MaxQ@Kirtland development sees progress with opening of Kirtland Credit Union

Two years after MaxQ@Kirtland welcomed its first tenant, a second business is now up and running at the development.

Kirtland Credit Union debuted a new 2,500-square-foot branch in a ribbon-cutting at 4023 Ranger SE on the Kirtland Air Force Base site on Tuesday, making it the second tenant to open on the 70-acre civilian campus. The branch broke ground in October and opened its doors on Monday.

“We have been eagerly anticipating this moment, and it is incredibly exciting to be on the leading edge of something that is adding real momentum and energy to our community,” said Kirtland Credit Union CEO and President Matt Rarden in a statement.

Kirtland Credit Union, which serves more than 52,000 members and manages more than $1 billion in assets and eight branches across New Mexico, announced the MaxQ location last year. The credit union’s Gibson branch at 6440 Gibson SE is now closed and will serve as office space for the credit union, a spokesperson told the Journal on Monday.

The spokesperson said the new branch — designed and built by St. Louis architecture, engineering and construction firm NewGround International — enables the credit union to modernize its operations, enhance security and participate in the growing potential of an emerging commercial development.

MaxQ@Kirtland is a stretch of vacant Kirtland property located along the south side of Gibson Boulevard SE between Carlisle Avenue and Truman Street SE. Thunderbird Kirtland Development LLC, a group of developers and investors, is working to transform the land into a high-tech hub for office, laboratory, restaurant, hospitality and retail space.

The development aims to position companies developing military-related technology near the Kirtland entities they support, as well as offer nearby amenities to the more than 24,000 employees who frequent the base daily, according to the MaxQ website.

The project is made possible through the U.S. Department of Defense’s enhanced use leasing program, which allows the department to lease land on military bases for private development. The Air Force and Thunderbird Kirtland Development signed a 50-year enhanced use lease in 2020, said Kevin Yearout, a managing partner of Thunderbird Kirtland Development.

The first project of the development, a 27,000-square-foot Northrop Grumman facility on the far west side of the MaxQ site, opened in 2023.

Yearout called the addition of Kirtland Credit Union “very synergistic” and said the developer is “ecstatic to have them because they’re a great anchor tenant for our retail side of the business.”

There is much more to come, as a total of one million square feet of building space is planned for the site. The developer has built 30,000 square feet so far and 15,000 square feet are currently under construction, Yearout said. The COVID-19 pandemic stalled development a bit, but the project “is now rolling forward,” he said.

As the project develops, Thunderbird Kirtland Development will be looking to bring in a brewery, several restaurants, a neighborhood grocery store and at least one hotel. Yearout said the developer has already secured a lease with a national coffee and donut chain.

The development is also accessible to the public. At the start of the project, the developer moved Kirtland’s security fence about 600 feet south of Gibson to allow for MaxQ@Kirtland to be outside of the base’s secure perimeter. There is access off of Gibson and Carlisle, and there will be an access point at Truman in the future.

The project — funded by the developer, investors and tenants — will cost somewhere “in the hundreds of millions when it’s all said and done,” Yearout said. The spokesperson for Kirtland Credit Union declined to share the cost it invested in the new branch.

It will take between 10 to 15 years for the project to reach completion, Yearout said, though officials hope to have “a good majority” of roughly 35 acres developed over the next five years.

The original master plan for the project estimated that the completed development would house roughly 200 tenants and create more than 100,000 jobs, Yearout said.

“That’s still our goal, is this job creation and kind of a creation of a microeconomy within the overall greater economy of Albuquerque and New Mexico,” Yearout said.