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Albuquerque Business First
Café Chica relocates to Country Club Plaza
Country Club Plaza’s culinary landscape is about to get a whole lot sweeter as Café Chica, a local small business known for its Italian brioche donuts and Neapolitan-style pizza, prepares to relocate.<\p> The café — previously located at El Vado Motel — will move to a more spacious location at 1700 Central Ave. SW. With recent growth fueling its relocation, the additional 2,420 square feet of space will adequately accommodate the increased number of customers Owner Mariah Granone anticipates serving, she said.<\p>
Hope Christian to break ground on $25M high school campus
After 42 years, Hope Christian School is working on an ambitious project to construct a new high school campus at its current location on Palomas Avenue. <\p> The decision to build a new campus at 6800 Palomas Ave. NE stems from a need to support future growth and the revitalization of aging infrastructure, Head of School Terry Heisey said. <\p>
New Mexico manufacturing expert joins AI startup
A New Mexican who has helped build an innovative training center in Santa Fe has co-founded a venture studio-backed startup, with the goal of integrating artificial intelligence into the world of advanced manufacturing. <\p> Sarah Boisvert, who founded and operates an advanced manufacturing training organization in Santa Fe called the New Collar Network, recently joined Fab.ai as a co-founder and advisor. Boisvert previously co-founded Baltimore-based Potomac Photonics Inc. and has over three decades of experience in the advanced manufacturing industry. <\p>
What can Albuquerque learn from Denver?
“If you’re not growing, you’re dying.” <\p> Those were the words of one of the panelists during the New Mexico Forward discussion on May 9 at the Albuquerque Hispano Chamber of Commerce, which focused on Albuquerque and Denver. Growth — and how to spur more of it — was the central theme during the conversation, which included the following panelists: <\p>
Growing share of real estate agents weigh leaving their brokerages
The Covid-19 pandemic and a recent wave of class-action lawsuits have pushed more real estate agents to consider leaving their brokerages.<\p> Those findings, from the latest annual Agent Priorities Report from Coldwell Banker Real Estate, found while 61% of agents surveyed plan on sticking with their company this year, that’s down from 75% in 2023.<\p>
Airline credit-card reward programs in regulators' crosshairs
The nation's major airlines are drawing heat over their branded credit-card reward programs, with federal regulators targeting consumer complaints that claim many perks don't live up to the hype and sometimes cost more than they are worth. Those findings...
ABQ Sign Language Academy to break ground on $32M school
In a bid to meet the growing needs of the special-needs community, the Albuquerque Sign Language Academy (ASLA) is building a new school just north of Osuna Road and Edith Boulevard. <\p> The 60,000-square-foot school is located at 140 Tyler Court NW. Enterprise Builders will break ground on the $32 million facility in July, Executive Director Raphael Martinez said. Construction of the new school is expected to take at least 18 to 22 months to complete, he added. <\p>
Location for Meow Wolf L.A. exhibition revealed
Meow Wolf’s recently announced Los Angeles exhibition officially has a home, with HHLA, a prominent entertainment and shopping center on the city’s west side, announcing the art collective as its latest tenant.<\p> Currently occupied by Cinemark, the space will undergo extensive renovations and is expected to open in early 2026, according to a release. It was known the newest installation would be located in a West Los Angeles movie theater, but its exact location remained unconfirmed until HHLA’s Monday announcement.<\p>
Meet the person behind economic development in Las Cruces
An Ohio native who earned her master’s degree in community planning from the University of Cincinnati, today, the City of Las Cruces is benefitting from Elizabeth Teeters' economic development expertise. <\p> After six years in rural Missouri working for a regional planning commission — and eventually becoming its executive director — Teeters and her husband packed up and moved to Las Cruces in 2017 when he was relocated to Holloman Air Force Base. <\p>
Nob Hill's Fan Tang coming to NE Heights
Popular Nob Hill Asian restaurant Fan Tang is set to open a second restaurant in Albuquerque’s Northeast Heights.<\p> Located at 9004 Montgomery Blvd. NE, the new restaurant will be a “copy paste” of Nob Hill's in terms of food and beverage offerings, Jason Zeng, owner of Fan Tang, told Albuquerque Business First.<\p>
$1.8M building permit leads last week's filings
The City of Albuquerque issued 38 commercial building permits between May 6 to May 11.<\p> The permit for the largest project in terms of estimated cost was issued on May 9 to Megan Clark for a new building at 2121 Yale Blvd. SE. The project is estimated to be about 5,637 square feet. The estimated cost of the work is about $1.8 million The work will be done by Wadman Corp. and Prescott Muir Architects.<\p>
Why Amazon's recent moves bode well for a cooling CRE market
Welcome to The National Observer, a roundup of top business news and actionable insights from across The Business Journals. We'll take a look today at a bankruptcy health care system's hospital sale; a $3.3B investment from Microsoft that will help establish an artificial intelligence hub; and what you need to know about upcoming changes to overtime rules. But we'll start with the dynamics in this once-hot commercial real estate subsector.<\p> Get more stories like these every day in your inbox by subscribing to The National Observer newsletter.<\p>
Higher-for-longer rate environment means more uncertainty for CRE
Commercial real estate investors, owners and occupiers all have been monitoring whether the Federal Reserve will impose interest-rate cuts in 2024 after rapidly rising rates have substantially increased the cost of doing business.<\p> Earlier this month, the Fed signaled it needed to see more progress toward its inflation target of 2% and decided to maintain its key lending rate. At that meeting, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said gaining greater confidence around inflation "will take longer than previously expected," although he also said he felt inflation would move back down in 2024.<\p>
Matthew McConaughey to star in New Mexico production
A pair of projects will film in New Mexico throughout the summer, employing nearly 700 crew members and just over 2,000 background actors.<\p> The more star-studded of the two is “The Lost Bus,” a story based on Lizzie Johnson’s 2021 book “Paradise: One Town’s Struggle to Survive an American Wildfire.” It follows the story of a school bus full of children trying to escape one of the worst wildfires in U.S. history in Paradise, California.<\p>
Home prices decreased, sales increased last month
While sales were on the rise, home prices took a slight dip in April 2024, according to the most recent Greater Albuquerque Association of Realtors report.<\p> Median sales prices for detached single-family homes decreased by $1,000, or by 0.28%, from $351,000 in March to $350,000 in April 2024. Compared to April 2023, home prices increased by 1.73%, up from $344,040.<\p>
Gen Z's latest college grads have a new rival in the workforce
As new college graduates enter the workforce, they are facing some new competition for jobs: artificial intelligence. Given ChatGPT and other AI tools' ability to complete tasks such as research, data entry and email writing, some entry-level roles...
REDW expands executive team amid recent acquisitions
Albuquerque-based financial services firm REDW is expanding its executive team to match its recent expansions, promoting three longtime employees to newly created roles. Former director of people operations Katherine Bastow will be REDW’s vice president...
NM delegates want Santa Teresa port expansion to move swiftly
In a letter to Washington, a portion of New Mexico’s congressional delegation urged U.S Customs and Border Protection and the General Services Administration to swiftly move forward with a massive expansion to New Mexico’s Santa Teresa border crossing,...
Rainbow Ryders expands to Beehive State
A longtime New Mexico hot air ballooning business has the market "cornered." Rainbow Ryders, founded in Albuquerque in 1983 has expanded its business to Park City, Utah. Daily sunrise flights begin in Utah on June 1 and run through Sept. 23 at Kimball...
Judge blocks ABQ Village Center project over transparency concerns
On May 2, a Second Judicial District Court judge overturned the approval of a partially complete, multi-use development plan in the case Friends of Los Ranchos Inc (FOLR) v. Village of Los Ranchos de Albuquerque and Palindrome Communities LLC, citing...
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