PROJECT OPENS ROAD OF OPPORTUNITY FOR LOS RANCHOS

This article ran in the Albuquerque Tribune on Monday, July 31, 2000.
© 2000 The Albuquerque Tribune and Nancy Salem

Project Opens Road of Opportunity for Los Ranchos
By Nancy Salem - Tribune reporter

Fourth Street is many things to many people. Centuries old, the north-south route has been a farm road, a ranching road, a county road, a state highway, part of Route 66, U.S. 85 and an historic byway.

But it's first and foremost a Valley road -- a mix of urban and rural, of businesses, fields and orchards.

"It's our road. It's our history," says John Hooker, mayor of the Village of Los Ranchos de Albuquerque.

Hooker, whose 5-square-mile village is steward to a 4-mile stretch of Fourth from about Solar Road, where Sadie's Restaurant sits, to Ortega Road, midway between Paseo del Norte and Alameda Boulevard, wants to write a new chapter in the street's story.

Fourth Street through Los Ranchos is home to an eclectic mix of small businesses: Hardware, Western wear, feed and grain, tackle, liquor, animal care, auto repair, health food, dining.

But the business district is languishing, lacking both the pizzazz of Nob Hill and the sheer numbers of mega-centers like Cottonwood Corners.

"We don't have McDonald's, Walgreen's, Hastings," Hooker says. "We're off the beaten path, quieter."

Hooker and officials of the 6,000-resident village hope to revitalize their stretch of Fourth Street on the heels of an $8.5 million highway reconstruction project designed to improve the quality and function of the road within the village.

"Road projects and small-town economic development can work together," says Economic Development Secretary John Garcia. "Transportation is essential to supporting modern technologies and ensuring competitive capability. Highway projects are one of our best economic-development tools."

Hooker says Los Ranchos' trustees, business owners and residents are realizing that "if millions are spent on the road, it will lead people to invest millions on business revitalization."

"The public investment is $8.5 million. If the private investment in expanding and building businesses is 10 times that in the next 10 years, then the effort will have been a success," Hooker says. "But that's out of my control. It depends on hundreds of individual decisions."

Fourth Street was last rebuilt in the 1960s, when it was widened to four lanes.

"Basically, the road is 40 years old, and it's wearing out," Hooker says. "Traffic safety, air quality and the Osuna-Fourth intersection are problematic. Another piece of the problem is drainage. The Valley doesn't have storm sewers, no place to put the water."

The village began an effort three years ago to rebuild Fourth. It convinced the Middle Rio Grande Council of Governments, as the planning organization for metropolitan Albuquerque, of the need for the project.

Wilson & Co. Engineers of Albuquerque was hired to manage the project for the village. Los Ranchos will pay $2 million of the estimated $8.5 million cost. The rest will be paid largely with federal highway money.

Hooker says Fourth Street, as well as other old four-lane US highways around the country, has been bypassed by new roads, like I-25, and new shopping centers, like Cottonwood.

"The super Wal-Marts and Lowe's are worlds apart from Chase Hardware and Hacienda Home Center, and other businesses on Fourth," Hooker says. "They drain cash out of the local economy."

He says gross sales in the village have dropped slightly the past two years.

"If I'm going to spend 8 to 12 million improving Fourth, I want to make sure it has an economic return for the village and the North Valley economy," Hooker says. "Our neighbors to the north and south -- Albuquerque and Alameda -- are watching. I hope that what we do will be better than what we've got."

Los Ranchos recently held a series of public design workshops to develop ideas for a revitalized Fourth Street.

"We want to preserve the rural character of the road," Hooker says. "We don't want urban, but we want a good business corridor. The challenge is to define what that means."

The workshops followed the charette process in which multiple ideas are quickly explored using input from interested parties.

Howard Kaplan, director of architecture for Wilson & Co., says residents, business owners and officials heard all sides of the revitalization issue and came up with a direction.

"It's getting the people who are the most involved to visualize what they would like to see and then work on development solutions as to how that might happen," he says.

There was strong consensus on a key issue: helping businesses thrive. "They want to use the highway reconstruction project to act as economic revitalization for the corridor," Kaplan says.

Participants also agreed that traffic should be slowed down and the street made more pedestrian friendly, with more crossings for people and horses. Alternatives include widening Fourth to five lanes or cutting it back to three.

A chief element of the workshops and of the village's master plan for 2010 adopted this spring is creation of a village center at the site of the Northdale Shopping Center at Fourth and Osuna. The center would be a mixed-use district, denser than the surrounding area, encompassing retail, civic, social, office and residential functions.

Workshop participants also favored encouraging "destination" businesses that people from throughout the Albuquerque area would travel to.

"Then we want complimentary businesses and neighborhood services that say 'Valley,' that reinforce that identity," Hooker says. "No big boxes."

He says more housing will be encouraged near Fourth Street. "Businesses do well if people are nearby," he says. "With people living there, Fourth becomes a nicer place."

Landscaping, shared parking and walkways -- but not necessarily sidewalks -- will be encouraged.

Different segments of the road could have different business characters, with smaller retail clusters north of Osuna and "arterial," or heavier commercial businesses, south of Osuna.

"We don't know yet what it will look like," Hooker says. "More shopping can only help us. But we need to define the key character of Fourth, the things that fit."

Based on the workshops, Wilson & Co. will develop a preferred design alternative to recommend to the village's governing body.

Bids on the highway project are expected to be opened in January 2002.

"Meetings will continue in the meantime," Hooker says. "We're looking for a clear direction. There is the opportunity to build something unique in the Valley."