This story was originally published by City Desk ABQ.
Editor’s note: This is the first installment in a series about Downtown Albuquerque, its challenges and plans to address them.
Big front porches are rare these days.
Which is why when you see a great one in Albuquerque’s historic neighborhoods it makes an impression. Big front porches have a certain charm – drawing you in with an invitation to stay awhile, have a beer, call a neighbor over to chat it up.
Downtown Albuquerque is our city’s big front porch, all 256 acres of it. What does it say about us? And what impression does it make on recent transplants, scores of visitors, tourists and businesses looking to move here?
“Downtown is really the heartbeat of a city and it reflects the face of the city,” said Ernie C’deBaca, longtime president and CEO of the Albuquerque Hispano Chamber of Commerce. “It reflects the mood and culture and vibe of the city. It’s important that our Downtown is a place where people can come to feel safe, get a good meal and get a good show.”
It wasn’t that long ago when the outdoor area at the First Plaza Galeria Mall, located at 200 3rd Street NW, felt like a public square. Daytime office workers ate lunch in the Albuquerque sun.
At night, fans of live music flocked to Downtown—forming lines outside any number of Gold and Central Avenue hot spots. The Theater District at First Street and Central bustled day and night with residents from new housing developments who joined others catching a movie or going to a variety of restaurants and bars.
But daytime office workers dwindled, the movie theater and beloved hangouts like Burt’s Tiki Lounge and Blackbird Buvette closed, and many areas now have the aura of a ghost town.
Downtown’s vibrancy has ebbed and flowed over the years. But then came the pandemic gut punch that shook the city’s economy. These days, crime is top of mind and shuttered businesses have been vacant and deteriorating for years. Add an affordable housing crisis and an alarming increase in people living on the streets and it’s easy to feel uneasy about it all.
‘It counts’
Why does it matter? Does a healthy and vibrant Albuquerque hinge on a healthy and vibrant Downtown?
City Councilor Joaquín Baca thinks so.
“Downtown is the best marketing tool for our city,” said Baca, whose District 2 encompasses the corridor. “Whenever you go visit a city, it’s never to the suburbs. That’s not where you visit.”
Others are quick to agree.It’s the Downtown amenities that executives want to see and get a feel for first — from small businesses to large corporations. Those at Albuquerque Economic Development, the city’s business recruiting organization, and chambers of commerce say Downtown is important not only to initially attract businesses, but also to entice companies and their workers to stay put.
“It counts; it counts a lot. It’s the Downtown not just for our city, but for our whole state. That’s the reason to invest in it, make it better, bring in tourists dollars and have ourselves enjoy it,” said Doug Majewski of the Greater Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce (GACC). “If you squint, it’s moving in a good direction, but it has some issues.”
Majewski is CEO of the Hartman + Majewski Design Group and chair of GACC’s Downtown “Bold Issue Groups” (BIGS), which is focused on three areas it says would help transform the corridor. First, reduce crime and homelessness; second, revive Route 66 and its historical buildings; and three, spark ideas for a game-changing project or attraction. For example, Majewski said, a Downtown performing arts center could potentially be transformative.
“We have this great amenity of Route 66 through Downtown and an opportunity to tell the story and portray the magic of our Mother Road,” he said. “We need to believe in ourselves and invest in it.”
‘You want to show off a little bit’
Terry Brunner, director of the city’s Metropolitan Redevelopment Agency (MRA), recalls a meeting he attended at the Convention Center in Memphis, Tennessee, located in the city’s downtown. He said he walked with ease out of the center’s doors at night to find a quintessential barbecue restaurant.
“People from across the country and the world who walk out of our convention center are probably looking for New Mexican food,” Brunner said. “They’re looking for a big restaurant to take 20 friends and have margaritas. We don’t have that … you want to show off a little bit of what Albuquerque has, and you want to direct them to places where they’ll spend their money.”
Brunner said a better flow from the Albuquerque Convention Center to restaurants and stores, and areas like East Downtown, is needed.
“You want to walk out of our convention center and buy jewelry, pottery or local art,” he said. “For whatever reason we make it kind of hard. We have to be a little smarter about how we use our attributes.”
Brunner said he’s very optimistic that the city’s seven-mile, multi-use Rail Trail project will help jumpstart the Downtown corridor and create easier movement through neighborhoods and amenities.
The MRA uses property incentives for developers in a variety of commercial projects across the city. Its “Downtown 2025” plan seeks to “develop, maintain, and market Downtown as if it were a single mixed-use project,” including making it pedestrian and transit friendly, sparking new retail business, creating new parks and open spaces and making the corridor a “vibrant, urban, 24-hour destination for arts, culture and entertainment.”
“There’s really no other part of the city that’s like your central district,” Brunner said. “Every town needs their central gathering place. It’s the center for government, it’s the center for entertainment, it’s the center for culture in a lot of ways. You have a really strong Route 66 culture and you also have a really strong, historic neighborhood core that makes it an interesting part of the city.”
‘Can’t afford to ignore’
At the end of 2023, Isaac “Ike” Benton finished an 18-year run as city councilor for Downtown’s District 2.
His first home was in Downtown’s Wells Park neighborhood, purchased after he moved to Albuquerque n 1976. Benton, an architect, said housing projects were important throughout his tenure and are just as important now.
“I’m prejudiced because I’ve lived Downtown and have always gravitated toward it,” Benton said. “But it’s hugely important for any city. It’s a gauge to the average investor of the health of a city. We’ve got other good things, but we can’t afford to ignore Downtown.”
Benton said most thriving U.S. cities feature downtowns that attract young people and young parents, but it has to be safe with desirable amenities.
A healthy Downtown is just as essential to residents as it is to anyone else, added City Councilor Baca, Benton’s replacement.
“It’s important for me — I’ve got two kids, teenagers,” Baca, who lives near the Central Avenue core, said. “Are they safe? Are there activities for them? I hope that they go out of state for college, but I also hope they come back. Once they start traveling is Albuquerque going to be attractive like Austin, Denver? Will there be places to go to work?”
C’deBaca puts it this way: “At the end of the day (Downtown is) our heart. We have arteries that are doing OK, but what about the heart?”
It’s important to note that the entire Central corridor, from west downtown east through Nob Hill took a major blow, forcing many businesses that collectively had been operating for hundreds of years, during the construction of the ART bus project, which was finally completed only a couple months before businesses were ordered to shutdown due to the pandemic. Former Mayor Richard Berry and the City Council forced the ART Project upon the Nob Hill and Downtown communities that fought hard against it, foreshadowing exactly what happened, and the city failed to offer the support for small businesses impacted by the construction, which it had promised. The local business community and residents were grossly misled and the project was a disaster. Several years and a pandemic later, ART buses have caused confusion and car accidents due to the awkward lanes and intersections along Central Avenue. The ART bus stop schedule has been reduced, with ART buses passing by a fraction of what they were intended to. The buses travel up and down Central with hardly any riders, and bus stops are used by homeless people, panhandlers, and loiterers, probably deterring potential riders. The ABQ Rapid Ride buses, not to be confused with the ART buses, still travel along Central and service the original bus stops, frequently slowing down traffic. ART most likely did more damage to the Nob Hill and Downtown business community than the Pandemic because at least during the Pandemic, there was support available to many types of businesses. But, when you are hit with a double whammy like that, it’s hard to survive. To this day, these areas have not recovered and are largely lifeless in comparison to 7-10 years ago.
Not sure if comments are visible, but it was the ART project that caused downtown and Nob Hill to spiral downhill, and neither have yet to recover, leaving a lifeless city that has become truly miserable at times to live in.