Mesa del Sol to be a city within a current New Mexico city.

By the midpoint of the 21st century, guided by an experienced developer, a unique public/private partnership is set to transform 12,900 acres of land off the southeastern quadrant of Albuquerque (NM) into a national template for economic and environmental sustainability.

The plan for Mesa del Sol is the brain child of its chosen developer, Forest City Covington NM, LLC, a joint venture between Forest City Enterprises, a $7.2 billion, 80-year-old real estate company and Covington Capital, a major Southwest residential and industrial developer.

The development will be designed with villages, community centers, employment centers, and other features within the City of Albuquerque. The project’s goal is to grow the population by roughly 100,000, create 50,000 jobs, as well as 18-to 20-million square feet of industrial/commercial and retail space, and 38,000 homes with three high schools, when it is completed within 35 to 50 years.

“Forest City Covington is approaching development with a custom master plan and strategic plans to address issues including sustainable development, telecommunications, water conservation, and even lighting, to ensure we are mixing economic development with housing to create a truly mixed-use community,” said Michael Daly, COO of the development company.

Job creation is in the forefront to be the engine that will drive the community’s long-term viability and environmental sustainability. Innovative practices to conserve water, energy, and human resources are all major parts of the mix. The goal is to make this piece of high desert - a mile above sea level and ringed by mountains - a model for sustainable community development.

Background
The City of Albuquerque annexed the tract of land in 1993. The New Mexico State Land Office held it in trust for the University of New Mexico. Because the city is land-locked by Native American and other federal lands, but in need of room to grow, the decision was made to develop the property. Mesa del Sol roughly adds 25% to the city’s land mass.

Forest City Covington NM, LLC was named the developer in partnership with the New Mexico State Land Office, the University of New Mexico (UNM), the City of Albuquerque, Bernalillo County, and the State of New Mexico.

The partnership makes such a long-term, capital intensive project work, according to Mark Lautman, Economic Development Director for Forest City Covington. In the ownership structure, the University of New Mexico, one of the beneficiaries of the land trust, together with the State Land Trust, are in for about 30% of the project by providing the land.

“It’s a passive partnership. They get 30% of whatever we make on the project,” he said.

Meanwhile, the City of Albuquerque benefits from job creation and future taxes at no net expense to the city. Forest City Covington controls 9,000 acres of the 12,900 acres of land. The Mesa del Sol master plan calls for the development of 1,400 acres for industrial/commercial and office use; 4,400 acres for residential and supporting retail; 3,400 acres for open space and parks; and 800 acres for schools and universities, according to Daly.

The remainder of the land is under control of Bernalillo County to be developed into a 600-acre recreation complex, which will include 44 soccer, football and baseball fields and other recreational facilities. They will be added to the Journal Pavilion Amphitheater and existing three soccer fields. UNM owns 480 acres to be developed for campus uses. It also includes the non-profit La Semilla Institute, a planned 2,800-acre environmental education and research center.

Sustainability
Sustainability generally means negating the impact of human activity on the natural environment by preserving natural resources such as the conservation of energy and water.

“For example, better insulated buildings made out of products that are renewable or not in the process of being depleted like solar energy systems and the use of recycled material,” Lautman said. “We are expecting everything to meet LEED® (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Silver standards or better. We’ve had a LEED team that has been with the project since the beginning. It’s safe to say we’re walking the walk on that as good as anybody.” 

With around 300 days of sunshine a year, the area is prime territory for solar energy.

“We’re just getting started. Some of this is an open pallet,” Lautman said referring to the fact that they are looking at things like a concentrated solar power plant that would be the local grid and reducing the power consumption the regional utility that generates it at coal and nuclear plants.

“We’re also committed to solar systems on the houses and the businesses,” he said. “It’s a combination of design and systems analysis. What is the best way to heat and cool places? What are our choices in producing energy for the project in general, all the way to what kind of water heaters to use.”

Innovative ways of conserving water is another issue, according to the project’s master plan. The development promotes sustainable water system practices, including aggressive water conservation, high desert landscaping design, wastewater reuse plans and aquifer recharge programs to ideally use less water per capita than average for the rest of the city.

“You can only do this if the developer is willing to put the money up front for the design and go through and sort out what would work,” Lautman said. “There are really only a handful of developers that can make a go of this and Forest City is one of those.”

Forest City Covington expands the concept of sustainability to include the conservation of people’s time.

“For instance, designing a place so that people can walk instead of use their cars deals with sustainability,” he said, which leads directly into the practical concepts of new urbanism.

New Urbanism
The New Urbanism movement seeks to restore urban centers and towns within metropolitan regions and reconfigure sprawling suburbs into communi­ties of neighborhoods. It is similar to traditional neighborhood development whose philosophy was to create a strong sense of community by incorporating features of traditional cities, towns, and neighborhoods.

“It is a design program that replicates the communities in the Midwest that were built in the 1930s, where the houses are pushed up against the street with porches,” Lautman said. “People are close enough to walk to residential services, like the post office, coffee shop, schools, and cleaners.”

Trail systems are a key element of the design.

“Rather than getting into a car to drive to the service centers, you can ride your bike or walk, even over a major arterial, so you don’t have to cross a major street,” he said. “Those things help you to connect to the commercial service centers in the residential setting.”

Economic Development
Job creation is the number one priority for the developer, Forest City Covington. It is the critical ingredient in cushioning expected increased costs in carrying out the sustainable plans dealing with energy, water, and new urbanism design.

There are two types of jobs, according to Lautman: those that provide goods and services internal to the community, recycling the dollars. There is also the so-called “economic base jobs” that export goods and services and bring back new dollars into the local economy.

“If we create 50,000 jobs, we need to create about 20,000 economic base jobs,” Lautman said. “You have to have people with jobs that are allowing them to become more productive everyday so their salaries are higher so they can feel comfortable taking on a mortgage of 5 to 15% more in a new urbanism, sustainable neighborhood.”

The master development plans call for employment centers, large-scale office complexes, which are designed to contain research and product development campuses and high-tech land development uses.

Other amenities include close proximity to I25, easy access to the downtown, and a fast track to the Albuquerque International Sunport.

The neighbors - Sandia National Laboratories, Air Force Research Laboratory, Kirtland Air Force Base and the University of New Mexico - should also be attractive to prospective employers.

“Probably the most telling thing about the project is its location. It is literally 6 minutes from a sky cap at the airport.” Lautman said. “The idea of being able to build a place with a home-to-work-to-airport triangle and get it down from two hours to 12 minutes, is what is telling about this project. That is what is lighting everybody up.”

The job creation effort got an immediate shot in the arm earlier this year with the announcement by Advent Solar, a developer of advanced technology solar cells, to build a new research, development and manufacturing plant in the development. The company plans to add as many as 1,000 new, good paying jobs with an expected payroll of up to $35 million within five years. State and federal taxes are expected to grow by more than $60 million over the same time period.

“When Advent Solar is up and running in a few months, we will have completed the first step in developing a renewable energy cluster at Mesa del Sol that will help attract more renewable energy companies to New Mexico,” Daly said in a statement following the announcement.

Why Mesa del Sol
Up to now, industrial land in Albuquerque has been priced extremely high, Lautman said, mainly because there hasn’t been much available. Albuquerque is landlocked.  So when you fly in you think there is a lot of land but there really isn’t much.  So we’ll bring those prices back down.”

The developer will market the project to those who are trying to make their company competitive with those in other major cities, with several factors in their favor, he said.

With baby boomers retiring, companies will be searching for locations where they can attract and hold people. The opportunities in Albuquerque and this new development can be the magnet.

The second thing is inflation. Sustainable design in the development, coupled with enough economic base jobs, should address those issues.

“We want to sell this as the best place to hedge inflation for the next 10 or 20 years,” he said.

New Mexico is one of the few states running a state budget surplus, which means it is cutting taxes, another incentive for businesses. Another plus to attract high-tech employers is the area’s ability to keep pace with innovation and technology.

“With Advent Solar and the University of New Mexico as our partners, that’s more PhDs per capita than any other state in the country,” Lautman claims.

Security is another point.

“For natural disasters, terrorism, and crime in general, we think this project will have a real good security profile,” he said. “It’s definitely Albuquerque’s time.”

And there’s the weather.

“We are as high as Denver. The high desert climate is really way different than what you experience in Nevada or Phoenix or Arizona,” Lautman said. “It’s almost perfect.”

Just like Mesa del Sol.  SLDT