May 12, 2020

Santa Fe Midtown Project virtual meeting today 5-7 pm; the City will take questions for possible use if sent pronto; background

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Dear New Mexico activist leaders –

Good morning. We hope everybody is well and happy, despite the overall situation. Please stay safe.

We've been quite busy in the office, mostly on projects with national and international audiences; there's been little to add to our previous letters. We will make some of that work available before long.

So busy in fact that were it not for today's editorial in the New Mexican we would have forgotten about today's virtual meeting with the new Midtown developer, which will apparently be live today from 5 to 7 pm on the City's YouTube channel.

It is ludicrously late but if you want to send questions to the City by 1:00 pm, send them to info@midtowndistrictsantafe.com. Sorry about that.

I have taken the liberty of pasting some recent articles below in their entirety by way of background.

We have many concerns about Midtown but our primary one has to do with the possible role of Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and its federal parent the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) in this development, either directly or through some of the educational institutions mentioned below.

Especially in trying economic times developers may seek an anchor commercial tenant that could also bring "market-rate" residential customers. Some think LANL could be that.

From documents obtained from the City we know there have been private meetings between LANL, NNSA, Sandia National Laboratory, and other major corporate actors and developers with Mayor Webber and others regarding projects of mutual interest, at Midtown and elsewhere -- off NM599, specifically.

This "LANL overflow" is all about the truly massive effort to prepare LANL for a large pit production mission involving about 4,000 people, with 24/7 operations. I will spare you new details about this for now.

There are starting to be fresh calls for new national security priorities, a constant refrain from us for the past 31 years. This is excellent; it is a fertile time. But they must be concrete. Here in New Mexico we have a superior way to make those visions real.

More soon, thank you for your attention,

Greg Mello

https://www.santafenewmexican.com/opinion/editorials/speak-up-about-midtown-campus-plan/article_7a89b3ae-93ba-11ea-a65c-ff16ddbaf007.html

Speak up about midtown campus plan

The New Mexican, May 11, 2020 Updated 6 hrs ago

For all the residents of Santa Fe who have expressed interest in the redevelopment of the midtown campus — whether how a master developer was chosen or what will be built at the site, the time to pay attention for the future is now.

On Tuesday, May 12, a virtual meeting to hear from the development team is scheduled from 5 to 7 p.m. on the city of Santa Fe’s YouTube channel. Questions can be submitted before the meeting by 1 p.m., using the address info@midtowndistrictsantafe.com.

So don’t be shy. Ask away.

Last week, the City Council voted 7-2 to affirm the choice of KDC Real Estate Development & Investments/Cienda Partners, a somewhat controversial choice for two reasons. First, locals tend to worry about out-of-state developers — and this is a Texas group, no less!

Second, critics — we have been among them — were concerned the process in choosing the master developer was overly secretive. (In fact, a complaint has been filed with the Attorney General’s office by a group of citizens unhappy with the process; we’ll be watching to see what happens there.)

For now, a choice has been made. It’s important that both individuals and groups take part in what happens next. We’d encourage people to watch the presentation — it offers encouragement about possibilities for this chunk of real estate. (Watch the video at https://bit.ly/2zqp8vp.)

All that exists right now is potential. That’s why public engagement matters. The city has signed an exclusive negotiation agreement with a master developer; over the next months will come the creation of a development plan.

There’s a hint of possibilities in initial presentations from KDC and the contributions of its many local partners. This will be a lengthy process with many opportunities for people to weigh in.

Partners working with the developers are all Santa Fe-based, including some of the more respected nonprofits in town. They are invested in the idea of making the midtown area a place to live, work and play. That partners well with what residents have said they want — using the 64-acre site as a place for housing, social services, education, arts and entertainment, and other activities that serve the public.

Residents have made it clear they want a midtown center that helps revive nearby neighborhoods without gentrifying the area to the point that people are forced out. The proposed development as outlined focuses on mixed-income affordable housing, multimedia and film studio expansion, along with areas for recreation and space for arts and cultural events. All were listed as important to residents who assisted with the initial discussions.

In the proposal being developed, the University of New Mexico and Santa Fe Community College are in the mix to ensure higher education will continue at the site. There is emphasis on the health of the community, with YouthWorks and Christus St. Vincent also signed on as partners. Other collaborators include Homewise, Yes Housing, the Santa Fe Art Institute, and a host of local organizations, companies and businesses.

Christus CEO Lillian Montoya said in a video introducing the proposal, “If you start with the right people and the right project, you come out of the gate really fast.” She said Christus envisions offering primary care services, partnering with educational institutions to offer training and working with Homewise to provide homebuying and rental opportunities for its employees.

Given the lagging economic climate because of the plummeting price of oil and business shutdowns caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the prospect of developing a chunk of Santa Fe into a center that offers jobs, education and housing is one our city can’t afford to get wrong.

For that to happen, residents must get involved now — not in a year or two after decisions are set in stone. This is no time to sit on the sidelines.

https://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_news/eight-people-infected-with-covid-19-among-those-housed-at-midtown-campus/article_2aade53c-9395-11ea-9685-0bc6cd031be7.html

Eight people infected with COVID-19 among those housed at midtown campus

By Daniel J. Chacón dchacon@sfnewmexican.com May 11, 2020 Updated 4 hrs ago

The city of Santa Fe worked relentlessly in March to transform what was then a mostly vacant midtown campus into an emergency shelter, primarily to try to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus among the homeless.

So far, the plan has worked, and now the campus is serving as a backup for hospitals and other facilities and providing housing for eight people who were recently transferred there after testing positive for COVID-19.

“The shelter has been operating so well that I think Christus [St. Vincent Regional Medical Center] and [the New Mexico Department of Health] have been looking for a way to use it as a fallback resource,” Mayor Alan Webber said Monday during a virtual news conference.

“As the other parts of the caring network need a relief valve, that space is now a relief valve,” he added.

The campus is currently housing 43 people.

The city’s public works director, Regina Wheeler, who has been serving as Santa Fe’s emergency operations incident commander for nearly two months, said none of the eight people infected with the contagious disease was admitted under the original process established by the city.

“You know how we’re taking homeless people that are screened from the shelters and are at risk on the streets and testing them? All the people that we’ve gotten that way are negative,” she said. “The way that I get my COVID positives are from the Department of Health or Buffalo Thunder or Christus St. Vincent. They have a COVID-positive person, and they seek some place to shelter them.”

Wheeler said people who have tested positive for COVID-19 are being housed at the shelter for various reasons.

“A big one is that Buffalo Thunder isn’t allowing oxygen in the rooms,” she said, referring to the casino and resort north of Santa Fe that is serving as a self-isolation site for New Mexico tribal members.

Webber called the emergency shelter at the old College of Santa Fe campus on St. Michael’s Drive “a national example of a remarkable achievement.”

While the city established the emergency shelter primarily for homeless people as it tried to alleviate overcrowding at homeless shelters, which one official called a “potential tinderbox” for the spread of the virus, it always envisioned housing other groups of people there, including health care workers who test positive for the coronavirus and might need a place to stay and be monitored medically.

But most of the residents up to this point have been homeless people.

“Starting Tuesday, [Albuquerque] Health Care for the Homeless will be running a clinic for the people there,” Webber said.

Webber said the emergency shelter is safe to visit, though he didn’t say whether he has been on the campus himself.

“There is a way to wear a mask and gloves and go check it out,” he said.

The emergency shelter is providing other benefits to homeless people in Santa Fe besides a roof over their heads and what the mayor said were “three square meals a day.”

“People are actually getting their lives together because they finally have a safe place to live and wraparound services,” Webber said.

The midtown campus, which the city is eyeing for redevelopment, started housing people on a temporary and emergency basis March 28.

https://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_news/master-developer-for-midtown-campus-builds-entirely-local-team/article_cf77dc98-93b9-11ea-9a34-dbe870f7dbbb.html

Master developer for midtown campus builds entirely local team

By Teya Vitu tvitu@sfnewmexican.com May 11, 2020 Updated 4 hrs ago

The firm negotiating with the city of Santa Fe to redevelop the midtown campus is based in Dallas, but there’s New Mexico flavor galore.

And in fact, it may have been a loose-knit but heavily local push that reeled in KDC Real Estate Development & Investment/Cienda Partners to take on the massive project in an alliance that will include 17 different New Mexico partners.

The City Council last week selected the Texas firm as master developer of the city-owned, 64-acre property on St. Michael’s Drive. The city and KDC/Cienda will now enter into exclusive negotiations that could last as long as 16 months, followed by at least 10 years of construction.

After the council vote May 4, the firm outlined its vision for the onetime college campus, a proposal that includes housing, health care, education, film production and other components.

“I would say our vision is 90 percent from our” Santa Fe team, said Bill Guthrey, KDC’s senior vice president of land development. “We help each of our partners realize their vision.”

Some of the team members hoping for a significant presence on the property are the University of New Mexico, Santa Fe Community College and the Higher Education Center; Santa Fe youth job-training and advocacy group YouthWorks; Christus St. Vincent Regional Medical Center; Santa Fe-based housing nonprofit Homewise; Albuquerque nonprofit Yes Housing; and Pacifica Ventures, a film production firm that plans to add four to six sound studios on the campus.

Late last summer, a group of Santa Fe organizations, including many working on the project now, was searching for a potential master developer to lead their development proposal before submissions were due to the city in October.

Actor-director Justin Golding and Sage Morris-Greene, general manager of the Santa Fe business brokerage Sam Goldenberg & Associate, brought the team together, and Jay Grab, an associate broker at Phase One Realty, called a commercial broker friend in Dallas seeking suggestions for a firm with the ability to make the project happen.

The friend suggested KDC.

“When we talked to [KDC], they got very excited,” Grab said. “They were out here within two days to take a look at the site. … We needed to find someone who had the capability to pull off a project of this magnitude in this city.”

Other members of the team reached out to Cienda Partners, said James Feild, senior vice president of Cienda. “We were getting calls,” he said.

KDC and Cienda quickly became 50/50 partners.

Developers rarely see ready-made teams approach them at the beginning, Guthrey and Feild said.

“It’s extremely unique,” Guthrey said. “It’s what made it so compelling. To start with medical, education, film studios and a range of housing is remarkable. Each of the partners has a very specific idea from the outset what their requirements are. We have pieces and parts and are able to drop them into a conceptual plan.”

KDC and Cienda Partners both have prior connections in Santa Fe.

Cienda Partners owns La Fonda on the Plaza, where it has spent more than $14 million in renovations since 2014. It also owned, remodeled and sold the El Rey Court to a partner and is the developer of Las Campanas.

Guthrey, KDC’s point man for the midtown campus, owns a home in Santa Fe, grew up in El Paso, and his father grew up in Silver City and graduated from UNM.

At this stage, Feild said, Cienda is scoping out which buildings will remain on the midtown campus. It also is focusing on housing development and the public-private partnership with the city.

KDC is taking charge of infrastructure and commercial development.

“My goal is to get the film school up and running as fast as possible,” in collaboration with UNM, SFCC and the Higher Education Center, Feild said. “… We have infrastructure that is 60 years old.”

Affordable housing could be an early player, too.

“We don’t really know what the mix needs to be, but we got the clear message we need affordable housing,” Feild said. “Our approach is to work with the community. What and how much does the mix need to be? … There’s not a magic bullet.”

He added, “We want a cool place where you can minimize the car. We want a combination of local and regional productions at the [Greer] Garson Theater. We want to make sure to broaden out the Fogelson Library to the public library system. We want to turn that into a state-of-the-art library.

“I don’t know where I’m going with this,” he added, “but the arts have got to be important.”

“We’re talking about something that has longevity and resilience,” Guthrey said. “That’s what everybody is signing into: the bigger picture.”

KDC/Cienda is getting started on the project in an uncertain time, as the economic effects of the novel coronavirus pandemic take aim at a range of businesses.

“These are unprecedented times,” Guthrey said. “We are going into this with eyes wide open.”

Especially with the pandemic-related shutdown and its economic toll, Feild said, “everything is up in the air” in terms of the projected costs for the redevelopment and the time line for construction.

“What I can say is we are looking at this as a career capper for most of us,” he said. “I think it’s a 10- to 15-year build-out. Several hundred million [dollars] is not out of the question.”

The KDC/Cienda Partners team

Dallas-based KDC Real Estate Development & Investments/Cienda Partners assembled an all-New Mexico team to build its midtown campus proposal

• University of New Mexico

• Santa Fe Community College

• Higher Education Center

• YouthWorks

• Christus St. Vincent Health System

• La Fonda on the Plaza

• Homewise

• Yes Housing

• Aberg Property Company

• Hogan Group

• Autototoph Design

• Pacifica Ventures

• Justin Golding

• Phase One Realty

• Santa Fe Art Institute

• Sage Morris-Greene

• Stantec

Meet the developer

KDC Real Estate Development & Investments/Cienda Partners and the city of Santa Fe are gathering public input on plans for redevelopment of the midtown campus, a city-owned former college campus on St. Michael's Drive.

The process continues with a Meet the Developer public virtual session from 5 to 7 p.m. Tuesday on the city’s YouTube channel. The public is invited to submit questions through 1 p.m. Tuesday to the development team at info@midtowndistrictsantafe.com.

https://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_news/santa-fe-taps-dallas-developer-for-midtown-campus/article_e275ed78-8a57-11ea-800b-53954a8ce19a.html

Santa Fe taps Dallas developer for midtown campus

By Teya Vitu tvitu@sfnewmexican.com May 4, 2020 Updated 6 hrs ago

The cat is finally out of the bag for the city of Santa Fe’s midtown campus.

Dallas-based KDC Real Estate Development & Investments/Cienda Partners — the presumptive master developer of the 64-acre property on St. Michael’s Drive following a City Council vote late Monday — outlined its plan to build affordable housing, add numerous film studios and collaborate with the University of New Mexico, Santa Fe Community College, YouthWorks and Christus St. Vincent Regional Medical Center on what is expected to be a yearslong project at the site.

The City Council and Mayor Alan Webber voted 7-2 during a special meeting Monday to enter into an exclusive negotiation agreement with the firm after three hours of fiery debate.

Several councilors expressed concern they didn’t have adequate time to review the agreement with KDC/Cienda before casting a vote and that the selection process for the master developer lacked public involvement. Some said they received dozens of comments and questions from the public just an hour before the meeting and wanted to address them before making the deal official.

Councilors JoAnne Vigil Coppler and Renee Villarreal voted against the agreement.

“I am very disillusioned with the lack of public input,” Vigil Coppler said. “… The public has been terribly left out. I didn’t know we had 70 questions [from the public] because we just got them. This is a major decision. This whole thing seems to be very rushed.”

Councilor Michael Garcia approved the agreement but said he thought the process established by Webber and the city’s contracted midtown campus manger, Daniel Hernandez, to select a master developer was shrouded in secrecy.

“We got a lot of questions submitted to us,” Garcia said. “I think we should answer those questions prior to a vote.”

Villarreal agreed. “These are questions I would have liked to hear,” she said. “The fact we received these an hour before the meeting — it’s hard to sift through them.”

Vigil Coppler also noted councilors did not get copies of the agreement until the night before the special meeting.

The agreement between the city and KDC/Cienda calls for a 12-month negotiation period with a built-in, four-month extension due to the novel coronavirus pandemic. Either party can terminate negotiations after six months if they decide there is no likelihood of reaching a disposition and development agreement for the former college campus.

Neither KDC/Cienda nor the city had given any indication until Monday what the Dallas team intended for the midtown campus. Officials had cited the competitive sealed procurement process.

The firm introduced its

Santa Fe-based team with a 20-minute video laying out out the basic vision.

Homewise, a major developer of affordable housing in Santa Fe

and Albuquerque, would coordinate the housing component of the redevelopment.

Mike Loftin, CEO of the nonprofit Homewise, said affordable housing would play a key role in the project — but not the only role.

“We will have a housing component that addresses the whole spectrum from affordable to high end and everything in between,” Loftin said, adding there would be ownership opportunities and rentals, along with housing incorporated into mixed-use structures.

Coppler Vigil was critical of the variety of housing proposed.

“We need affordable housing,” she said. “I will not support any measure for market housing. That defeats the whole purpose.”

Garson Studios, a filmmaking venue on the campus, would be significantly expanded with four to six more sound studios developed by Pacifica Ventures. The firm built and operated Albuquerque Studios until 2018, when it sold the property to Netflix.

Christus St. Vincent plans to add a primary care clinic at the campus for residents of the community and the surrounding neighborhoods, CEO Lillian Montoya said in the video.

YouthWorks, a local nonprofit that offers job training, counseling and other support services for young people, would have a community kitchen on the campus and help with workforce development, CEO Melynn Schuyler said.

Bill Guthrey, KDC’s senior vice president of land development, said the company sought to partner with the largest educational institutions, the largest affordable housing provider and the largest health care provider in Santa Fe.

While KDC is based in Dallas, Guthrey said he has a second home in Santa Fe and grew up in El Paso. His father was from Silver City, he said.

Cienda Partners owns La Fonda on the Plaza.

The Monday presentation by KDC/Cienda was the first of several planned “Meet the Developer” sessions.

The first of four more virtual sessions is scheduled May 12. Each session will address a specific set of topics: housing and housing affordability; transportation and connectivity; job creation, career training and job placement; sustainable sites and green building; master planning and urban design.

The nonprofit social justice organization Chainbreaker Collective monitored Monday’s meeting on YouTube.

“Chainbreaker has been conducting community engagement around this issue since the beginning,” Director Tomás Rivera said. “We are looking forward to sharing our experience, expertise and working with the city as they honor the commitments they made tonight to ensure meaningful community engagement.”

https://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_news/santa-fe-residents-file-complaint-threaten-suit-over-midtown-campus-project-secrecy/article_ab4a5d5a-8e0f-11ea-8784-af9f94f57bb0.html

Santa Fe residents file complaint, threaten suit over midtown campus project secrecy

By Danielle Prokop dprokop@sfnewmexican.com May 4, 2020 Updated 6 hrs ago

A group of Santa Fe residents have filed a complaint with the New Mexico Attorney General’s Office accusing the city of violating the state’s open meetings law in its process of selecting a developer for the midtown campus.

“We didn’t need to see names, we didn’t need to see bottom lines,” retired schoolteacher María Bautista said in an interview Monday. “We wanted to see ideas, and they locked us out.”

Bautista announced the complaint in a Facebook post Monday, hours before the City Council was set to take a big step forward in what is expected to be a yearslong, massive redevelopment of the city-owned property on St. Michael’s Drive.

In a virtual public meeting Monday evening that drew comments from dozens of people, the council voted to hire Dallas-based KDC Real Estate Development & Investments/Cienda Partners as the master developer of the former college.

Bautista said she filed the complaint in a joint effort with Miguel Chavez, a former city councilor and county commissioner; former employees of the shuttered college; and other residents of the surrounding neighborhood.

She and her attorney, A. Blair Dunn, also expect to file a lawsuit against the city, asking a judge to order officials to roll back any actions on the project until they gather more public input on its scope and developer, she said.

Matt Baca, a spokesman for Attorney General Hector Balderas, confirmed the office had received the complaint.

Bautista sent an email to the city last week expressing her concerns.

City Attorney Erin McSherry responded, saying the City Council has taken no votes behind closed doors and that all discussions on the midtown project followed the open meetings law.

“Procurement Code requires that discussion of competitive sealed proposals, such as those submitted regarding the Midtown Property, occur during executive session, so that other competing proposers do not have access to their competition’s proposal during the negotiation process,” McSherry wrote.

Bautista still believes some decisions were made in closed-door meetings.

She noted the city had narrowed its list of possible developers to two finalists from 21 contenders between November and Monday.

“What they’ve missed is they can’t have these closed-door meetings to whittle down the developers,” Dunn said.

Webber said in teleconference Monday he was unaware a complaint had been filed with the Attorney General’s Office.

But Webber defended the selection process for the master developer when asked if he thought there was enough community engagement to meet the public’s expectations. He acknowledged there was “enormous appetite for engagement” in what he called a landmark, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

“I think that the process the city embarked on, which is essentially an RFP process — a request for proposal process — is not a process that is involving public participation,” he said.

“It’s not a political process any more than any other contract the city lets is a political process.”

https://www.abqjournal.com/1451288/redevelopment-of-santa-fes-midtown-site-moves-ahead.html

Redevelopment of Santa Fe’s Midtown site moves ahead
By Monica Roman Gagnier / Journal staff writer
Published: Monday, May 4th, 2020 at 11:09pm
Updated: Tuesday, May 5th, 2020 at 12:05am

The Santa Fe City Council approved a one-year exclusive negotiating agreement with KDC Real Estate Development and Investments/Cienda Partners to develop the 64-acre Midtown property during a special meeting on Monday. This photo from September shows weeds growing in the sidewalk outside Lasalle Hall on the campus that once housed the Santa Fe University of Art and Design.

SANTA FE, N.M. — The city of Santa Fe governing body, which includes Mayor Alan Webber and the eight-member city council, voted Monday to enter a one-year contract with a master developer for the city-owned Midtown site, the former home of the Santa Fe University of Art and Design.

Under the terms of the exclusive negotiating agreement, KDC Real Estate Development and Investments/Cienda Partners’ plans and local partnerships will be made public. As the city has sought to find a master developer for the 64-acre property off St. Michael’s Drive, it has faced criticism for keeping private the responses to its request for expressions of interest in the site.

The only two opposing votes to the one-year “get to know you” deal came from city councilors Renee Villareal and JoAnne Vigil Coppler. Both expressed concern that public input had not been sufficient during the search for a master developer.

“I want the public to know we don’t know hardly more than they do,” said Vigil Coppler during the special meeting, which took place via the Zoom digital platform because of restrictions against public gatherings during the coronavirus crisis. “Everything has been so confidential. This whole thing bothers me to no end, but here we are.”

The Midtown site is in District 4, which Vigil Coppler represents.

After the vote, the principals of KDC and Cienda showed a video that introduced the council and the public to its local partners. Under the mixed-use development envisioned, Christus St. Vincent, Homewise, Santa Fe Community College, the University of New Mexico and Pacifica Ventures, the former owner of Albuquerque Studios, will be tenants or possibly buyers of parcels on the site.

Under the ambitious plan, the Midtown campus would have health care facilities from Christus that would be used to train surgical technicians through a program at SFCC. Homewise would work to create housing for both rental and lease at a variety of price points. SFCC would partner with UNM to create degree programs to train students for digital and film careers.

The opportunity to revitalize the campus in the heart of the city was hailed by Mayor Webber as “a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

The big question mark is coronavirus, which could prevent surveys and inspections from taking place and even limit the ability of local residents to comment on the proposal. The fallout from the virus could also hurt business.

The contract calls for a four-month extension and could be extended further if shutdowns prevent work from occurring, said City Attorney Erin McSherry.

The presence of SFCC and UNM at the Midtown site would continue the tradition of education on the campus that dates back to 1859, when St. Michael’s College, later known as the College of Santa Fe, was founded. After the school ran into financial trouble, the city of Santa Fe bought the campus in 2009 in conjunction with the state of New Mexico and Laureate Education.

The school reopened as the Santa Fe University of Art and Design, but closed in May 2018, also because of financial woes.

Councilor Signe Lindell reminded some of her colleagues who were advocating a go-slow approach that the empty facility is a burden on city finances, which have taken a hit due to the loss of tourism.

“In the last six weeks, we have witnessed a worldwide economic meltdown. This property costs between $6,000 and $8,000 a day. That’s a lot of money folks. Let’s make this happen as quickly as possible,” she said prior to the vote.

The city will hold a virtual meeting on Tuesday, May 12, to solicit questions and comments from the public about its new relationship with the master developer.