In the ongoing process to repurpose a 64-acre campus in Santa Fe, city officials are contemplating the demolition of a series of buildings deemed as either out of date or with enough structural issues as to make their upgrading too expensive.
The campus is the former home of the Santa Fe University of Art and Design located at 1600 St. Michael’s Drive. The school closed its doors in the summer of 2018 for financial reasons.
In the three years since, city officials have been engaged in an extensive process, with an emphasis on public input, to reimagine the campus.
Those discussions have primarily focused on turning the campus into a mixed-use site, with offices, retail, housing, and public open space.
To that end, a potential partner, the Dallas-based KDC/Cienda Partners, earlier this year exercised an option not to proceed with the redevelopment of the campus, noting, among other things, that it would cost up to $30 million to demolish certain structures described as “obsolete.”
To make the campus more economically appealing for an outside developer, the city may ultimately call for the demolition of up to 16 structures there.
Altogether, the campus has just over 30 buildings of varying sizes, some dating to the mid-1940s when the site was the home to the former St. Michael’s College.
Those buildings include structures housing administrative offices, dormitories, a library, fitness center, studio, and theater.
An appraisal done for the city in 2017 by the real estate services and investment firm CRBE noted that the campus had seen more than $16.6 million in “renovations, upgrades and repairs between 2009 and 2014.”
It is not yet known when a demolition plan for the campus will be put into effect, and which buildings specially will be razed.
By Garry Boulard
