The Senary by Allaso apartment complex nears completion in Journal Center

For New Mexico-based Titan Development, its newest apartment complex project is more than new housing — it’s about transformation.

That’s what Titan partner Josh Rogers told a room full of people gathered to celebrate the progress of a 209-unit multifamily luxury apartment complex nearing completion in the Journal Center on Friday.

“It’s very exciting to see Journal Center transform from a 12-hour workplace to an 18-hour neighborhood,” Rogers said. “You come here on the weekends, there’s people walking their dogs, and it’s only going to get better.”

The project, dubbed The Senary by Allaso, broke ground at 7501 Jefferson NE in April 2023. It spans three four-story buildings featuring studios and one- to two-bedroom apartments available at monthly rents between $1,545 and $2,775, according to Apartments.com.

The complex also offers amenities including 24 attached garages, a resort-style pool, fitness center, public and private balconies, rooftop terraces and a clubhouse lounge with a fireplace, bar and large kitchen island, Titan’s website says.

The complex is currently leasing, though only the westernmost building was complete as of Friday. Rogers said Titan expects to complete the other two buildings by the end of the year.

The Senary by Allaso gets its name from being Titan’s sixth Allaso-branded residential complex launched in the last five years; “senary” means relating to the number six.

Five of the Allaso developments are in Albuquerque and one is in Colorado Springs. All are leasing except for Allaso Olivine in Albuquerque’s Northeast Heights, which Rogers said should open in the next couple of weeks.

Two of Titan’s Allaso projects — Allaso Journal Center and The Senary by Allaso — are situated in the Journal Center, a business park home to several technology, finance and health care employers.

Bringing the Allaso brand to the Journal Center started with a “gut feeling” that people would want to start living closer to their job site over the past five years, Rogers said. Then, it was the community’s response that made Titan decide two was better than one.

“As soon as we started building (Allaso Journal Center), people started asking about it, like ‘When can I move in? When is it going to open?’” Rogers said. “A couple months into construction on the first one, we were like, ‘Well, we need to do a second one,’ and this was a good site.”

By building two multifamily communities in the Journal Center, Titan is “trying to change the narrative around the Journal Center as being a more walkable community and turning it from this business district that it was into something that’s a little bit more mixed use,” said Titan Director of Development Ian Robertson.

The development cost of The Senary by Allaso is $64.5 million, and the project has already generated $3.5 million in gross receipts taxes, according to Albuquerque City Councilor Brook Bassan, who attended Friday’s event.

Bassan admired the creativity and design of the space, which she called “gorgeous,” but noted its ability to help address Albuquerque’s housing shortage as more important.

“There’s supposedly close to 50,000 houses needed. At that point, why do we even count? We just need more. We just need more housing of all kinds,” Bassan said.

She added that luxury complexes like The Senary by Allaso help create areas where “naturally occurring affordable housing” can also emerge.

Naturally occurring affordable housing is created when new supply of housing hits the market and increases the competition for existing supply, causing rents to fall, Rogers said.

“We need this top-down pressure from new supply to put that downward pressure on those other communities so that they lower their rents,” Rogers said.

This trend of new supply creating affordable housing is currently playing out in Albuquerque, Rogers said, but not as dramatically as it is in cities like Austin, Phoenix, Denver and Dallas, where Rogers said huge amounts of new supply have dropped rents considerably.

“So that’s what we as developers need to do — is deliver more, build more, do more,” Rogers said, adding that even luxury projects can play a role. “It’s like, ‘Oh, we don’t need luxury apartments,’ but no, you do. Because it puts that downward pressure on the system.”