Narvaiz: The top 5 business stories of 2024

How does one choose the best, or rather the most impactful, business stories of 2024?

Like last year, when I put together this list, choosing the stories isn’t easy. There’s been so much news on the business beat this year, covering everything from energy to cannabis to health care, spanning hundreds of stories.

I’m sure Ryan Boetel, the business editor at the Journal, and Megan Gleason, the desk’s assistant editor, would have a list of different stories, considering just how much news happened in 2024.

But as the year has ended, these are my top five stories from the business desk in 2024:

Ebon Solar, Maxeon Solar Technologies expansions

A solar manufacturer with Singapore roots, Ebon Solar, announced its plans in 2024 to build a massive solar cell facility in Albuquerque’s Mesa del Sol area. The company will invest roughly $1 billion in the project and create some 900 jobs by the time it is completed.

The announcement amounted to a big win for local and state officials, who, in recent years, have worked tirelessly to bring manufacturing jobs to the state in an effort to diversify and expand the workforce.

Another company, Maxeon Solar Technologies, also announced a year prior that it planned to build a solar manufacturing facility at Mesa del Sol — and both companies had plans to begin construction this year on their respective campuses.

Neither, however, has so far happened. After saying the company had hoped to begin construction in the fourth quarter of 2024, Ebon’s CEO Judy Cai told the Journal construction has been delayed until 2025. In a twist, Maxeon said it plans to begin solar module assembly in 2026 at a former Honeywell facility in Albuquerque, which will be a smaller complex than the company had previously planned.

Time will tell whether both projects ultimately get off the ground or if they are the latest in a line of companies that have failed to launch. In October, Mayor Tim Keller told a legislative committee that the expansions by both companies have the opportunity to “transform central New Mexico.” Still, he said the city has been “burned before.”

Cannabis hits $1B in sales not once but twice

In March, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham touted the state hitting $1 billion in cannabis sales, about two years after the start of legalized recreational sales. However, the number accounted for both medical and recreational sales since April 2022.

Medical sales were happening for years before adult-use sales began and long before the Cannabis Control Division, under the purview of the New Mexico Regulation and Licensing Department, began tracking sales numbers through its track-and-trace system, BioTrack.

However, the state eventually hit $1 billion in recreational sales by the end of November, according to data from the CCD. It took about two years and eight months for that to happen since legalization. Still, the sale of legalized recreational cannabis has been a boon for new and old businesses alike.

There have been downsides for the industry, depending on who you ask. The state still boasts a rather large number of businesses since no cap exists on the number of licenses that can be approved by regulators.

Some industry experts, like The Data Heard’s Bill Sluben, predict a drop in cannabis sales in 2025.

New Mexico Gas Co. plans to sell

The parent company of New Mexico Gas Co. since 2016, Canada-based Emera, announced its intention in August to sell the utility to Louisiana-based private equity firm Bernhard Capital Partners, or BCP Management, for $1.25 billion.

Emera President and CEO Scott Balfour told the Journal at the time that the company partly planned to sell the utility in an effort to strengthen its balance sheet. If the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission approves the deal, Saturn Utilities Holdco, a portfolio company under BCP Management, could replace Emera as the owner of New Mexico Gas by the fall of 2025.

Saturn Utilities Holdco would ultimately pay $700 million at closing for the gas company and assume the utility’s $550 million debt.

The acquiring company’s president, Jeff Baudier, said Saturn plans to add dozens of jobs — in the range of 51 to 61 — following the purchase. That would result in $40 million or more in additional economic activity in New Mexico and more than $2.2 million annually in new state and local tax revenues, according to an executive summary in a filing with the PRC.

Plans for Downtown Albuquerque

For years, city officials have planned or sought ideas for making Downtown Albuquerque a place people want to be — or, in other words, a true heart of the city.

That hasn’t happened, and the Downtown area continues to have vacancies, abandoned buildings and homelessness issues.

But a couple of new plans, spearheaded by business and city officials, have reinvigorated the hope for a new Downtown, which insiders hope can bolster investment in the area. Those plans — a Business Improvement District and a Tax Increment Financing District — are underway.

City councilors last month passed a TIF encompassing 321 acres, allowing officials to capture 75% of gross receipts and property taxes in the district for reinvestment. Officials have said the mechanism could ultimately generate $200 million through the district over a 20-year period.

The BID would assess a fee to businesses in the Downtown area that would provide services like marketing or security. Bill Keleher, an Albuquerque attorney, is leading the charge on the BID and said the city’s Metropolitan Redevelopment Agency has funded a consulting firm to help shape it. Stakeholders, namely Downtown property owners, are meeting in 2025 to get the district off the ground.

Business veteran appointed new EDD secretary appointed

After about a year without a permanent, full-time secretary for the state’s Economic Development Department, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham appointed Rob Black, the former president and CEO of the New Mexico Chamber of Commerce, to the post in September.

The department is largely involved in attracting economic development to the state and helping existing businesses thrive. It also oversees some agencies, like the New Mexico Film Office and Outdoor Recreation Division.

In appointing Black, whose job is still subject to Senate confirmation, Lujan Grisham is betting big on his economic development acumen to push the state forward with new growth and new opportunities.

In the months since his appointment, Black has touted site readiness as a strategy to incentivize more businesses to set up shop in the state and, by extension, create more high-paying jobs.

But what is site readiness? In simple terms, it is the act of establishing locations outfitted with utilities, roads, power and internet infrastructure. New Mexico would join three dozen other states if it creates a strategy for site readiness, Black said.

“So when a developer calls and says, ‘We’re interested and we have this X company we represent, and they need these three things,’ we can look into our database and say, ‘Here’s the land that meets that criteria,’” Black told Journal staffer Gleason back in September.