Learn More

The City’s Plans

The City’s plans were first made public in a February 2022 article in the “Apache Plume,” the quarterly newsletter of the Albuquerque neighborhood of High Desert, which borders the Elena Gallegos:

“City Has Big Plans to Develop Elena Gallegos”

(original link here)

Prior to that, the City paid $250,000 in taxpayer money to the architecture firm of Dekker/Perich/Sabitini to conduct a “Feasibility Study” for their building, which D/P/S published in January 2022:

Dekker/Perich/Sabitini Feasibility Study

(notice how D/P/S conveniently omits the Purchase Agreement and the Deed from the “Regulatory Framework” on page 10!)

This project originated with David Simon (Director of ABQ Parks & Rec) and Colleen Langan-McRoberts (Superintendent of ABQ Open Space), who want to build a 4,800 square foot building at either the Pino Trailhead or the Cottonwood Springs Trailhead. The exterior of the building will feature a wrap-around deck, children’s playground, and massive parking lot that can accommodate multiple tour buses, bringing the building’s total footprint up to many tens of thousands of square feet. The interior of the building will feature meeting rooms, staff offices, a café, and a video room that will play an educational video on loop.

(Above, we’ve outlined the proposed building in red and the planned parking lot in blue. The building by itself is 4,800 sq ft — which means the total footprint of this project will land somewhere around 100,00 sq ft!)

The building was originally designed as a Visitor Center, where the City could host large events and festivals, and whose primary demographic would be tourists:

(These are the City’s own notes on the project, taken from the minutes of the May 7, 2021 meeting of their “Advisory Committee,” available here)

The City first floated their plans at a public zoom meeting in July 2021. After receiving overwhelmingly negative feedback on their project (seriously — read through the comments at the end of the “Feasibility Study”), the City began referring to the building as an “Education Center.” This was a clear and calculated PR stunt to mitigate criticism of the building — because who could possibly be against education!

Edited 10/18/22 to add:

Here is ALL of the information that the City has made publicly available on the project:

1. Dekker/Perich/Sabitini's Feasibility Study

2. CABQ Elena Gallegos Page (includes a link to the PowerPoint presentation given at the High Desert HOA meeting)

3. Open Space's official website on the project (includes links to “Advisory Committee” minutes)

We encourage you to read through all of these documents before forming your opinion. Please note that NOWHERE does the City ever mention the protections in the Deed and the Purchase Agreement that they are planning to violate.

Edited 8/8/23 to add:

Dekker/Perich/Sabatini deleted their “Foothills Education Center” website after Parks & Rec lost our lawsuit against them, so some of the above links no longer work. Here are the minutes from the three “Advisory Committee” meetings that took place in 2021:

1. May 7, 2021 Meeting

2. June 4, 2021 Meeting

3. September 24, 2021 Meeting