Want the Big Picture perspective on Unser Gateway? Springer 5’s Jeanie Springer-Knight lays it out project by project. Yes, we truly have a vision for Rio Rancho’s boomingest corridor—and we’re just getting started. Read more in this article by Damon Scott in Albuquerque Business First:
Unser Gateway continues to accelerate
Take a major thoroughfare, vacant land, motivated developers and add in a massive anchor and you’ve got a corridor in Rio Rancho that continues to boom.
The artery is Unser Boulevard — a large stretch of it recently branded as the Unser Gateway — running from the edges of Albuquerque at the HME Specialists new complex at the corner of Golf Course Road and Westside Boulevard and continuing north to After Hours Pediatrics near Cabezon and Unser Boulevards. And there is a medical theme to it all — Presbyterian Rust Medical Center is the corridor’s huge and expanding anchor.
gbs122314j/RIO-WEST — The Rust Medical Center has more plans than just the patient tower under construction on Tuesday, December 23, 2014. (Greg Sorber/Albuquerque Journal)
Take a major thoroughfare, vacant land, motivated developers and add in a massive anchor and you’ve got a corridor in Rio Rancho that continues to boom. Construction crews are hard at work at Presbyterian Rust Medical Center in Rio Rancho. The hospital is undergoing a major expansion along the Unser Gateway.
A new $80 million patient tower is rising at Rust — where you’ll see one of the only construction cranes in the Albuquerque area at work. The expansion is set to be completed this year with more projects in the pipeline for the hospital in Rio Rancho and in its Downtown Albuquerque location.
Jeanie Springer-Knight, of Springer5 Investments, is one of the area’s most active developers and is considered the spark for the corridor’s branding and a coalescing of stakeholders in the public and private sector. Springer-Knight has property and land along the Unser Gateway — Unser Pavilion and Springer Plaza — and says she sees a bright future for Rio Rancho in both commercial and residential projects.
The following are projects Springer-Knight says, along with Rust, will continue to spur new development along the corridor in the coming months.
Petroglyph Medical Plaza: Dirt is starting to move on about 18-acres adjacent to Rust to make way for New Mexico Orthopaedics and eventually a branch of Nusenda Credit Union. Scott W. Throckmorton, the president of ARGUS Investment Realty, is one of the developers behind the emerging project.
Unser Pavilion: Springer-Knight’s project is considered one of the most successful in the area. Hanger Prosthetics has opened and the development, which is almost full save 6,700 square feet in one building for a medical user and a one-acre pad site that Springer-Knight said could be a sit-down restaurant. She’s opened WisePies Pizza, Einstein Bros Bagels, Prime and Subway there, among other tenants.
Springer Plaza: These 15-acres north of Petroglyph Medical Plaza, Springer-Knight said, is getting more attention because of the nearby and emerging Los Diamantes project, as well as the specter of new schools in the pipeline for the area. “[Los Diamantes] will be a major new community for Rio Rancho, its newest front door, and will pull activity into the southern part of Rio Rancho,” she said. Los Diamantes’ master plan is being developed now and would include a 60-acre business park and 40-acres of residential.
Rio at Cabezon: This recently opened skilled nursing and rehabilitation facility is located south of Unser Pavilion and is evidence of ancillary development out of Rust.
Colores De Cabezon: An office and medical condo project, it is about 90 percent complete and offers boutique medical offices for physicians that want to be in their own space.
Village at Rio Rancho: Springer-Knight says this 65-acre parcel of land adjacent to Rust is back on the radar and the hope is that the project will emerge as an outdoor, retail, mixed-use development much like ABQ Uptown. She said a grocery anchor and hotel would set the foundation.
