Welcome to the Rio Rancho Region: How growth is helping draw business to the community

RIO RANCHO — Rio Rancho has been described as New Mexico’s fastest-growing city for several years now. Because of that rapid growth, it’s now being looked at in a different way.

“We’ve been dealing with a couple different companies that are looking at putting in retail or restaurants here that are national chains, and the site selectors now call this area, which includes [zip code] 87114, the Rio Rancho Region,” Jerry Schalow, president and CEO of the Rio Rancho Regional Chamber of Commerce told members at the organization’s quarterly luncheon Thursday.

“So in talking about, what that means is the Rio Rancho Region — that includes West Side Albuquerque, Rio Rancho, Corrales, Bernalillo and Placitas — this entire area is one eco-center that is really focused in on that growth,” he said.

That growth, he said, has seen Rio Rancho go from a population of 96,000 in 2020 to a current estimated population of 112,000, though Google list’s the city’s population at 131,852.

“This is largely because of the leadership, the low crime data — some of the lowest crime in the Southwest — on top of that, great schools,” he said.

In fact, Schalow said, over the last year and a half, they’ve been tracking statistics on where residents are moving from: Phoenix, Arizona; Los Angeles, California; Las Vegas, Nevada; San Diego, California; Colorado Springs, Colorado; and El Paso, Texas, top the list.

He said a large number of those people are finding out of the area due to geo-targeting via social media with the Discover Sandoval message. Some of the initial push came from Santa Clara, California, bringing high-tech workers to Intel.

Also playing into it are Sandia National Labs and Los Alamos National Labs. “We have over 3,500 employees that live in Rio Rancho but work in Los Alamos every day,” Schalow said. “That is because of this community and its growth.”

He also pointed to another statistic that is getting the attention of the site selectors: income.

“On top of (the growth), when I’ve met with the site selectors, they’re now listing our household income at over $85,000.”

He said that’s not only important for Rio Rancho but also New Mexico as a whole.

“We don’t have a lot of companies that are relocating here, whether it’s a restaurant or retail, they would look and say, ‘The only place we want to be is the Northeast Heights. They’re the only ones that we are doing. They’re the only one that meets our need,’” Schalow said. “Now that we’ve hit over $80,000 in our income ... the franchises have identified that now they can have two [locations].”

That’s key, Schalow said, because distributors are not likely to carry supplies for a single location, but with multiple locations, they will carry those supplies.

“That’s how important it is that this community, or what’s called the Rio Rancho Region, is leading the way and and really making a huge difference,” Schalow said.

“This is the impact this community is having,” he said. “This is the only community in the state that is growing its population on an annual basis. Second to it, and it’s holding strong, is Valencia County. The rest of the state, believe it or not, is losing population — including the east side of Albuquerque has lost population every year since 2010 — so all the growth is happening over here ... it’s not only growth today; it’s the growth tomorrow.”