Unser Gateway development is booming

Rio Rancho Market Street the first of its kind in NM

Editor’s note: This is the first of a two-part series on the March 6 Rio Rancho NAIOP Roundt…

Editor’s note: This is the second of a two-part series on the March 6 Rio Rancho NAIOP Roundtable. This story focuses on the Unser Gateway’s development. The first focused on the Rio Rancho Market Street about to open near Westside and Unser boulevards.

RIO RANCHO — The Unser Gateway, located in the area of Unser and Westside boulevards, is a booming area both residentially and commercially.

Most notably is The Village development, where Market Street is set to open next month and Furniture Row is set to break ground in the near future.

However, there is much more going on in the area, and several people involved in the development presented updates during the March 6 NAIOP Rio Rancho Roundtable.

“The booming gateway, this corridor, we’ve got a lot of traffic coming here to get people to get in and out of Rio Rancho, and this is the explosion of growth and development,” said Genieve Posen, senior advisor at NAI SunVista.

Commercial development“For the first time, we have new concepts coming to this area for their flagship business, and then looking at Albuquerque secondary,” Posen said. “Thses new anchors are bringing energy. They bring confidents to smaller retailers that are trying to validate the trade area.”

A map of the area showed nearly 10 projects in the immediate are of the Unser Gateway. In addition to Market Street and Furniture Row, The Village development also highlighted US Eagle and Blake’s Lotaburger.

“There are some shop spaces at The Village right now that are set to be constructed. They’re on the market right now … so retail shop spaces, smaller retailers will have a place in this trade area as well,” Posen said.

Unser Pavilion West is a 5-acre piece of land behind M’Tucci’s, she noted. “There’s an awesome opportunity … We need a great entertainment concept in this area. That’s been my mission in terms of finding the right user. This is a great pad size for a hotel user. We also need a hotel in this area. We need an extended stay in this area that would serve, obviously, Presbyterian; it would serve the growing needs of Intel.”

Unser Pavilion, an 8,000 square-foot shop space in front of M’Tucci’s, is being worked on right now and includes an end-cap drive-thru. “There’s also room for smaller users that aren’t going to take a large-acre pad site,” she said.

Westside North is a mixed-use development in the works with “multi-family or some type of housing in the back with presentation of commercial on the front,” Posen said.

HousingThe key factor in all of this development, Posen said, is housing. There are a number of housing developments coming up and in the works for the area, including the Los Diamantes Residential development of 578 homes, which she said is in its third phase. It also features a 10-acre multi-family development among the single-family homes and an expansion with a business park.

Another multi-family project is planned across Westside Boulevard from The Village, though there are not yet specific plans for the project, Posen said.

Seniors have a place in the Unser Gateway as well, with Amaran Senior living and Montessori. “As you all know, we do have a good amount of senior care happening, different concepts in the area, so it’s good families are moving there. You want to be close to mom and dad and want to ensure that you all can live and thrive in this community.”

In addition, there are two build-to-rent concepts being developed in the area: The Eleanor and Amare.

“All of these are bringing in families that want to have a good education for their children, low crime. They’re all nice drivers to the area, and they’re bringing development into the area,” Posen said.

The Eleanor, located near A Park Above along Westside Boulevard, is coming out of the ground with leasing expected to begin in the second quarter of 2025, she said. It features 240 units ranging from 650 square feet to 1,500 square feet.

Additionally, the Amare is a mix of multi-family and single-family build-to-rent coming up in the area. Jim Strozier, president of Consensus Planning, provided additional details on that project.

The 10-acre site, he said, “brings a different housing concept and housing opportunity to the area.” It will have 128 rental homes, a combination of single-family and townhomes in the gated community accessible off of 19th Street.

He noted what makes Amare different. “Typically, when you have a multi-family project, everything is set back from the street. Everything is only accessible from the interior,” Strozier said. “This project on 19th Street, we’re actually bringing the townhouses out to the street. We worked on a couple of variances with the city in order to let this happen, and that street edge is going to have access from those townhouses directly out onto the street.”

InfrastructureHowever, none of this would be possible without infrastructure to serve the area.

Mayor Gregg Hull noted how the city and Rio Rancho Public Schools literally moved the site of Joe Harris Elementary School in order to bring public infrastructure to the area. Rio Rancho Public Schools also owns property for the future site of a third high school out past Los Diamantes.

There have also been public-private partnerships in which developers receive incentives to bring infrastructure to an area, as was done with the building of Westside Boulevard, he said.

However, one of the major concerns of residents and developers alike is traffic congestion.

Strazier noted the number of drivers that cut through the area from Albuquerque neighborhoods to get to Unser Boulevard. “People are driving on those smaller streets without a lot of infrastructure, and they’re probably going too fast,” he said, noting the city has put in speed humps in some of those areas.

A key part, he said, is the intersection of Unser Boulevard and Black Arroyo Road “and the need to provide a left-in for northbound traffic into that area, which will eliminate a lot of that cut-through traffic that’s adversely impacting some of the city of Albuquerque neighborhoods as well as Rio Rancho neighborhoods.”

The intersection of Wellspring Avenue and 21st Street is also an issue, he said, with a number of accidents. There is a plan to redo that intersection as well as build a new access road, called Pavilion Way, to run from Wellspring to 22nd Avenue to address the issue.

“Providing a direct connection and redoing that intersection so you can get better access to Wellspring from this area and the neighborhoods around it is a key thing,” Strazier said. “We’re in the process of working together to come up with solutions that are going to not only be better for the new residents in our project but for those existing residents and future residents of Rio Rancho in this area as well as the city of Albuquerque.”

That road, said Jeanie Springer of Springer 5 Investments, is in the traffic study stage.

“The neat thing about this road is that its qualified as a system-level improvement. That means in city speak is that it’s intended to help the community. It’s not just intended to help the 5-acre site participants or the people who enjoy that site get in and out. This is to support the entire community,” she said.

“Everybody’s kind of locking arms to build out this community,” Posen said. “There’s a lot of capital being put into here, out-of-state capital, money coming from out of state, interest from out of state, retail concepts from out of state.”

“All of these things are being moved through the process, showing that we’re not locked into one single solution, but that we’re being flexible in our thought processes and being respectful of those individuals coming to the table with money,” Hull said, noting that in the last 10 years, $6 billion of investment has been brought for Rio Rancho. “What you’re seeing the results of is strong economic growth and a strong local economy that really does reflect a stand-alone economy away from Albuquerque.”