There’s a construction boom going on all over Santa Fe — not just in the downtown area — ranging from a Kohl’s department store scheduled to open in the fall, to a senior apartment complex that won’t be ready until the third quarter of 2008.
In addition, residential and business condominiums are under construction in a project called Cedar Park, off Galisteo Street and St. Michael’s Drive, and a large condo project is going up off Cerrillos Road, where the Yucca Drive-In used to be.
No wonder that McGraw Hill Construction, which tracks building permits, is reporting sharply higher contracts for commercial construction in Santa Fe in its monthly surveys.
Through May of 2007, the totals are $237.1 million, compared to $29.3 million for the same period in 2006.
Contracts for residential construction in Santa Fe, in contrast, are at $40.3 million in May 2007, slightly lower than the same five-month period in 2006, when it was $41 million.
Kohl’s is being built on a 10.75-acre property off Camino Entrada in Valdes Business Park. The store is just southwest of Santa Fe Place and its four anchor department stores — Dillard’s, Mervyn’s, Sears and JC Penney.
The Kohl’s store, which is expected to open in October, is about 69,000 square feet, smaller than the average Kohl’s, which is about 87,000 square feet in size.
The Santa Fe Kohl’s will be the first in New Mexico and will employ about 130 people full and part time.
Not far from Kohl’s, on Vegas Verdes at Cerrillos Road, The Alameda, a condominium project consisting of 145 units, is well under way.
The one and two-bedroom condos, which range from 645 to 1,275 square feet, are priced between from the low $200,000s to the low $300,000s.
The project is the work of a Houston developer, the M. Kaplan Companies, with sales handled locally by Barker Realty.
“Our first building will be complete in August,” said Warren Sacks of Barker Realty. “Sixty-nine out of 145 condos are under contract. It terms of pre sale, we’ve done quite well.”
Business-condominium projects are also proliferating in Santa Fe as the need for such facilities grows.
Among the builders of business condos is developer Mark Miller (no relation to the Santa Fe chef of the same name), who built and still owns many of the condos in the Turquoise Trail Business Park. His business is called P.D. Constructors.
Miller also erected business condos in the Southwest Business Park, where Santa Fe Natural Tobacco and the Santa Fe New Mexican are located.
