collaboration.
UNM certainly has a substantial role to play in Albuquerque’s economic future, and Albuquerque certainly needs game-changing initiatives to become a place where people can work smarter and unleash their creativity. In fact, between UNM and the city we already have what we need to do exactly that, we just have to be more strategic in how we use what we already have. Here’s how.
Between Downtown and UNM along Central lays the 35-acre Presbyterian Hospital campus. There are some 30,000 jobs between Downtown and Presbyterian Hospital. North of Central between University Boulevard and Girard is the 270-acre UNM main and north campus with its law school, medical school and UNM Hospital with over 15,000 additional jobs.
South of Central along University you have UNM’s 340-acre south campus. Yet the “South Campus Placemaking Plan” which includes the UNM Science and Technology Park, the Pit and 900 newly built student housing units is solely focused on the south campus area as if it were unconnected to the rest of the city.
The UNM Board of Regents has just appropriated $10 million for infrastructure improvements for that “plan.” Just east of that planned area, you have the parking-lot dominated 55-acre Cental New Mexico Community College campus – a campus with buildings paid for and supported by taxpayer bonds with no discernible connection to anything around it. Voters just approved $70 million in bonds for CNM. Directly south of CNM’s campus, you have Isotopes ballpark and the UNM sports complex.
There are over 75,000 staff, students, and employees in and out of UNM’s and CNM’s campuses. When the Isotopes are in town or there is a game at the Pit or UNM football stadium you have 15,000 to 40,000 additional people in the area. With the residential population of the neighborhoods north and south of Central, the total population of the area is between 135,000 and 175,000.
Talk about creating an economic engine.
If we truly want to become a place where people can work smarter and unleash their creativity and attract national and regional employers and nurture local businesses, all we need to do is connect these dots and create a vibrant urban Albuquerque.
This is the real platform Albuquerque should be pursuing as the game changer for its future, not the 10 acres at Broadway and Central.
Bring Presbyterian Hospital, UNM north and south, UNMH, CNM, the sports complexes, Downtown’s government (city and county) and our financial institutions, all major economic engines and all with substantial land bases, to the same table. Initiate the discussion on what contribution each can make to connect their sizeable employee and client bases to walkable places where people can live, shop, entertain, recreate and collaborate, i.e. create a 21st century city that is competitive with other western cities.
Part of the equation for creating any 21st century city, must also include workforce housing and livable wage jobs. Proposing to take funds away from affordable housing, a proven success story in leveraging private investment funds is not the answer.
Affordable and market rate housing developed by private non-profits using the workforce housing plan does not create,”hand to mouth existence and an increased reliance on city, state and federal tax dollars” as the Journal has so incorrectly stated. In fact as Councilor Rey Garduño so eloquently stated, “It is an investment in our community, providing the city and its taxpayers with an incredible financial and human return.”
