$2 million Downtown Albuquerque property includes underground tunnel

This isn’t your classic $2 million real estate listing. Rather, the 1.63-acre parcel tells a story of an older Albuquerque Downtown that once served as the financial epicenter of the city.

Under an unassuming parking lot with a Bank of America drive-thru, on the corner of Lomas and 7th NW, sprawls a long underground tunnel. Brightly painted, alternating orange and yellow wall panels span about half of the tunnel’s length, while other ceiling and wall panels are missing throughout the dormant space.

The parcel, at 605 Lomas NW, is up for sale — including its aboveground and underground components.

Following a spiral staircase down into the dimly lit tunnel, equipment throughout the space, including a telephone switchboard, large old-fashioned vault and dumbwaiter once used for transporting money between floors, reveals an older age to the property.

Oso Grande Technologies, an innovative tech company, owns the space, which is next door to the company’s 60,000-square-foot main office and data center complex.

But the tech company really doesn’t have a use for the unique underpass, said Oso Grande Board Chair Dennis Jontz. Despite other companies expressing interest in obtaining the property, Oso Grande hasn’t found the right buyer yet.

“We have had a number of opportunities to sell it to gas stations, car washes,” Jontz said, “and because our board is made up of people that care about Downtown, we have chosen to pass that up, hoping someday, something valuable will go in there.”

Oso Grande wants to see the space used in a meaningful way that betters the Downtown area, which has struggled with high crime rates and an influx of homeless encampments.

The property itself was once riddled with similar activities, and an employee every morning would clean up “feces, syringes, liquor bottles,” Jontz said.

He added, “We got to the point where you can’t hire anybody to do that,” so Oso Grande spent around $100,000 to install a light system to keep the facility bright at night, which has helped reduce the problems.

The property’s online listing describes the space as a “rare, large Downtown parcel.” Jontz said the city of Albuquerque has shown interest in developing the parcel into something like a park. There are already around two dozen mature trees in the parking lot area.

“The city thinks it’s a hot piece of property too, and they are very thankful that it’s not a car wash,” Jontz said.

Other proposals Jontz has received for the space include a child care center or a dining experience.

“I mean, (one interested party) looked at it and said, yeah, they could put a line of tables down here,” Jontz said. “You know, it’s more complicated than it seems. If you’re going to serve people down here, the ventilation and safety issues are critical, but, to me, it would really create some interest Downtown.”

The history of the property itself is a little blurry.

Jontz said other long-time city residents and history aficionados have told him there are a series of tunnels sitting unused under Downtown, once used for banking purposes. More specifically, they think the city had pneumatic tube systems underneath it, essentially older underground tunnels once used to transport material like mail or to service ATMs.

But the tales may be urban myths, as few records of a network of tunnel systems in Downtown Albuquerque exist, according to Journal archives. However, one Albuquerque Journal edition from 1976 references using “the Downtown tunnels” to expand infrastructure in the area. Other tunnel projects for railway purposes, dating back to 1969, never came to fruition, according to Journal archives.

Few other results appeared in Journal archives for underground tunnels Downtown, though below-ground passageways are known to exist in other parts of the city, such as underneath the Sunport.

The Bank of America, which leases a portion of the parcel, didn’t respond to an inquiry about whether the company once used the tunnels.

“It’s kind of interesting that we’ve owned it 10 years and never really (found out) what went on,” Jontz said.