Students Design Vision for Santa Fe Airport Road Corridor

The City of Santa Fe sought assis­tance with an assess­ment of the Air­port Road cor­ri­dor. They found the right peo­ple for the job in the UNM School of Archi­tec­ture and Planning’s Com­mu­nity and Regional Plan­ning pro­gram. “It is Santa Fe’s emerg­ing immi­grant dis­trict that fea­tures afford­able hous­ing and ’70s and ’80s era strip malls. In the last five to seven years Mex­i­can immi­grant busi­nesses have moved in,” said Moi­ses Gon­za­les, assis­tant pro­fes­sor, adding that the area is see­ing a rise in the stu­dent num­bers at area schools.

The city wanted to have a vision for the area. City Coun­cilor Carmichael Dominguez, Miguel Acosta, Santa Fe Com­mu­nity Part­ner­ship, and Kather­ine Mor­timer, Sus­tain­able Santa Fe, decided a cor­ri­dor plan was in order and approached the School of Archi­tec­ture and Planning.

Given the con­di­tions, Gon­za­les and his advanced plan­ning stu­dio and col­league Assis­tant Pro­fes­sor Tim Imeok­paria worked to help agen­cies under­stand all the com­plex­i­ties, issues and devel­op­ment scenarios.

The UNM team assessed the corridor’s hous­ing, com­mu­nity ser­vices, shop­ping, Air­port Road busi­ness dis­trict, pub­lic safety and gate­way to the com­mu­nity. “We looked at appro­pri­ate sites to locate facil­i­ties. We explored afford­able hous­ing sites and came up with a strat­egy for use of vacant land. We looked at the cor­ri­dor in total­ity, includ­ing neigh­bor­hood cen­ters and a way to for­mal­ize the ven­dors’ street trucks,” said Gonzales.

Gon­za­les said that once they com­pleted the plan, they met with city staff at a com­mu­nity meeting.

Mor­timer said, “Moi­ses, Tim and the stu­dents were a great team. We had a very broad res­o­lu­tion of things to address and cover.” She said that some­times stu­dents let “real­ity go” in a project, but that a real project teaches stu­dents about deliv­er­ing a project in its real­ity to the client.

“They did an excel­lent job. They gath­ered amaz­ing data, and stud­ied it within con­text. They came up with rec­om­men­da­tions, some of which are mov­ing for­ward. All their pre­sen­ta­tions were pro­fes­sional and well done.”

Mor­timer said she worked with stu­dents before when she worked in the Uni­ver­sity of Cal­i­for­nia Berkeley’s cam­pus plan­ning office. “The UNM stu­dents were on par with those from Berke­ley. Tim and Moi­ses pro­vided strong lead­er­ship that demanded excel­lence,” she said.

The senior plan­ning stu­dio and fac­ulty were rewarded for their efforts with an award from the city of Santa Fe. Mor­timer called Gon­za­les and told him that the city coun­cil was award­ing them with a Muchas Gra­cias Award for Pub­lic Ser­vice. “It was given to the stu­dio for efforts in com­mu­nity plan­ning and how our work will guide their plan­ning efforts,” he said.

Santa Fe liked their work so much that they are cur­rently in talks with Gon­za­les about a St. Michaels cor­ri­dor stu­dio for the com­mu­nity col­lege dis­trict. “Santa Fe is look­ing beyond tourism for their brand­ing in devel­op­ing a code for the down­town dis­trict. They came to us because we have cor­ri­dor exper­tise,” he said.

Media Con­tact: Car­olyn Gon­za­les (505) 277‑5920; email: cgonzal@unm.edu