New border road to expand transportation network by Santa Teresa Port of Entry

SANTA TERESA — Looking east on Pete V. Domenici Boulevard, just north of the Mexican border, yucca, mesquite and greasewood fill miles of undeveloped land. In a few years, however, that will be replaced by cars and tractor-trailers driving down the highway to El Paso, Mexico and beyond.

“It may just be a desert right now,” said Jerry Pacheco, president and CEO of the Border Industrial Association, “but in my mind, I can already see the highway.”

The Border Highway Connector will link Pete Domenici (N.M. 136) to McNutt Road (N.M. 273), improving the connection between the Santa Teresa Port of Entry and Sunland Park, he said. The project, with work set to begin this year or next, is part of a partnership between the New Mexico Border Authority and the New Mexico Department of Transportation.

“The border highway provides us a second egress/ingress to the industrial base,” Pacheco said. “So, it’s going to be easier to get in and out if you’re a company producing in Santa Teresa or if you need to get your employees or your service providers there. Plus, it will open up more economic development closer to the port of entry.”

The $150 million project consists of an 8-mile, four-lane road with wide shoulders for bicycle use, a raised median and a multi-use trail or sidewalk on both sides of the highway, NMDOT District 1 spokesperson Ami Evans said.

The end goal: A direct route to the border, improved emergency routes and reduced response times and expanding transportation infrastructure to support regional economic development opportunities, Evans said.

Added ‘level of efficiency’

The Santa Teresa Port of Entry is bustling with commercial activity that supports more than 7,000 jobs and about $2 billion in annual local economic impact. The port of entry’s import and export rankings fluctuate between sixth and seventh along the U.S.-Mexico border, Pacheco said.

The connector will allow people to get in and out quickly, he said.

“Companies want to save time with their inventories,” Pacheco said. “It’s going to add a level of efficiency and that will help us also attract new industries.”

About 80 businesses operate in Santa Teresa’s industrial parks, a number that has grown annually. Those firms produce materials and components for factories in Mexico that assemble everything from computers to automobiles and industrial equipment they then ship back to U.S.-based businesses, he said.

Santa Teresa’s proximity to major east-west and north-south highways — plus a massive, $500 million intermodal railyard transshipment center opened by Union Pacific in 2014 — has attracted companies from across the world.

“Every time we add a company to the industrial base, our exports tend to go up and our volume of trade at the port of entry tends to go up,” Pacheco said.

The highway will also support new residential developments, in part spurred by job growth in the area. For instance, Texas developers are looking to bring online a 4,700-unit residential community in Santa Teresa in the coming years, according to Albuquerque Business First.

“For the growth to be sustained, a number of infrastructure investments have to take place, including the border highway,” said Lucinda Vargas, an economics professor at New Mexico State University.

The connector will save motorists about 20 minutes and commercial truckers 40 minutes in drive time, New Mexico Border Authority Executive Director Geraldo Fierro said.

Doña Ana County District 2 Commissioner Gloria Gameros said she’s hopeful the new road will alleviate vehicle traffic “and not create any.”

“I really do hope to see an economic development boom because there are quite a bit of houses being built, businesses looking to come into the port of entry area,” she said.

‘Seemed to be in the middle of nowhere’

Pacheco said he can remember when he was a North American trade specialist on a team planning the creation of the Santa Teresa Port of Entry in 1991. At the time, Pete Domenici, which runs 12 miles from Interstate 10 to the port of entry, wasn’t even paved.

It was a washboard road “that seemed to be in the middle of nowhere,” he said.

It would become a two-lane asphalt road within the decade before expanding to a concrete four-lane highway. “Now we have some of the best roads anywhere on the border,” Pacheco said.

The idea of the connector came up several years later, but serious discussions about it started in December 2021, Pacheco said.

Due to the increase of industrial and residential development in the industrial base, Pete Domenici has been getting “clogged up,” he said. In a few years, that congestion may start clearing up.

Work on the highway project is expected to begin at the end of the year or early 2026, Evans said. The state’s proposed budget, currently going through the Legislature, would include millions of dollars for the project.

“Funding will determine what part of the project will be built first,” she said. “If all funds are received, it would be best to complete it altogether.”