< Previous202 SEPTEMBER 2018 SI T E S E L E C T IO NINVESTMENT PROFILE:CENTRAL NEW MEXICO RAIL PARKAbout five miles west of Interstate highway 25 in Los Lunas, NM — just 30 miles south of downtown Albuquerque — sits Central New Mexico Rail Park, a 1,420-acre development that is one of only 13 BNSF Premier Certified Sites.Designed to attract manufacturing, warehousing, fulfillment 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. The park — strategically located near BNSF’s Southern Transcontinental mainline that connects Los Angeles and Chicago, and interstates I-25 and I-40 — 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 2018 or early Q1 2019.“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.The layers of infrastructure also include State Route 6, 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. “They’ve been really good neighbors,” Dyche says.The 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 90 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 first public hearing.”Begun as a brokerage operation, RIO entered industrial development 20 years ago. Today, the firm 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 44 years at BNSF under his belt. “The reason we got into this development was a lot of manufacturers came to us and said, ‘We want to ship by rail,’ ” he says.The BNSF certification process and RIO’s full-service offer mean it’s about much more than trains. At the rail park and at RIO’s 500-acre Los Morros Business Park just down the road (where 200 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 certified site unique?“The 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 figure 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.” “The park’s location on the Southern Transcon, as well as access to southbound I-25, 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 benefit customers.“The progressive leadership in Los Lunas promotes an ease of doing business that equates to speed to market for industry looking to locate in Village. “They are absolutely pro-business, and are so good to work with through the entire process,” Dyche says.The 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.The park at full buildout could welcome more than 3,000 jobs and serve as a regional economic development center for a multi-county region.That potential is one reason why the village just received a $1.3-million U.S. Economic Development Administration grant to support water infrastructure improvements at the rail park in the form of a 21,000-ft. water pipeline along State Route 6 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 21st-century infrastructure improvements like this,” added U.S. Senator Martin Heinrich. Your site can be under construction before most sites have their first public hearing.”— Tim Cummins, Central New Mexico Rail Park204 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 fit in well here. “With over 75 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 film 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 Albuquerque208 SEPTEMBER 2018 SI T E S E L E C T IO N• Placemaking: “The measure of any great city is the degree to which people and places are connected. We will promote placemaking through both large redevelopments like the Rail Yards and smaller place-based events.”The city’s Economic Development Department will also work closely with the newly created Office of Equity and Inclusion to create an inclusive economy that will enable businesses owned by women and people of color to have access to resources usually unavailable to underserved communities.“We’re prioritizing equitable growth, jobs for folks from all walks of life, because we know it leads to a stronger economy,” said Keller. “We’re going to do things differently so we get the results our city needs and an economy that works for everyone.”Those positive vibes extend through time as well as space. Ashley sees ABQ sneaking up site selection lists for companies and for talent looking for a friendly place to land.“We feel that by 2020 or 2021, people will be pointing to New Mexico and asking, ‘What happened here five years ago?’ ”That’s the feeling at Albuquerque Economic Development (AED) too.“I’ve not seen existing industry expansion this strong in the 24 years I’ve been here,” says AED President Gary Tonjes. Redevelopment in the rail yards area and via a major healthcare project has him excited about his city’s future. He’s not the only one. He was talking recently with Steve Maestas, a past chair of AED who serves as a trustee of the Albuquerque Community Foundation and co-founded commercial real estate firm NAI Maestas & Ward. “His comment the other day — and he’s not one for hyperbole — was that he believes the next five to 10 years in Albuqerque, based on everything he sees, is going to be one of the best periods we’ve seen in decades,” Tonjes says. “We feel that way too.” ABQ Metro Selected New Projects in 2018• 2NDGEAR: 150 jobs• Carenet: 224 jobs• Wagner Equipment: $100 million, 200,000-sq.-ft. plant• National Nuclear Security Agency: 330,000-sq.-ft., $175-million complex• TaskUs: 700 jobs, $9 million• Advanced Network Management HQ: 40 new jobs, nearly $6 million• AFOTEC: Relocating cybersecurity unit to ABQ from San Antonio• Lavu: 50 jobs, expanded downtown office• H5 Data Centers expands to downtown ABQ• Software developer RSI: 50 jobs• Vitality Works: Nutraceutical manufacturing plant expansion• Albuquerque Economic Development, Inc. relocates to downtown Albuquerque.Next >