Santa Fe Activity Report

‘The City Different’ Gets by Despite Economy

While commercial permit applications are down from last year, there is still enough work going on in and around Santa Fe to keep the vibrant construction community very busy.

By Neal Singer

The slogan for Santa Fe is “The City Different,” a moniker usually used to refer to the city’s artist community. But it could also refer to its construction market, which is generally doing well despite tough economic times.

Work on the new Rail Runner line from Albuquerque to Santa Fe is expected to be completed this month.

Photo by Marble Street Studio, courtesy Kiewit New Mexico Co.

Gary Y. Ehlert, executive officer of the 800-member Santa Fe Home Builders Association, says that while other parts of the country may have problems landing construction start-ups, “We were holding our own prior to the financial meltdown, and we suspect Santa Fe will keep on building.”

While Ehlert concedes the residential market has suffered “a small deterioration,” with builders sitting on inventory, “smaller custom home builders and remodelers have quite a bit of work.”

Commercially, “we’re going through quite a renaissance for a small city,” he adds.

The Rail Runner commuter train linking Albuquerque with Santa Fe is expected to be completed in December and will end at the Railyard, a new mixed-use development that opened in September.

The city’s new $49.8 million, 76,000-sq-ft convention center also opened in September. Featuring a community center, ballrooms and two levels of underground parking, the project is expected to reach LEED silver certification.

And, a First National Bank building is expected to be rising soon within the city limits, Ehlert says.

According to Tamara Baer, city of Santa Fe planner, St. Louis-based Drury Hotels purchased the old St. Vincent’s Hospital in downtown Santa Fe from the local archdiocese. The price was a reported $20 million. The company plans to remodel the hospital into an upscale 200-unit hotel, with casitas and “costly period-type housing that would be Victorian in nature” rather than the mud-and-wood style that is the Santa Fe staple, Ehlert says.

Simon Brackley, president of the Santa Fe Chamber of Commerce, is also optimistic. He says the newly opened, $280 million Buffalo Thunder Hilton Hotel at Pojaque Pueblo, about 10 mi north of Santa Fe’s downtown, will have a positive economic effect on the region.

The controversial 500-acre Las Soleras by Albuquerque developer John Mahoney, located on the south end of town near Interstate 25 and Cerrillos Road, may soon get off the ground. The mixed-use project will include between 1,500 and 2,500 townhouses, condos and single-family homes, as well as commercial space, schools and open space. Presbyterian Healthcare Services purchased 40 acres for a future hospital and medical offices.

Along with a series of lawsuits, differing viewpoints among city and county officials over proposed population density and water allocations have slowed but not stopped progress on the project, which may soon be incorporated by the city.

“Las Soleras will happen,” Brackley says.

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However, it’s not all good news in Santa Fe. “There has been a 22% decrease in building permits from last year,” says Yolanda Cortez, division director for the city’s building permits. “There’s a trend toward repairing, renovating or totally redoing existing spaces rather than beginning new construction.

“We’re starting to see mixed-use residential and commercial buildings downtown, bringing together traditional live-work situations.”

Commercial permit applications in the city have dropped considerably, from 622 in 2007 to 390 through September.

Still, says Baer, “We’re still seeing annexations, rezoning, and discussions with large-scale residential projects already approved. I’m surprised they haven’t slowed down more.”

Lee DePietro, the city’s housing special projects manager, says she expects to submit a master plan to the city by the end of the year for 530 affordable units in Santa Fe’s northwest quadrant. She adds that 37% will be “deeply affordable” for lower-income families.

Scoping out PERA

The 35,000-sq-ft, $10 million New Mexico Public Employees Retirement Association building at the southern end of Santa Fe is a highly visible structure made of rammed earth and glass.

The mostly locally quarried earthen walls “look like the striations of different colors you’d see if you cut into a hillside,” says project manager Brook Henderson of Santa Fe-based general contractor Lockwood Construction.

The building was begun in April and expected to finish in May. It is one of the first commercial New Mexico structures built of rammed earth. It will be silver LEED certified and “darn near gold,” says architect Ronald Skoog of the Phoenix office of Leo A. Daly Co.

The company created the design in a joint project with Santa-Fe-based Conron and Woods Architects, architects of record.

“It’s an improved scientific application of an indigenous process,” Skoog says. “It requires limited building resources and materials shipment. The 2-ft-thick walls provide a tremendous human comfort factor. Yet the building has a contemporary look.”

Zocalo Santa Fe graces northern Santa Fe with 300 residential units, ranging from 1,000 sq ft to 2,200 sq ft. The project is seamlessly integrated into the surrounding landscape through the use of color and materials.

Photo courtesy Gerald Martin

An engineered post-and-beam steel support structure improves rammed earth beyond its origins thousands of years ago, he says. Stylistically, the building is a modern interpretation of traditional territorial style.

Unlike the giant mixing trucks used for ordinary cement work, rammed earth is mixed together by hand in relatively small batches.

“There’s some art to the science,” Skoog says. “You have to have a correct mixture ratio of mud and stabilizing cementious material. It can’t be too dry or too wet, and you can’t pour too much of it at one time.”

“It was labor-intensive and a learning process, but we got it down,” says Henderson, who says the building will be sealed with water-proofing and an anti-graffitti coating.

Making N.M. History

From the outside, the $28 million, 96,000-sq-ft New Mexico History Museum looks surprisingly modest. It sits on a quiet downtown street, butted up on three sides against historic Santa Fe structures.

These structures and Santa Fe building height codes have made construction particularly difficult.

Chris Romero of Albuquerque-based Chavez-Grieves Consulting Engineers says that to create the most space in a limited area, “we designed it 10 ft floor-to-floor. It was a struggle for us to design plumbing, mechanical and electrical utilities in the necessarily narrow floor spaces.”

Other design factors included compensating for expected heavy floor loads and matching floor elevations with those of the surrounding historic buildings for easy access.

Since the building can’t rise more than three stories, construction in the tightly confined space was directed downward. More than 25,000 cu yds of dirt have been removed, and concrete for the exterior walls of a first and second basement level have been poured.

The building, begun in July 2006, is targeted for completion in mid-2009, though Romero began structural design of the site in 1998. He says the project has taken so long because the Legislature shelved it for years and over time, requirements changed.

To facilitate new structural and energy requirements, “we changed from steel stud to a masonry system and finally to an insulated concrete form,” Romero says.

Several inches of insulating foam sandwich the 8-in concrete walls. The flooring is concrete poured over steel decks supported by wide-flanged beams.

Rails Run On

Final work is being done to finish construction on three Santa Fe Rail Runner passenger stations, says Chris Blewitt, project manager for New Mexico’s Mid-Region Council of Governments.

The Rail Runner commuter train should be ready in December to support more extended business and pleasure trips between Albuquerque and Santa Fe.

“Any time you’re talking about rebuilding and reconstructing a railroad through communities, in proximity to houses and businesses, construction and traffic control plans have lots of concerns,” Blewitt says. “But we identified issues, fixed them and moved on.”

Challenges included factors associated with rehabilitating an existing alignment and the continued installment of utilities.

“The substantial completion for the three stations in Santa Fe as well as the Isleta Station south of Albuquerque is Nov. 21,” says Angie Behrens at Kiewit New Mexico Co.

Zocalo the Fourth

Now in its fourth phase, Zocalo Santa Fe features 300 stylish housing units on 46 acres in northern Santa Fe built by Albuquerque-based Gerald Martin General Contractor. Still being completed are community amenities such as trails and shade structures.

While they resemble brightly colored adobe, the houses are wood-framed with elastomeric paint. Noise transmission was minimized through installation of acoustically rated floor and wall assemblies.

An innovative antifreeze fire protection system helps prevent pipes freezing and bursting at cold temperatures. The system uses a glycerin solution instead of water.

Much of the existing site vegetation was retained despite higher construction costs.

Santa Fe County Public Works

Started in March 2007, this $16.4 million, 48,000-sq-ft facility located on the Santa Fe bypass is expected to be completed by the end of the year. Energy enhancements and green building additions include a wind generator, Trombe walls, solar water heating and high-performance glazing.

“All public building is moving in that direction,” says Jason Harrington, president of Albuquerque-based HB Construction, the project’s general contractor. “All are becoming more fiscally responsible with taxpayer money, in looking at the sustainability of the project.”

The completed project will contain a 10,680-sq-ft administrative office building, 13,650-sq-ft vehicle maintenance facility and a material and equipment storage yard.

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