By Kevin Hendricks, The Paper.
Part 2 of 4 in “Rio Rancho’s Economic Playbook,” a series on the city’s economic development strategy.
For years, City Center was the punchline — a mostly empty stretch of land off King Boulevard that even boosters struggled to defend. Economic Development Manager Alberto Solis says that’s about to change.
Solis, approaching his two-year mark in the role, told the Governing Body at a June 16 work session that 43 acres at City Center earned a state designation in February as one of five Strategic Economic Development sites in New Mexico. The recognition came after a site readiness analysis by Virginia-based consultant Global Location Strategies, coordinated by the state of New Mexico.
The designation made the city eligible to apply for $1.5 million in state site readiness grant funding, which Solis said would help extend College Boulevard to Broadmoor — improving access from Southern Boulevard and making the site more attractive to prospective employers.
Building the pitch
Solis framed Rio Rancho’s economic future around four target sectors: aerospace and defense, healthcare, higher education and small-business growth. The Sandoval Regional Medical Center and UNM Health Sciences’ Rio Rancho campus are already anchoring a healthcare and education corridor at City Center, and Solis said he sees opportunities to recruit additional university campuses to the site.
He markets Rio Rancho to outside companies using three words: safe, stable and scalable — a community where families put down roots and employers can grow.
A three-way team
Solis described the city, the Sandoval Economic Alliance and the Rio Rancho Regional Chamber of Commerce as three interlocking partners — the city handling permitting and land use, the SEA focused on business recruitment and retention, and the Chamber serving as the hub for the roughly 1,100-member local business community. He convened a quarterly partners’ forum starting in April 2024 to keep the three organizations aligned.
Tyler wants numbers — eventually
Following the presentation, Councilor Bob Tyler asked Solis to come back with hard data: how many jobs the city’s economic development effort has created, which businesses it has grown or retained and which it has lost. On site readiness, Tyler asked Solis to document how many sites are actually ready today and how much real, verified interest — not hypothetical — those sites have drawn.
No timeline for that report was set.
BY THE NUMBERS
- 43 acres — City Center land designated as a Strategic Economic Development Site in February 2026
- 70+ acres — total City Center land the city is actively marketing
- $1.5 million — state site readiness grant funding the city applied for
- 5 — New Mexico sites receiving the state’s strategic designation
- 1,100 — Rio Rancho Regional Chamber member businesses
- April 2024 — date Solis convened the first quarterly economic development partners’ forum
Follow City Center development:
- Governing Body work session agendas and recordings: rrnm.gov/agendacenter
- Sandoval Economic Alliance: sandovaleconomicalliance.org
Next in the series — Part 3: The Alliance’s scorecard: nearly 1,500 jobs and $2 billion in output, with more in the pipeline.