Features

On the Right Track

By Jason Silverman
Through years of contentious public debate, budget limitations, and even prairie dog relocation, Santa Fe's revamped Railyard has been a slow train coming. This spring, a city's hopes and promises for the unprecedented development find fulfillment at last.
What’s in a name? As far as the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad was concerned, not much. In 1859, when it began its interstate mission, the railroad planned to lay track from Atchison, Kansas, to our capital city. But by the late 1870s, the line had shifted its route, sending its trains through easier terrain just south, to Lamy. Our town’s once-touted railyard, instead of becoming a bustling transportation center, remained a sleepy, dusty patch of land, a drop-off point for the few tourists who bothered to take a side trip on the 18-mile spur. With only some light industrial business, including a coal yard, a fuel station, and a few warehouses at the Santa Fe Builders Supply Company (now known as Sanbusco), the Santa Fe Railyard for most of the 20th century remained largely vacant—a nowhere land on the fringes of a growing town, playing the lonely sister to the prettier, more popular Santa Fe Plaza.

All that’s about to change. After a 20-year process, Santa Fe’s Railyard is getting an extreme makeover. This spring, if all goes according to schedule, this open chunk of land, some 50 acres edged by Cerrillos Road and South Guadalupe with a spur to the Baca Street area—and one of the last remaining undeveloped spots within the city—will play host to ribbon-cutting ceremonies for a network of walking and biking trails, a half-million square feet of new buildings, and a massive 12-acre people-friendly park. The first to open, in March, will be phase one of the ArtYard live-work spaces, a model for in-town, sustainable, and mixed-use building practices. On its heels: the 17,000-square-foot Farmers Market building (featuring community and restaurant spaces), a new home for the teen center Warehouse 21, and Market Station, a 125,000-square-foot metropolis of shops anchored by outdoor retail giant REI. Construction on a 10-screen cinema and two more ArtYard live/work buildings is scheduled to start this year, and the Railrunner’s commuter trains, coming from downtown Albuquerque, should begin pulling into the station in late 2008. No doubt, the project, estimated at an economical $125 million, has been a long time coming, but many think the wait will have been worth it. If the development succeeds, it will provide both a vibrant new gathering space for Santa Feans and tourists alike, as well as a progressive new model for urban planning.

“It’s a feather in our cap, a model for how you can do development in concert with the community that is still viable from an economic sense,” says Santa Fe mayor David Coss. “Five or ten years in the future, the Railyard will be a community showcase and one of the centers of Santa Fe’s cultural economy. … It will be an anchor in Northern New Mexico’s sustainable agriculture, thanks to the Farmers Market. It will be one of the places we educate and show our kids how much we care about them, through the park and Warehouse 21 programs. ... And all of the blood, sweat, and tears the city went through over the years will be considered very much worth it.”

For most of the past 100 years, the Guadalupe and Alarid neighborhoods to the west of the tracks were some of Santa Fe’s poorest. In 1928, the Santa Fe New Mexican described one building in the area as “a weird and ghastly tombstone of the past, a ghostly and ghastly brick corpse towering over the other wrecks of time.” Twenty years later, the community fared no better: a 1946 report said the region had the worst sanitation in the city. Even as late as the 1980s, property values were a fraction of other downtown spots. Still, over the years, area residents fiercely contested any plans to develop the open space, which, until 1995, was owned by the AT&SF Railroad. A proposal for a shopping center failed in 1975, and in 1987 Mayor Sam Pick asked City Council to declare the tract “blighted,” in hopes of condemning and seizing it. Meanwhile, Catellus Development Corporation, the AT&SF’s real estate arm, offered alternatives: In 1991, it was a plan for 1.2 million square feet of new construction with condos, a six-story hotel, and office and retail space. A few years later, it was a Smith’s supermarket. Then a proposal to build a municipal center, complete with a new City Hall. None of the concepts, often dubbed too expansive to mesh with the quiet surrounding neighborhoods, clicked with City Council. The process itself was exhausting: Catellus butted heads with local officials and filled the air with threats of lawsuits.

From 1975 to 1995, not much happened to the Railyard—not much, anyway, for the city to brag about. One bright spot was the rescue, in 1984, by developer Joe Schepps, of the abandoned Sanbusco buildings, which he stripped of faux adobe and turned into a complex of shops and restaurants reminiscent of its original warehouse style. But the portion between Sanbusco and the historic Gross Kelly Warehouse to the south, which for years had hosted arts and performance groups, developed a reputation as a sketchy strip of town. Squatters moved in, parking campers and vans for months on end in the shadow of the trains. Each night, people partied. Each morning, the sounds of howling dogs woke up this loose-knit community. Here was a new Wild West, just a few blocks from the glitzy downtown galleries.

In 1993, Outside magazine’s owner, Larry Burke, boldly colonized a part of the area, relocating the national magazine from its Chicago headquarters with a 15,600-square-foot Pueblo Revival–style building next to Sanbusco. Once the magazine’s backhoes and graders arrived, the campers left. Two years later, in 1995, Santa Fe mayor Debbie Jaramillo finally convinced the city to step up to the plate: the city purchased 50 acres from Catellus for $24 million. But agreeing on acceptable development plans would prove to be one of the city’s greatest challenges.

The level of public input into the Railyard’s ensuing development may be without precedent in American urban planning. In 1995, after acquiring the land and seeking public comment, city planners outlined a list of 12 principles to which the development should adhere. The Railyard was to be considered “a community asset, not a development project … emphasiz(ing) local artists, local businesses, and local cultures.” It needed to “cherish and protect the beauty and quality of the surrounding neighborhoods,” and to promote “authentic, gritty, rugged” architecture that’s not “sanitized or perfumed” in character. It was to be geared to walkers, not drivers—with park and open space that allowed views of the mountains—and encourage public transportation. Always at its heart was community, never profit.

By 1998, realizing the job of overseeing the project was way too big for the city, Mayor Jaramillo encouraged the formation of the Santa Fe Railyard Community Corporation, but passing the baton wasn’t easy. After SFRCC held its first meeting in private, the city councilors who had promised an open process expressed their frustration. Concerns about conflicts of interest bubbled to the surface when Jaramillo agreed to serve on the SFRCC board. Questionable finances made the situation still stickier: Could the city actually afford to do all it was promising to? Following the pattern of fits and starts of the past, again, in July 1998, it seemed like the Railyard deal was dead, only to be resuscitated when the city and SFRCC worked out their differences.

Over the years, brainstorming meetings featured dozens of interested parties: the not-for-profits SITE Santa Fe, El Museo Cultural, Warehouse 21, and the Farmers Market, along with neighborhood associations, city councilors, activists, architects, designers, historians, and local officials. More than 700 citizens participated in one series of meetings, and slowly, year after year, a consensus was built. Among the points of debate: What should new buildings look like? Contemporary or, as the local reporter Terry England put it, “brown and beige dullsville”? Which nonprofits would get to stay? Which businesses? How much rent would everyone pay? How would the project, which had become a drain on the city’s coffers, be funded? And, the inevitable Santa Fe question: What would happen to the prairie dogs that lived there? (They were eventually relocated to public lands in southern New Mexico.)

“A lot of heart, sweat, and soul went into the process, as well as healthy and argumentative debates,” says Ana Gallegos y Reinhardt, the executive director of Warehouse 21, a popular teen center with extensive art and music programs. “Once the city purchased the property from the Catellus Corporation, we all knew a reality of this would unfold someday in the future. It was just a matter of when.”

But vigorous public debate wasn’t the only hurdle to clear. For decades, companies, including the railroads, mining interests, and Phillips Petroleum, had dumped waste in the vacant land. In 2000, construction crews discovered a bubbling tar pit—i.e., an illegal dump—that necessitated an environmental assessment study. Historians wondered whether excavations would unearth precious—and often contentious—bits of archaeology. Fortunately, by the end of 2005, the only things unearthed were huge sandstone blocks, once the foundation of the original AT&SF depot, 150 glass bottles, a few coins, and a ceramic doll’s arm. With the help of the federal government, the contaminated areas were cleaned up.

The process has been excruciatingly slow. In a 1999 editorial in the Santa Fe New Mexican, author Stanley Crawford, a longtime Railyard supporter, admitted the snail’s pace of the project “generated waves of public cynicism and despair.” But, he added, though “nothing grand has happened yet in the rail yard, nothing visibly grand, that is, the solid groundwork is being laid for the real action to begin. … There also is an element here of the saying ‘if the people lead, the leaders will follow.’”

When Richard Czoski was hired by the Santa Fe Railyard Community Corporation a mere four years ago, he expected to quickly work himself out of a job. First as the SFRCC’s director of leasing and management, and then as the nonprofit’s executive director, Czoski intended to work with the City and its citizens to implement the Railyard Master Plan the Council had approved in 2002—to contract the architects and engineers for building; to partner with the not-for-profits already located in the area; and to oversee leasing of the new commercial spaces. With more than 20 years in large-scale real estate projects under his belt, from Denver to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Czoski was undaunted by this relatively small development in a little city. “From a development, sticks-and-bricks perspective, it’s a pretty straightforward project,” he says, nonchalantly. “It’s been the emotional aspects and the community aspects that have been the most difficult and the most time-consuming.” Given the project’s history, that comes as no surprise.

In 2002, SFRCC had released a 150-page Master Plan, produced at a cost of $300,000. The document finally outlined the project’s proposed goals, guidelines for architecture and open-space requirements, and overview of the archaeological challenges. Among the details: local businesses, especially arts and crafts studios, were to be given preference over chain stores; roof heights were to adhere to neighborhood norms; and Pueblo Revival architecture—also known as “the rounded-corner adobe”—was explicitly forbidden, in an attempt to differentiate the Railyard district from the rest of downtown.

The plan, with its assertive language and visionary ideas, is itself a surprising read. In an age when most developments hinge on bang-for-buck efficiency and short-term profit, the Railyard’s Master Plan reflects Santa Fe’s desire for a different kind of urban life, one that celebrates human connection, local history and culture, and even sustainability—seemingly revolutionary concepts in America’s modern age, when most people walk out of their houses into their garages, climb into cars, drive into parking lots, ride elevators to cubicles or walk into shopping malls, and then, in reverse order, return home. An entire section was devoted to “multi-modal” transportation, meaning they hoped to encourage walkers, cyclists, and train riders, with a sidebar urging transportation leaders to “dream the future” in which driving your gas-guzzling SUV would be a last resort for venturing downtown. “This isn’t another shopping center,” Czoski explains. “The real-estate term for all other commercial development is ‘highest and best use.’ You take a piece of land and build it to the point where you can make the most money. Well, that’s not the approach here. … We really want to make the Railyard a community center and as much of a gathering place as the historic Plaza is.”

The plan also offered fresh inspiration for local designers. The city’s historic districts, governed by what many consider an overly restrictive design-review process, have been described as faux adobe “stage sets,” with the quest for preservation and authenticity strangling innovation. The Railyard would be anything but. New dictates spurred designers to think about introducing industrial materials, like corrugated metal and concrete, into downtown, rather than the predominant stucco-over-frame construction.

Unfortunately, the new plan ensured everything but smooth sailing. After threatening to pull out of the project due to budget conflicts with the City, SFRCC’s then-executive director Lleta Scoggins resigned, having become a lightning rod for rampant frustration about the logjammed project. Santa Feans were losing hope. “The railyard project seems always to be running back and forth on that same piece of track,” newspaper columnist Denise Kusel wrote. Plans for a movie theater stalled after Trans-Lux, then Magnolia and entrepreneur Daniel Ostroff (whom the Santa Fe Reporter, in a cover story, depicted as a fraud) pulled out. An Imax theater was proposed and then abandoned.

The ArtYard development (the Railyard’s sole residential space), a mixed-use project with loft-style apartments on its top floors and gallery, studio, and retail spaces below, angered some neighbors who claim they were blindsided by the scope of the buildings. Solar panels, intended to heat the units within the requirements of LEED Platinum certification, were deemed too obtrusive and struck down. “What sticks in my throat is that these guys have misrepresented this project the whole way,” says Eric Gent, whose property backs up to the ArtYard, in an interview in the New Mexican.

For his part, Mitch Davenport, vice president of The Lofts, the ArtYard’s parent company, is adamant that it adheres to the Master Plan. For more than a year, a consortium, including ArtYard representatives, city planners, Czoski, and area neighbors, worked toward a new agreement that was approved by City Council. “The few neighbors that have fought pretty much everything we have done at the ArtYard are quick to paint us as the ‘evil developers,’” Davenport wrote in a 2006 opinion piece in the New Mexican. A final decision over possible horizontally installed solar panels has yet to be resolved.

One of the Railyard’s biggest controversies came with the announcement that REI would rent the bulk of the Market Station, given that the plan contained clear language discouraging national chains. Soon after, an editorial cartoon showed a sign with the words COMING SOON: RAILYARD PARK & PLAZA but with park & plaza crossed out and replaced by the word MALL. Czoski defends the decision, saying a long-term lessee like REI was needed to secure construction funds. And he points out that the only national chains included are REI and Maya Cinemas, ultimately chosen to run the theaters. “It’s been our job to try to meld the objectives to the point where everyone can agree on them,” he says. “I’ve been impressed by the amount of public participation and passion around this project. It’s been an exercise in patience. But that’s not entirely a bad thing. I think the product that we’ll get at the end of the day, when the Railyard is complete, will be something that all three constituents and our group as well can all be proud of. I don’t think any of the groups is going to be 100 percent happy, but I think they’re as happy as we can reasonably make each of them.”

Despite his frustration with the drawn-out process, including escalating building and legal costs, Davenport agrees that the opportunity to work on what looks to be a landmark endeavor has been worthwhile. “When you do a big community-based project like this, it’s different,” he says. “Normally, we’ll buy a piece of land and develop the project. Other than getting permits and going through the approval process, it’s all in our hands. But everybody in Santa Fe, and rightfully so, is concerned about what happens at the Railyard. Most times in our projects, the people who live next door are the ones who are really concerned. Here, everybody’s concerned—and that’s a good thing.”

On site with Bryan Drypolcher, project manager for TPL, and Ken Smith, the New York–based landscape engineer selected to design the park, you can sense the care of trying to do the right thing by the Railyard. Smith points out elements of the extensive water-harvesting system going into place, which include more than 100,000 gallons of water catchment that will nurture some 400 drought-resistant indigenous trees. “It’s a very open landscape. The tradition in the East would be to cut down trees to create a clearing. Here you bring in water and create a garden. It’s a different approach, and a new challenge,” says Smith, who was chosen to design the park after winning an international competition staged by TPL and judged by local and national architects. His past projects include the rooftop garden at New York’s Museum of Modern Art and San Francisco’s Third Street Light Rail.

Richard Jennings, who engineered the water- harvesting systems through his company Earthwrights Designs, describes the conservation measures as unprecedented. “Innovation involves risk, and that was something that Santa Fe was willing to take on,” he says. “In general, the culture here is one of creativity in most things, with curiosity and experimentation part of the larger social fabric. Also many people have a heightened ecological awareness that leads them to invest in new ideas … [And] the Trust for Public Land stepped up and took the huge risk to raise the money and provide the organization to get it done. As a community, we owe them big time.”

In addition to new water-harvesting methods, the Railyard Park also puts in the spotlight one of our oldest: Acequia Madre, the “Mother Ditch” that runs from the foothills above Canyon Road through town to Aqua Fria. For years, this lifeblood was diverted under the Railyard through culverts, but TPL, in cooperation with the Community Acequia Association, will allow it to once again see the light of day. “People will be aware that the acequia is there, and understand that it’s there for a reason,” says Phil Bové, who for nearly a quarter century has served as the Acequia Madre Commissioner. “Acequias are still very viable in Northern New Mexico, and this is an opportunity to discuss their historical importance.”

A new “Acequia Niña” will be diverted to feed a demonstration garden. Alongside it will be a one-acre “play environment” with an interactive fountain (the runoff will water nearby trees) and a climbing wall. Walking paths will, thanks to digital mapping technologies, follow the exact route of the original AT&SF spur line that arrived from Lamy. The design is intended to be both forward-looking and steeped in history. “We have tried to incorporate features within the Railyard Park and Plaza that reflect upon the history of the place as an agricultural setting, then a railyard warehouse district, and soon-to-be community gathering place,” Drypolcher says.

For TPL, the project hasn’t been simple. The Railyard, Drypolcher explains, is the most hands-on project the group has ever taken on. Usually, the nonprofit helps with acquisitions, then is out of the picture once land is turned over to local governments. “One of the biggest hurdles in terms of public perception and buy-in has been the sense expressed by some that it will never happen or it’s taking too long and we are squandering a valuable resource,” he says. “In reality, when you consider the planning that had to happen, the financing that needed to be put in place, it really hasn’t taken all that long. Over the last few decades in the U.S., it would be easy to point to urban redevelopment projects of this scale that have rolled out more quickly, and it would be just as easy to point to many that have taken as long or longer to get under way. Now that construction activities are in full swing across the project, there is far less skepticism.”

Nearby, at SITE Santa Fe, Laura Heon has a different sort of problem. As director of the nonprofit art space, known for its biennial shows of global import, she’s seriously thinking about reorienting the building’s front door. At this former brewery, a massive warehouse with more than 18,000 square feet of exhibition space, the entrance historically has faced Paseo de Peralta, but it may be time to shift the orientation to the park. Likewise, Heon says, the Railyard will finally give locals and visitors a new way to approach Santa Fe. For too long, she argues, the Plaza- and Canyon Road–centric city has rested on its reputation as a turquoise-and-adobe-filled mecca, while a valid modern art and performance scene has grown increasingly important to the economy. High-end contemporary galleries have moved in nearby, including William Siegal, Gebert Contemporary, James Kelly Contemporary, and TAI Gallery, underlining the area’s increasingly strong position as a new and different arts district. “If we all do our part to get people to use it properly, this can become a plaza for the people, not just for the tourists,” she says. “It will reorient the entire city, and provide a new center for Santa Fe. … People can begin to see that our city is something dynamic and growing.”

With SITE as an anchor, city planners are hoping to build the district as a distinctive arts and cultural center. A new 16,000-square-foot, $3.5 million home for Warehouse 21 will back up to the Railyard Park. Nearby, El Museo Cultural, a largely underutilized and somewhat dilapidated cultural asset to date, may receive the kind of foot traffic necessary to raise its fortunes, too. The Farmers Market, soon to be housed in a 17,000-square-foot space that will accommodate up to 150 vendors, offices, and cafés, will further develop its reputation as one of the country’s best.

But the new construction does not mean straying from a commitment to sustainability. The Market is seeking silver-level LEED certification, using non-toxic materials, clean energy, and water capture. The ArtYard, too, has gone to great lengths to provide new models for environmental building practices. As a live/work space that gives preference to artists, it will eventually include three solar-powered buildings, hopefully reaching the two highest LEED certification levels, gold and platinum, both rarities in today’s commercial construction world.

From the Farmers Market and other not-for-profits to the open space, with its water conservation, from the historical nods to the focus on alternative transportation, the Railyard is indeed looking like a new millennium model for urban development. “Just about everybody in this town is excited about this project,” says Mitch Davenport of the ArtYard. “It may be that they think the park is the best part. They may think the Farmers Market finally getting their own real space is the most important part. Some people are excited about this ArtYard, and others about the theater. But one thing I’m not hearing is that it shouldn’t be happening, that the idea of putting all this together is a bad idea, that it should have been left a big vacant lot or something. Santa Fe has gotten their head around the idea that it’s time for this sort of vibrancy down here. That’s exciting.”

And while the Railyard redevelopment may have been a slow train coming, this one’s finally crested the hill.