NE Heights shopping plaza, home to Howie’s Sports Page, to undergo ‘long overdue’ renovation

Transformation is in store for a longtime shopping center on the corner of Tramway and Montgomery NE in the far Northeast Heights.

Caracol Plaza, a 50,838-square-foot property situated at 12500 Montgomery NE, will undergo renovations next year as part of the new owner’s efforts to attract tenants and turn the largely vacant center into a vibrant community hub.

“We want to bring in some neighborhood amenities where the residents of the neighborhood can come in, relax, grab a bite and do some shopping,” owner Peter Kapuranis said. “I think it’s long overdue.”

Kapuranis plans to update the plaza — built in 1985 — with fresh stucco, improved signage and a new name, color palette, roof and parking lot, according to a Commercial Association of Realtors New Mexico listing. Vacant units will be prepped to offer prospective tenants a new HVAC unit, bare concrete floors, exposed ceilings and walls ready for design.

Construction work on the project — dubbed Albuquerque’s “most anticipated redevelopment” by commercial real estate firm Resolut RE, which is handling the leasing of available units — is slated to begin in the second quarter of 2026 and finish by the end of next year, Kapuranis said.

A finalized project cost has yet to be determined, Kapuranis said.

“The property’s got really good bones,” Kapuranis said. “It was built really well, which is good news and that gives us a good base to build off of. A lot of what we’re doing is going to be cosmetic and rebranding the whole thing.”

Kapuranis’ family, many of whom live in New Mexico, purchased Caracol Plaza in the ’90s. Kapuranis inherited the property after his father, Frank Kapuranis, died two years ago.

Kapuranis is the principal of J&B Building Co., a Colorado-based commercial real estate company with experience in purchasing and rehabilitating distressed properties.

“We have lots of experience with breathing new life into older shopping centers like this,” Kapuranis said, referencing a dozen or so similar projects in Colorado. “So that’s why we’re holding on to it. We see a lot of value in the neighborhood and in the site there.”

The property sits on a high-traffic corner, with exposure to more than 40,000 vehicles per day, according to the CARNM listing. Caracol Plaza is home to established longtime tenants, including Howie’s Sports Page, Jazzercise, several salons and a voting center.

Despite its position in what the CARNM listing describes as one of the city’s “most desirable trade areas” — surrounded by dense residential neighborhoods with above-average household incomes — the shopping center’s occupancy rate is roughly 54%, with 23,160 square feet available to lease and a lease with a national retailer pending, according to listing agent Austin Tidwell with Resolut RE.

Not counting the pending lease, which would fill a roughly 10,000-square-foot lone-standing building on the property’s northwest corner, the shopping center is currently approximately 35% occupied, Tidwell said.

The current vacancies are what Kapuranis, Tidwell and co-listers Remsa Troy and Daniel Kearney are hoping to change.

“We see the opportunity,” Tidwell said. “As soon as we put a sign up, we started getting phone calls, emails and texts either from interested prospects or just from people in the community. ... The community at large wants to see this center thrive and fill up, and I think this is going to be something that’s really special to see come to fruition.”

If the pending deal pans out, the national retailer will serve as the center’s anchor tenant and “really help” Resolut RE’s leasing efforts, Tidwell said.

Kapuranis said he’s hoping to secure at least two restaurants as tenants to complement the property’s outdoor patio spaces and a variety of other retail and service offerings. The center’s existing tenants will remain at the center and in business during the renovations, Kapuranis said.

“I’m just hoping to create a lot of synergy and a place where the community can gather and generate memories,” Kapuranis said.