The conversion of hotels and motels into housing is not a new concept in U.S. cities — Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Denver and Austin have done it — but Albuquerque’s latest project is a distinctive one.
Los Altos Lofts, located at 10330 Hotel Ave. NE, is the first hotel-to-apartment conversion and renovation that’s owned and overseen by the city. It’s also one that’s notably located away from the Central Avenue corridor. The city bought the former 104-room SureStay by Best Western hotel near Eubank and Lomas boulevards in April 2023 for $5.7 million. It’s bankrolling a complete overhaul and expects to recoup the costs — including maintenance, operations, insurance and taxes — from rental revenue.
Joseph Montoya, deputy director of housing in the Health, Housing & Homelessness department, said the project is another step toward solving a significant shortage of affordable housing in the city. It’s also important for nearly half of Albuquerque renters who are cost burdened—spending more than 30% of their total income on housing. The precarious circumstances of strapped Albuquerque renters is a key reason the city launched its Housing Forward ABQ initiative in late 2022. The initiative prioritizes hotel-motel conversions, zoning changes to incentivize housing development, an expansion of nuisance abatement laws, and “reasonable” regulation of short-term rentals.
The first of Los Altos Loft’s 90 studio and one-bedroom units are expected to be available to lease in the spring, with the project’s completion slated for June. Montoya said the units will be mixed income.
“Everybody has to pay rent, fair market rate rents,” Montoya said. “It’s an apartment complex like any other, but rents are more affordable — $700 to $900 a month depending on the size.”
Studios will range from 264-to-315 square feet, while one bedrooms range from 534-to-565 square feet. Prices also depend on the number of people living in the unit, based on guidelines set each year by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).
“Hotel-motel conversions are one of our strategies to quickly and cost-effectively create more affordable housing,” Katie Simon, spokesperson for Health, Housing & Homelessness, said. “The Los Altos Lofts property was the right combination of size, price and condition, and with the multimillion dollar renovation that just happened at Los Altos Park, we are excited to keep investing in the area.”
Long a neighborhood amenity, the park reopened late last year after a $15 million renovation that began in 2021. It’s located at 10100 Lomas Blvd. NE, just across Eubank Boulevard from the Los Altos Lofts.
Public-private partnerships
The city has been involved in other hotel-motel conversions over the years through public-private partnerships (PPP) that targeted dilapidated motels along Central Avenue. Through the PPP formula, the city contributes funds toward development costs and then a nonprofit like New Life Homes or the Supportive Housing Coalition of New Mexico oversees operations. PPP projects feature a mix of market rate and affordable rental units.
East Downtown’s Imperial Inn — now The Imperial — is the most recent example of such a project. While it offers 17 extended-stay suites and 37 standard guest rooms, its redevelopment also includes eight apartments for lease. The project received $700,000 in gap funding from the city’s Metropolitan Redevelopment Agency and was developed by Palindrome Communities LLC.
Other PPP conversion projects of former Route 66-era hotels include the Sundowner Apartments at 6101 Central Ave. NE, the Luna Lodge Motel at 9119 Central Ave. SE, and the El Vado Motel at 2500 Central Ave. SW.
‘Looking at other hotels’
Montoya, the deputy director of housing in the Health, Housing & Homelessness department, said the Los Altos Loft’s purchase and the city’s involvement in PPP projects are different paths that lead to the same goal: bringing more affordable housing to the Albuquerque market. He said there are other ways to get there, too.
“We’ve created a matrix in terms of what would be the most effective use of the city’s time and energy,” Montoya said. “We are looking at other hotels, and not necessarily on the Route 66 corridor.”
He said options include working with private entities who may be open to partial hotel-motel conversions.
“If there were 100 rooms, for example, we could pay the cost of switching 20 percent of them. They’d have to keep them affordable and to our standards,” Montoya said.
Montoya said the city is also exploring ways to assist commercial building owners who may be interested in converting to housing.
“We look at options that are cheaper for the city and effective in keeping rents low,” he said. “There’s nothing wrong with PPP, but it can be expensive and time consuming. We’re always looking for simpler ways to get product on the market.”
Montoya said the city currently owns about 500 housing units — including those at the Santa Barbara Senior Apartments, the Beach Apartments and the Tucson Apartments. It’s helped to fund many more units at properties like Downtown @700-2nd, Sterling Downtown and Plaza Ciudana.