Archives for March 2018

February 2018 Commercial Market Trends

March 5, 2018 by mcarristo

View a New Mexico Market Trends Summary Report, which includes February 2018 Commercial Market Trends. This report includes the total number of listings, asking lease rates, asking sales prices, days on the market and total square feet available.

Disclaimer: All statistics have been gathered from user-loaded listings and user-reported transactions. We have not verified accuracy and make no guarantees. By using the information, the user acknowledges that the data may contain errors or other nonconformities. Brokers should diligently and independently verify the specifics of the information you are using.

Same-Day Shopping Service Instacart Expands to Santa Fe

March 5, 2018 by CARNM

Santa Feans looking to skip a trip to the grocery store have a new option. The nationwide same-day shopping service Instacart recently announced it is enabling Santa Fe-area residents to order items online and have them delivered by paid shoppers.

General manager David Holyoak said he didn’t know exactly how many shopper/drivers the San Francisco-based company had signed up in the Santa Fe area, but the service hopes to have agreements with about 100 local shopper/drivers. The company has been operating in Albuquerque since August.

In something of an Uber-esque operation, shopper/drivers are sent scurrying to stores to shop for customers who have ordered items from the company’s website, www.instacart.com, or via the company’s mobile app on iPhone or Android devices.
To begin with, four Santa Fe stores have partnered with Instacart — CVS, Natural Grocers, Sprouts and Petco. Jesse Jaramillo, a manager at Sprouts, said he expects Instacart to increase sales and, just as important, “help people that can’t so easily leave their homes.”

He said he often meets people who are shopping for invalid friends or relatives. With Instacart, he said, the shopper won’t have to look for someone to do their shopping, “but just let the company do it for them.”

Reminiscent of an era when small-town grocers offered home delivery, the service fits with a convenience trend among food retailers aiming to help customers reduce shopping time. Wal-Mart Supercenter has a curbside pickup service, and representatives at Smith’s and Albertsons say they expect to begin such services in the near future.

The local Whole Foods doesn’t yet offer such curbside or delivery services, though the Whole Foods chain recently announced that it would begin offering free, same-day grocery deliveries from Whole Foods to Amazon Prime members in select cities — Austin, Texas, Cincinnati, Dallas and Virginia Beach, Va. — with plans to expand the service elsewhere.

With Instacart, after setting up an account online, a customer can select a participating store, choose a delivery time, add the items they want to a virtual cart and check out, with the cost billed to a credit card.

An Instacart shopper accepts the order over his or her smartphone, picks up the items from the store and delivers them to the customer’s home.

Holyoak said customers can specify instructions for the shopper, such as where to leave the items if they don’t want to deal with the shopper directly.

For orders of $35 or more, the delivery fee is $5.99, with the first delivery free. Customers also can sign up for Instacart Express, which enables unlimited, free same-day delivery on orders of $35 or more. Express membership is $14.99 a month or $149 a year.

The company says its Santa Fe service area includes Cañada de Los Alamos, Agua Fría, La Cienega, Tesuque, Seton Village, Nambe Pueblo, San Ildefonso Pueblo, Pojoaque, Rio en Medio, Cuyamungue, Chupadero, Cundiyo, Arroyo Seco, Tesuque Pueblo, Jaconita and Las Dos. The ZIP codes include 87501, 87505, 87506, 87507 and 87508.

Holyoak said shopping/delivery people are vetted through background checks, and that if customers encounter problems, they can call the Instacart Help Center at 888-246-7822 or visit Instacart.com/help.

He said Instacart, which currently serves more than 150 cities, is a good fit for Santa Fe in part because of its older population. He also said it suits busy adults.

Danielle Burger, among the first Santa Feans to use Instacart, had mostly praise for the service. “It was seamless. It was perfect,” she said. (The driver/shopper) “came to the door and handed the groceries right over. … She was very polite, an older woman from Española. It was the first time for both of us.”

Burger had been working on a project at home and needed some ingredients for soup, but didn’t have time to go out. She contacted Instacart through the app and ordered the food to be picked up at Sprouts.

Despite the ease of the first free delivery, Burger said she does not plan to use Instacart again. She said that as a company representative explained the terms to her, she decided it would be too expensive on a long-term basis.

Like others in the emerging gig economy — which rely on Internet-linked freelance workers rather than company employees — Instacart has had its troubles since beginning operations in San Francisco in 2012.

Issues reported last year included a $4.6 million lawsuit settlement that centered on misclassification of the shoppers’ job status as well as tipping and business expense issues.

In November 2017, some Instacart workers staged a “strike” in which they arranged times for deliveries but then refused to make them, an action aimed at protesting low compensation.

Holyoak said he could not speak to those issues.

Stanford economics professor Paul Oyer, an expert on the gig economy, said such troubles are not uncommon for startups such as Instacart.

He said that in the short term, for the companies, the freelancers involved and their customers, “There can be a lot of bumps in the road. … In the long run they will find an equilibrium.”

These companies are growing very fast, “trying to grab their share of the market while trying to be cost efficient,” he said. “They are so worried about growing quickly … the details come back to haunt them.”

In lining up the shopper/drivers, he said, it’s “a matter of finding the right people.”

In Santa Fe, as in all locations, Oyer said, “There will be workers who find [the Instacart jobs] to be a good fit, and for others it’s just not manageable.”

As for the grocery industry itself, changes have not occurred as fast as people thought they would 20 years ago, Oyer said, with stores moving slowly to change shopping and delivery patterns.
By: Dennis Carroll (Santa Fe New Mexican)
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Las Cruces to Consider Film Incentives; Sets Arrive at New Studio

March 3, 2018 by CARNM

The vision of Las Cruces as a destination for movie and TV productions is coming into focus.

During a work session on Feb. 26, the Las Cruces City Council heard a plan that would see the city allocate $400,000 to create an incentive for productions to film in Las Cruces. The money would come from $3 million the city has set aside for economic development from an increase in the gross receipts tax passed several years ago to replace “hold harmless” funding once provided to cities and counties by the state of New Mexico.

Although the council could not take action during the work session, Mayor Ken Miyagishima said he felt the proposal put forward by Film Las Cruces was received favorably and city staff were directed to create a proposal to present to council, possibly as soon as the March 19 meeting.

The incentive, officials hope, will lure TV and movie producers to choose to film in Las Cruces, for part or all of a production, by offering what amounts to a rebate after the work is complete.

“We’re moving it forward for staff review to make sure the money is there, which we know it is, and determine how we are going to document it and take care of it and make sure it’s utilized the way it’s supposed to be utilized,” Miyagishima said. “The way it is now, it’s not going to be utilized until we see that a production is done. We’re paying it after the fact. It’s an inducement, in a way, but paid only after you show us you’ve done the project.”

State Sen. Jeff Steinborn, D-Las Cruces, who serves as the president of the Film Las Cruces board of directors, said the program was “very much needed to help attract significant film productions to Las Cruces.”

After the initial $400,000 infusion from the hold harmless funds, the program would draw on a portion of the city’s GRT and Lodgers Tax. That amount would be directly tied to how much the production spent in Las Cruces. The city is currently working to finalize the specific guidelines, requirements and auditing procedures to implement the incentive, Steinborn said. He also said film projects, whether they were using the incentive or not, would add to the city’s overall tax revenue.

“My goal is to make it as sustainable as possible,” he said of the incentive program. “It’s a hard thing to precisely calibrate. There will be some funding coming back into the (incentive fund) from the taxes. It’s all an investment in growing our crew base and growing our film support services and growing our brand as a film production center in New Mexico.”

To qualify, projects would follow clearly defined guidelines and approach the city early in the process, preferably before the production starts, he said. After the work is complete, producers would submit expenses to the city to audit and establish the level they were eligible for, up to 10 percent.

Film Las Cruces’ proposal is the result of a “tremendous” amount of work, begun in early December, involving other cities with similar programs, the New Mexico Film Office and several independent movie producers, Steinborn said.

Debbi Moore, the president and CEO of the Greater Las Cruces Chamber of Commerce, said they had met with Film Las Cruces and support the concept. They will wait until the details are finalized before fully endorsing the project, she said.

Setting the stage

Additionally, Film Las Cruces has acquired some sets from the entertainment company Lionsgate at a cost of $20,000. The sets are from the canceled television show, Graves. The show featured Nick Nolte as a former U.S. president who is admitting to mistakes he made while in office.

The sets include a representation of a portion of the Oval Office, a jet and a jail cell. A warhead set was donated by Lionsgate. Last week, Jim TwoCrow, a construction coordinator with IATSE Local 480, the state’s largest film union, led a three-day workshop to install the sets at Las Cruces Studios. In February, Film Las Cruces, in partnership with Doña Ana Community College, leased the former Coca Cola bottling plant south of town to house the studio.

The sets will serve to turn the vacant building into a working studio that DACC students, as well as Las Cruces Public Schools students, can use to hone their skills both in front of and behind the camera. The sets will also serve as a draw for productions elsewhere in the state to come to Las Cruces to shoot scenes. Those items are not available in studios in Albuquerque and Santa Fe, Steinborn said.

“It’s absolutely unique within the state and it’s an opportunity for us to create a very unique asset within the studio,” he said. “If a production in New Mexico wants that particular set, Las Cruces is going to get that call. It’s more economical for them to come to Las Cruces than build their own set.”

Steinborn said Film Las Cruces was able to acquire the sets “at 10-cents on the dollar or less” and they were a great value compared to the cost of building the sets from scratch.

“It will recruit productions over time,” Steinborn said. “It’s a great selling point for Las Cruces and will also be great training sets.”

Their availability to students for training is vital because the next step in building a Las Cruces film industry is to have a well-trained local pool of crew members to do the work.

“Growing our film economy here is growing our crew base,” he said.

By: Jason Gibbs (Las Cruces Sun News)
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Unique Developer Breaks Ground, Following Westside Retail Spurt

March 2, 2018 by CARNM

Over the past few months, Albuquerque’s Westside has seen a spurt of retail development. And that spurt has encouraged a new project from a unique developer.

Acoma Business Holdings broke ground in late February on a new retail development near Unser Boulevard and La Morada Place Northwest. Las Lomitas Plaza is a 2.6-acre development with both retail and restaurant space.

John Jonezy Mohr, spokesman for Acoma Business Holdings, said the first three businesses planned for the project are Growler USA, a microbrew pub; PostNet, a shipping and design company; and Bonchon, a South Korean-based chicken franchise. The plan now is for the Acoma Pueblo to manage those three businesses.

Beyond those initial stores, Las Lomitas will have 7,800 square feet available for either build-to-suit or ground lease, said Mohr. Though no numbers are finalized, Mohr said the going rate for retail on Albuquerque’s Westside is between $24 and $32 a square foot.

Mohr said Acoma Business Holdings was encouraged to break ground on Las Lomitas by the flurry of retail development to hit Albuquerque’s Westside, including the Andalucia at La Luz project at Coors Boulevard and Montaño Road, where Sprouts Farmers Market just opened a new location and where La Cumbre Brewing Co. is planning a new tap room. Just to the south of Las Lomitas is a new retail development anchored by a Walmart Neighborhood Market. Blake’s Lotaburger, Starbucks, Verizon and Panera Bread are taking up residence at the nearby Coors Pavilion across the street from St. Pius X High School. And just north of La Morada is Peterson Properties’ Unser Shops and Pads, where Lava Rock Brewery opened its doors late last month.

“It seemed like the right time to put something up there,” Mohr said. “We saw the opportunity for the development.”

Mohr also cited new home development on the Westside, along with the city’s new massive sports complex, as for why Acoma opted now to break ground.

Growler USA is slated to open sometime in August.

Klinger Constructors is the general contractor and Mullen Heller Architecture, both based in Albuquerque, also worked on the project.

By: Christpoher Ortiz (ABQ Business First)
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