Plans to significantly transform a much-used transit station in Albuquerque are taking a significant step forward with the awarding of around $25 million in federal funding.
Located at 2121 Indiana Street NE, the Uptown Transit Center has for years served as one of the city’s public transportation stations for its busy ABQ Ride bus system.
But City of Albuquerque officials have wanted to do more with the facility and larger site, located in a part of the city dotted with office structures.
According to city documents, what is now a planned redevelopment of the site will be a three-phase effort, with the first two phases transforming the center into a 100-foot-wide transit plaza housing half a dozen bus docks, along with covered waiting areas, and some 22,000 square feet of commercial space.
The second phase of the project, which has received the most media attention, will see the building of a 7-story tower structure housing more than 200 affordable apartment units, along with an additional nearly two dozen separate apartments.
Upon completion of phase one and two, the project will move onto the construction of yet more housing, in this case, some 194 market-rate residential units and another 6,000 square feet of commercial space on one-acre piece of land.
Work on that third phase will also see demolition of a two-story Nusenda Credit Union location at 6501 Indian School Road NE, one block from the current Uptown Transit Center.
The $25 million is coming through a Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity grant, offered by the federal Department of Transportation.
Such grants are designed to focus on road, rail, transit, and port projects, with a focus on multi-modal development. According to a press release issued by the Transportation Department roughly 70% of RAISE grants awarded this spring have gone to regions defined as either a Historically Disadvantaged Community or an Area of Persistent Poverty.
In a statement, New Mexico Senator Martin Heinrich said a RAISE-funded project is not like an Intermodal Surface Transportation Act project “that comes along every five years on transit.”
Instead, Heinrich likened the RAISE projects in importance to the historic Federal Highway Act of 1956, signed into law by President Eisenhower, which triggered the actual building of the interstate highway system.
By Garry Boulard
