Empty Sky Ride carriers travel over fairgoers on opening day of the 2025 State Fair on Sept. 4. Designers with the firm Stantec offered some examples of designs that the firm wants to include in a massive State Fair redevelopment project that is now moving into a planning phase. (Patrick Lohmann/Source NM)
People living around the New Mexico State Fair grounds in the heart of Albuquerque should start imagining the 236-acre state-owned site, now mostly covered in asphalt and concrete and surrounded with tall stucco walls, with open green space, an inviting entrance, a park and a pond.
Those stood among the common elements of early design concepts for the site during a presentation by design firm Stantec Thursday to a newly created state board that the Legislature endowed with up to $500 million in bonding capacity for a fairgrounds redevelopment project.
Legislative leaders and Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham touted the creation of the new district board as a way to convert the site where the State Fair currently happens once a year into a year-round income generator or site for mixed-income housing. In a statement after Senate Bill 481 was passed, the governor said redevelopment could provide “badly needed new housing for the workforce, while spurring massive private investment.”
Stantec officials , who are drafting a master plan, stressed that no design decisions have been made — particularly whether to move the State Fair from its home for more than 80 years — but they called on the public to imagine a transformation at the fairgrounds. It’s one that could be the impetus for change at the International District.
Potential relocation looms large over NM State Fair opening day
The area surrounding the fairgrounds has some of the deadliest intersections for pedestrians in New Mexico, and a recent Albuquerque police presentation detailed its high crime rates. It’s also a food desert, thanks in part to recent closures of a nearby CVS, Walgreens and Walmart, and a “heat island,” due to the lack of tree canopy and green space. The Trust for Public Lands also rates it as one of Albuquerque areas with the highest need for a public park.
Nonetheless, the proposed redevelopment has proven controversial with some neighbors who told Source New Mexico that they are concerned the funding will do little to help the neighborhood, will uproot the historic annual State Fair and will, like past efforts at fairgrounds redevelopment, be a flop. According to the Albuquerque Journal, many voiced their concerns about the project at a meeting Stantec held Monday.
Stantec designer Nancy Locke also released the results of a recent neighborhood survey, which found that nearby neighbors most want “safe, welcoming neighborhoods;” “economic prosperity for neighborhood residents;” and “public health and social services.”
Instead of the current layout of the fairgrounds, which is 93% pavement, Locke listed off possibilities for the master plan, including designs for “livable density, incorporating agriculture, farming, youth programs, commercial areas that act as like a third place” as well as “open space, bike paths” and other transportation solutions that “get people out of their cars and get people walking.”
Given how closed off the fairgrounds are from Central Avenue and the International District neighborhoods just beyond them, Locke said the firm thinks it’s important to establish a greater connection between the grounds and the neighborhood, as well as establish a large green space that could be used for multiple purposes.
“It ideally wears multiple hats,” she said of the new Central Avenue connection. “It serves multiple needs, and it will be driven, really, by what we’re hearing from the community going forward.”
Now that it is wrapping up its “analysis” phase, which includes market analysis and public engagement, the firm is moving toward its “master plan development phase,” Locke said. Options abound, she said.
“There’s a whole range of opportunities that we can start to imagine and start to lay the base for,” she said Thursday.
The board on Thursday also approved spending up to $22.5 million to acquire an eight-acre area on the southeast corner of the fairgrounds, which currently has about 17 parcels and 13 condominium units. Doing so is a necessary step as the board seeks approval for future spending, according to former Albuquerque Mayor Martin Chavez, who is spearheading the project on behalf of Lujan Grisham.
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