High school conversion spurs downtown revival

For a quarter-century, the old Albuquerque High School— five big buildings built from 1914 to 1940 just two blocks east of downtown—stood empty, lurching from one failed development proposal to another. Now, Rob Dickson’s Paradigm & Company is populating the Jacobethan Revival-style complex with loft dwellers who are providing momentum for the city’s ambitious downtown redevelopment (featured in the Dec. 2002 New Urban News). Last year the Old Main and Classroom buildings, which emptied out in the mid-1970s, reopened as 70 loft apartments ranging in size from 515 to 1,329 square feet and renting for $485 to $1,260 a month. This January Albuquerque Loft Developers, a joint effort of Dickson and Lloyd Zuckerberg of New York, began constructing four new buildings containing 56 for-sale lofts and a 6,000-square-foot neighborhood market space. Two of the new residential buildings will be positioned to wrap a four-level, 264-space parking garage, which the city is constructing at a cost of $3.4 million. Another side of the garage will feature 2,500 square feet of commercial space. Work will start in February 2004 on converting the 58,000-square-foot gym into 60 loft apartments. The 10,000-square-foot school library is being prepared for office use. The complex faces Central Avenue, a thoroughfare that serves as Albuquerque’s principal downtown artery but that deteriorates into a strip of dingy $19.95-a-night motels. Both Central Avenue and Broadway Boulevard, near the school, “have been widened over the years to become auto-only, and have lost their character as a true avenue and boulevard,” Dickson says. Discussions are underway about achieving a better balance between automobiles, transit, and pedestrians. The high school conversion and new construction will encompass 3.5 blocks and cost approximately $50 million — $38 million from the developer and the rest from the city. The long-term value of the garage and financial participation in the project are expected to result in the city recouping $8 to $9 million of its $12 million outlay. Dekker/Perich/Sabatini is architect, and Richardson & Richardson is contractor.