< PreviousCITY ON THE PROWLHow ABQ Landed ‘Project Wolf ’Greater Albuquerque is on a roll in 2018, with projects cascading into downtown. But none of these new projects compare to the job creation expected from TaskUs. The California-based business process outsourcing firm announced in August a new $9-million technical operations and customer experience center in downtown Albuquerque, which beat out locations in Texas, Nevada and Utah.“TaskUs is rapidly expanding across the globe,” said TaskUs CEO Bryce Maddock. “In the past two years, we have hired 2,000 teammates at our three locations in Texas. Albuquerque provides a wealth of talent and an emerging tech scene, which is the perfect combination for TaskUs. We plan to hire nearly 700 teammates in our downtown location and hope to continue growing well beyond this in the city and state.”The news comes on the heels of a $250-million investment by Blackstone in TaskUs, which got its start a decade ago as a virtual personal assistant outfit. The Santa Monica–based company has offices around the world, including 10,000 working out of five locations in the Philippines.The center is going into the First Plaza building, owned by Garcia Realty and Development. “TaskUs merges talent and technology to solve modern business problems, and Albuquerque is brimming with intelligence and talent,” said Edward T. Garcia.In an interview, TaskUs Vice President of Expansion and Growth Jon Wouters says the project got rolling as the company was expanding its footprint in San Antonio, Texas.“We knew that once those buildouts were complete, it made sense to start planning our next domestic site somewhere else,” he says. “JLL put together a site selection report based on our preferred criteria,” which included being near the Pacific Time Zone, having easy access to major U.S. cities, being in an area with a population under 2 million, and competitive labor and operating costs.198 SEPTEMBER 2018 SI T E S E L E C T IO NPROJECT SNAPSHOTALBUQUERQUE INTELLIGENCE REPORTBryce MaddockUnlike the stereotypical BPO or customer service center firm, TaskUs workspaces feature corporate campus-like amenities such as lounge and recreation areas.Photo courtesy of TaskUs S I T E S E L E C T I O N SEPTEMBER 2018 199ALBUQUERQUE INTELLIGENCE REPORTJLL and EY accompanied him on exploratory visits to Reno, Salt Lake City, and Albuquerque, says Wouters, who calls the total $3-million city/state incentive package “very attractive.” Such visits are helped by memorable arrivals: “ABQ Sunport is a great introduction to the city,” he says of the expanding airport’s “wide open spaces and vistas of mountains,” which for him trigger fond memories of New Mexico from having gone to Philmont Scout Ranch as a teen.He also singled out the efforts of Albuquerque Economic Development, Inc. “Gary Tonjes and the team at AED organized comprehensive trips where I could interview local employers, meet with recruiters, and get a good sense of ABQ,” he says. “Everyone I’ve met is an enthusiastic New Mexican, even if they are transplants.” As for downtown ABQ, “The narrative that I took away from this process is that people love downtown ABQ, and would love to work there. There are a number of startups and incubation spaces that point to this resurgence. Both UNM and CNM are putting out a lot of graduates, and the key is to be able to provide employment opportunities locally.”TaskUs is growing fast. What might that mean for New Mexic? “I’ll say this — we didn’t know what to expect when we piloted our first campaign in San Antonio two years ago with four FTEs,” he says. “We’ll have 2,000 employees in the San Antonio region by the end of this year. Globally, we’re excited to explore Europe, Asia, and South America.”But for now it’s time to explore bringing the unique TaskUs culture to a unique multicultural crossroads in the Southwest.“Typical BPO companies are looking for big boxes or office parks for their operations,” Wouters says. “That’s not necessarily bad, but we like to do things a bit differently. Smack dab in the middle of downtown in a historic and iconic building? Yes, please.” Jon WoutersLarge and small enterprises nd Greater Albuquerque to their liking.On the southern end of Metro Albuquerque, in the Village of Los Lunas (pop. ,), Facebook is investing more than $ billion in a six-building, .-million-sq.-ft. (,-sq.-m.) data center complex that will bring in its own layers of accompanying infrastructure, services and amenities. e project site is seeing , construction workers, electricians and contractors a day spending their money in the area over a construction period expected to stretch for at least six years. New Mexico Governor Susana Martinez in led an economic development team, which included Albuquerque Economic Development’s Gary Tonjes, to Northern California to meet with company executives and highlight New Mexico’s growing competitiveness for jobs and investment. AED led the recruitment eff ort to win the project. In September , the company initially announced it had selected New Mexico for its newest data center, citing the state’s competitive business climate, strong workforce, commitment to infrastructure investment and opportunities for renewable energy development (a -acre solar plant will help the site achieve -percent renewable power provision). e decision to further expand to the full six-building footprint came in November .Ralph Mims, economic development manager for the Village of Los Lunas, says the project’s eff ects already have increased gross receipts tax revenue tremendously, in addition to promising economic churn until 200 SEPTEMBER 2018 SI T E S E L E C T IO NIN GOOD COMPANY: HIGH-TECH INNOVATION & ENTREPRENEURIALISMALBUQUERQUE INTELLIGENCE REPORTAbstract Landscapes, runs through the end of October at ARTECHOUSE Albuquerque, dedicated to showcasing experiential and technology-driven works “by artists who are forerunners of the new age in the arts and technology.”Photo courtesy of AMCBABQ OPENS THE DOORABQ OPENS THE DOOR(Continued on page 202 SEPTEMBER 2018 SI T E S E L E C T IO NINVESTMENT PROFILE:CENTRAL NEW MEXICO RAIL PARKAbout fi ve miles west of Interstate highway in Los Lunas, NM — just miles south of downtown Albuquerque — sits Central New Mexico Rail Park, a ,-acre development that is one of only BNSF Premier Certifi ed Sites.Designed to attract manufacturing, warehousing, fulfi llment centers and data centers to the area, the development will be rail-served via a near-dock facility, but also supports trucking and air freight. e park — strategically located near BNSF’s Southern Transcontinental mainline that connects Los Angeles and Chicago, and interstates I- and I- — also has the ability and available land to bring in a unit train operation that can handle both wet and dry commodities.A transload facility will be operational by the end of or early Q .“Our vision is to develop a world-class industrial development that will transform Central New Mexico into a major transportation hub, and a gateway to the global economy,” says Owner/Broker Robin R. Dyche. e layers of infrastructure also include State Route , favored by truckers. And a multi-billion-dollar, six-building Facebook data center complex is rising around the corner that will bring its own layers of infrastructure, services and amenities. “ ey’ve been really good neighbors,” Dyche says. e park has been developed and marketed by RIO Real Estate Investment Opportunities, led by Dyche and fellow Owner/Broker Tim Cummins, who together have nearly years’ experience. “Working with RIO reduces development time, by ADAM BRUNSadam.br uns @ site s ele c tion.c omThis growth nexus just south of Albuquerque speeds your project to market, so you can deploy multiple transport modes to speed your products to customers. S I T E S E L E C T I O N SEPTEMBER 2018 203This Investment Profile was prepared under the auspices of RIO Real Estate Investment Opportunities, LLC. For more information, visit www.rio-re.com, or contact Robin Dyche at 505-296-6388 or robin@rio-re.com.increases speed to market, and reduces upfront development risks,” says Cummins. “Your site can be under construction before most sites have their fi rst public hearing.”Begun as a brokerage operation, RIO entered industrial development years ago. Today, the fi rm is one of the largest owners of industrially zoned and entitled land in New Mexico. Also among the seasoned veterans on the squad are RIO’s Qualifying Broker Tim MacEachen and Bob Gomez, with years at BNSF under his belt. “ e reason we got into this development was a lot of manufacturers came to us and said, ‘We want to ship by rail,’ ” he says. e BNSF certifi cation process and RIO’s full-service off er mean it’s about much more than trains. At the rail park and at RIO’s -acre Los Morros Business Park just down the road (where acres are remaining), speed to market is nearly as swift as the trains and trucks zooming through the region. Colby Tanner, assistant vice president, economic development for BNSF, says the rail park is seeing interest from various industrial and agricultural customers, “particularly manufacturers and distributors who view the region and the park itself as the ideal place to bring in raw materials for industrial production.”What makes this certifi ed site unique?“ e Central New Mexico Rail Park is strategically located on our Southern Transcon route in a target market for a variety of commodity types,” Tanner says, “and is being developed in partnership with a seasoned RIO real estate company.”Good NeighborsStrong potential from U.S.-Mexico goods movement could fi gure in the future for the master-planned park.“We’ve had a lot of inquiries about how we could coordinate shippers coming to and from Mexico,” Gomez says. “We’re just a few miles from Belen [BNSF’s fueling site] and then south to El Paso, the largest international gateway. We’re seeing a lot of intermodal coming out of Mexico, which we didn’t see before.” “ e park’s location on the Southern Transcon, as well as access to southbound I-, gives tenants a unique opportunity when it comes to cross-border movements,” says BNSF’s Colby Tanner, as analysis continues to determine which origin/destination pairs will most benefi t customers.“ e progressive leadership in Los Lunas promotes an ease of doing business that equates to speed to market for industry looking to locate in Village. “ ey are absolutely pro-business, and are so good to work with through the entire process,” Dyche says. e nice welcome is contagious. RIO’s parks alone already are home to such companies as Tempur-Pedic, Shamrock Foods, Accurate Machine & Tool, Walmart, Amscan and Niagara Water Bottling. e park at full buildout could welcome more than , jobs and serve as a regional economic development center for a multi-county region. at potential is one reason why the village just received a $.-million U.S. Economic Development Administration grant to support water infrastructure improvements at the rail park in the form of a ,-ft. water pipeline along State Route and the railway.U.S. Senator Tom Udall could have been talking about the park as much as the pipeline when he said, “Strengthening New Mexico’s freight infrastructure is critical to connecting our local businesses with the world and strengthening our state’s economy.”“Economic development depends on st-century infrastructure improvements like this,” added U.S. Senator Martin Heinrich. Your site can be under construction before most sites have their rst public hearing.”— Tim Cummins, Central New Mexico Rail Parkitself as the ideal place to bring in raw materials for Water Bottling.Your site can be under 204 SEPTEMBER 2018 SI T E S E L E C T IO NALBUQUERQUE INTELLIGENCE REPORTconstruction is complete in 2023. Moreover, he says, “It’s put us and New Mexico’s central region on the map,” meaning a lot of calls from retailers, housing developers and other follow-on businesses. The Central New Mexico Rail Park going in nearby could welcome as many as 3,000 jobs in another project that’s viewed as a multi-county economic development engine. But that doesn’t change the approach of the community. When asked if Los Lunas might grow beyond its moniker and become a full-fledged city, Mims says, “We could have 2 million people and we’d still call it a village.”That’s Code for ProsperityOn the northern end of metro Albuquerque sits Rio Rancho, where Intel since 1980 has invested more than $15 billion in high-tech semiconductor manufacturing, creating an economic impact equal to that of many cities put together. At the same time, co-working space FatPipe ABQ is seeing enough interest in its entrepreneur-focused workspace to open a second location of its own in Rio Rancho.The contrast may seem striking, but multibillion-dollar giants like Intel know the secret to business as well as to semiconductor design is starting small and staying robust. An entrepreneurial effort in the middle of the city of Albuquerque might be a key.Cultivating Coders is a coding bootcamp that not only serves the usual corporate crowd, but takes its mission on the road to rural and inner-city locations sometims overlooked by traditional STEM education. Based in Albuquerque, the organization has multiple operations in New Mexico (including in Navajo Nation), as well as sites and consulting work in Mississippi, Florida and California’s Inland Empire.Charles Ashley III, president of Cultivating Coders, says the idea came from working in coding, computer science and machine learning with a private university and a community college and seeing that, even in a Hispanic-heavy population such as New Mexico, the students were mostly white and Asian men, not just because of race, but because affluent kids (whose families could afford a typical coding camp’s $14,000 price tag) knew the promise of aspiring to be a developer or engineer.“Whereas poor kids are just trying to get by,” says Ashley. “Their exposure to computer science or math is limited. Their parents don’t know what code is, and most don’t have a home personal computer.” The idea for Cultivating Coders is to pack everything up into an intuitive project-based curriculum, parachute into a community for two or three months backed by corporate and institutional philanthropy, and give those kids the same program the wealthier coding-camp students get. The graduation present? Their very own laptop.(Continued from page 200) S I T E S E L E C T I O N SEPTEMBER 2018 205ALBUQUERQUE INTELLIGENCE REPORTAshley has been humbled by strong support from such companies as Microsoft, Facebook, Google and utility Public Service Company of New Mexico (PNM). He didn’t even think about approaching Facebook when they were ramping up their Los Lunas project, but was encouraged by one of his business developers to attend a luncheon. He met Facebook’s representative, they shared information about their respective digital learning initiatives, and two weeks later there was a deal in place.Ashley says there is plenty of value to warehousing and call center jobs, but thinks it incumbent on area residents, community leaders and new high-tech investors to train up local talent rather than import it.Ashley’s seen 161 people go through Cultivating Coders, with a 94 percent completion rate. Now the firm has launched an after-school program at selected area schools, and in January 2019 will launch its own after-school program downtown where dozens of former students will serve as tutors.Ashley has been in ABQ for 11 years, and 206 SEPTEMBER 2018 SI T E S E L E C T IO NALBUQUERQUE INTELLIGENCE REPORTsays in the last year and a half in particular, “You can really see us as New Mexicans and Albuquerque residents maximizing our potential downtown,” with companies, coffee shops, breweries and pedestrians growing by the day. “That’s why I wanted to be downtown as well,” he says. “It’s where the movers and shakers should be, in the center of our city.”Among Ashley’s past posts was a job promoting the film and entertainment sector for Bernalillo County. Asked if his coding school might well serve the needs of that sector, he says, “The film industry is one of New Mexico’s greatest jewels,” tying in tourism and so much outside money spent on lifestyle amenities, retail and housing. He’s currently working with a university to create a curriculum marrying film and technology. “It’s such a natural fit,” he says. “Think about all the platforms, all the technology. We’re excited to roll out that program in 2019.”A Place With VisionCultivating Coders and other tech-oriented firms that place as much of an emphasis on developing people and communities as developing dollars fit right into the new economic development vision outlined by Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller in July.“Our city has enormous potential and it’s time we step up and fulfill it,” said Keller. “Our vision for economic development focuses on creating more economic opportunities for our families, our local businesses, and our homegrown entrepreneurs. This starts by doing things a little differently. We’re going to play to our strengths to create quality jobs, foster broad-based growth, and ignite innovation.” The focal areas:• Buying Local: “Albuquerque can use our buying power to ensure local Sandia National Laboratories is using its solar tower to help assess the impact of extreme temperature changes on materials for the Air Force. Photo by Randy Montoya courtesy of Sandia S I T E S E L E C T I O N SEPTEMBER 2018 207ALBUQUERQUE INTELLIGENCE REPORTbusinesses are the providers of goods and services for the city, which will replace the millions of tax dollars currently sent to out-of-town vendors.”• Smart Recruitment: “We will support new enterprise creation, cluster development and support, and strategic attraction and recruitment of businesses that align with our priorities.”• International Business: “We can capitalize on our unique placement along two major interstates, international airport, and foreign trade zone while promote Albuquerque as a strategic location for foreign small to medium sized enterprises.” New opportunities at ABQ Sunport fi t in well here. “With over acres of developable space, we are looking forward to the Aviation Center of Excellence [ACE] site becoming one of Albuquerque’s newest economic hubs,” says City of Albuquerque Aviation Director Nyika Allen. “We hope to welcome retail and commercial space in addition to aviation, aerospace, and STEM facilities.”• Creative Economy & Film: “Our creative economy is an important element in the economic vitality of Albuquerque. Our unrivaled culture, cuisine, art, music, and fi lm industries are key to economic development.”• Increment of One: “We can create jobs one at a time. We will invest with ‘an increment of one’ in homegrown entrepreneurship and the game-changer businesses who are already here.Our vision for economic development focuses on creating more economic opportunities for our families, our local businesses, and our homegrown entrepreneurs.”— Tim Keller, Mayor of AlbuquerqueNext >