ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) – Nearly five years after its opening, downtown Albuquerque’s “One Central” mixed-use development is now for sale on the open market. Colliers New Mexico recently listed the apartment and retail building for nearly $30-million, calling it “a sophisticated urban living community unlike any other in Albuquerque.”
Finished in 2018, One Central replaced a surface level parking lot on the corner of 1st Street and Central Avenue. The building has 78 apartments, more than 35-thousand square-feet of retail space and an attached parking garage.
The $29.9-million sale listing includes options for investors to buy the apartment space and retail space together or separately. The 432-space parking garage is not for sale though, as the city has a first option to buy the garage after 10 years. All 78 of the apartments on site are said to be fully leased, while the retail space is roughly 44% occupied, according to Colliers.
A project of focus during the final years of Albuquerque Mayor Richard Berry’s administration, the roughly $40-million dollar One Central development received nearly $20-million in incentives from the City of Albuquerque. Those incentives came in two forms, including a $17.5-million payment for the three story parking garage. The city also donated the land the building now sits on, which was valued at roughly $1.4-million before the development.
Bernalillo County also granted the local developers a 15-year property tax break on the project, half of what developers initially asked for. A decision to half the amount of time the tax breaks would be valid for ended up delaying the project’s eventual groundbreaking by about two months.
According to the sales brochure, the current property managers are in continued “negotiations” with an entertainment venue to lease the remaining 17,873 square feet of retail space at One Central. The brochure states the “Enter Player Two Internet Gaming Center” is “soon to open” at the building.
Some of the ideas for One Central haven’t come to fruition as initially promised. In 2017, plans included a possible pedestrian bridge between the mixed-use building and UNM’s nearby Innovate ABQ project. One Central was also originally selected by the city in 2015 with a proposal for a bowling alley and brewery concept on the building’s ground floor. That concept never took shape.
