In the mid-1980s, plans started to emerge for the development of a large research and technology park in Las Cruces. Now, nearly 40 years later, New Mexico State University is in the process of formalizing some big plans for that park, with a projected cost upwards of $250 million.
Arrowhead Park is the name of a 200-acre master plan development tucked between the intersection of Interstate 10 and Interstate 25 in Las Cruces. New Mexico State University owns the land, which sits south of Wells Street and Aggie Memorial Stadium and is bisected by Arrowhead Drive.
Several buildings built over the past few decades lie on Park land, including the Arrowhead Park Early College High School and an 11,000-square-foot library and student services building as part of the Burrell College of Osteopathic Medicine. Another building — a 14,000-square-foot Creative Media Technology Building for Doña Ana Community College — is under construction.
But there are a lot more planned by the end of the decade.
"The city [of Las Cruces] does not have a tech office park environment, and that's what we envision Arrowhead Park to be," Wayne Savage, the executive director of Arrowhead Park, told Albuquerque Business First. "There's a lot of logistics-related and manufacturing growth in southern New Mexico, down around Santa Teresa, but we think we have a different market."
That market includes companies in digital health, aerospace and defense, creative media companies and the energy sector, as well, Savage said. The Park hopes to bring a mix of companies in those sectors, from startups to larger anchor tenants, to set up business there.
There are also plans for a multifaceted creative campus, where New Mexico State University currently has plans for 90,000 square feet of space. That creative campus would feature collaboration between different companies that choose to lease property there.
Click through the gallery above to see photos of what the Park looks like now and some renderings of what it could be in the future.
The Park would be subdivided into more sections, too — which include private retail space around a "main street" area and multi-tenant office space available for lease farther south. Savage said the Park is also working with a "large clinical reference lab company" to set up a facility as part of a health information campus there, which could bring around 300 jobs to Las Cruces.
All in all, developments at Arrowhead Park could add up to $283 million, spanning 378,000 square feet. Those developments include plans for a new entrepreneurship-focused office building that would house the Arrowhead Center.
But to support those different developments, the Park has to set up infrastructure, including paving streets, tying in sewers and extending drainage. Those individual needs each fall around $1 million, bringing the total money needed for infrastructure buildout to around $4 million.
The Park is talking with people at local, state and federal levels to secure that funding; it's already received $1.75 million in grant money from the U.S. Economic Development Administration in late 2020 for some infrastructure projects that are currently under construction.
There's also a plan to build a new interchange off of Interstate 10 to facilitate traffic to the Park. The New Mexico Department of Transportation is set to conduct a corridor study along that stretch of Interstate, which Savage said could wrap up before the end of next year. Construction on the interchange will be completed as early as 2027, he said.
And to help fund future infrastructure development costs, New Mexico State University wants to establish a tax increment development district to encompass the Park to turn some portion of gross receipts tax revenue to fund infrastructure development in the district. The university's Board of Regents approved a memorandum of understanding between it and the City of Las Cruces for that district on July 14; it now goes to the Las Cruces City Council for approval.
The Park would then have to develop a formal application. Savage said it's expecting formal approval of its bid by the Board and the City of Las Cruces around January 2024.
Once fully occupied, the Park could bring around 500 jobs to Las Cruces through its various private and university-backed developments.
