By Autumn Gray Of the Journal RUIDOSO— The old RV park
that longtime residents fondly recall amid a bunch of ponderosa pines
and within earshot of the bubbling Rio Ruidoso is
gone. In its place to open soon: River Crossing,
an $85 million condominium-retail project. Meet
New Mexico's newest boom town. Daily flights
between Ruidoso and Dallas-Fort Worth are expected to start in 2006,
care of American Airlines. And a $200 million
rebuild of the Inn of the Mountain Gods Resort & Casino seems to be
almost single-handedly attracting previously unlikely
tourists. For a town of about 12,000 year-round
residents, these are Texas-size changes, involving big money. Some
believe such shifts are capable of shaking Ruidoso's reputation as a
blue-collar Aspen. In fact, this small southeast
New Mexico ski town once marketed as Billy the Kid country, with all its
cowboy kitsch, has already begun to smell of boutiques and bath
oils.
Californification "Instead of
the small community type of thing, it's big business coming and huge,
million-dollar homes," said John Chappell, owner of West Texas Retail
Golf in Abilene, Texas. "It's California. That's the word going round.
... It's a lot of that California money." He was
eating a late dinner on the patio of the Pasta Cafe in Ruidoso's
"Midtown" with his wife, Carol. Though the couple live in Abilene, his
family has had a condo here since the 1980s and has been visiting
regularly since the '70s. The village of Ruidoso,
in so many ways, is like the rest of the country. Real estate investors,
primarily from the Southwestern states, have spotted it as an area prime
for growth but still a good buy. The average price of a house within the
village limits this year is $179,000, compared with $127,111 in 2001,
according to the Ruidoso Board of Realtors. While
a house can still be purchased for less than the nation's median sales
price of a little more than $200,000, a motel room can be had for under
$100 a night, and T-shirt and knickknack stores outnumber day spas, the
economic landscape is noticeably shifting.
Residential
explosion
"Applications for new
subdivisions have skyrocketed," with eight subdivisions, ranging from 20
houses to 230, somewhere in the pipeline of approval as of September,
said Charles Rennick, planning director for the village of
Ruidoso. "It's just explosive growth. We're having
a lot of trouble keeping up with it. There's so many applications
pending that require review and modification. We've got proposed new
subdivisions coming in regularly," he said. Some
of the largest include Rainmakers: A Golf and Recreational Community,
developed by Utah-based Bridge Investment Group, and the gated Copper
Canyon and Copper Ridge residential subdivisions, developed by R.D.
Hubbard. All are located just outside the village limits in Lincoln
County. Only Rainmakers is within the village's
jurisdiction.
Selling like
hot cakes Copper Canyon, with 23 lots
listing for between $180,000 and $250,000, sold out last year in 120
days, said Bill Hirschfeld, owner-broker of A+ Realty Services Inc., the
listing agent. The sites there and in the
brand-new Copper Ridge are 10 acres minimum. Half of Copper Ridge's 40
lots have already sold, at between $200,000 and
$300,000. "We have a large group of Californians
that bought into these (subdivisions), but really it's people from all
over," mostly the Southwest, Hirschfeld said.
Rainmakers, which has begun building roads and installing water and
electric on just more than 525 acres, will offer homes, country club
amenities and an 18-hole championship golf course. Townhomes, the first
to be built and the only residences with estimates on pricing, are
expected to list from the low $300,000s to high $400,000s. Lot prices
range from $90,000 to $150,000, but that could
change. Michael O'Brien, general manager and
partner in the development, said out of an inventory of 226 residences,
165 were already reserved with refundable checks as of early
September. "I've seen houses listing in Aspen and
Vail (at these prices) and seen them sell in one or two days. I'm not so
sure Ruidoso is not getting ready to get there," he
said. Carol Lester, executive officer for the
Ruidoso Board of Realtors, said the average length of time a house is on
the market in Lincoln County, outside Ruidoso, is 221 days, with an
average price of $217,400. Inside the village limits, it's 180 days and
the average home price is $179,000. "Our listings
on the (Multiple Listing Service) in the last two years have gone from
1,300 to 1,800 (as of Sept. 8). It's gone wild here," she
said. The commercial real estate development, too,
is unprecedented here. Take River Crossing, a
first for Ruidoso and a gamble, some suggest. The project, developed by
Houston-based Option 1 Realty Group, is on the village's main drag and
includes 102 mid-rise condominiums starting at about half a million
dollars, 66,000 square feet of boutiques and shops, restaurants,
including a Ruth's Chris Steakhouse (the first in the state), a
4,400-square-foot grocery (it has a wine and cheese bar), a three-level
parking garage, and a landscaped river trail. The
first of four residential buildings is expected to be ready for
occupancy by June. Contracts with several retailers are pending, so
names of potential occupants remain secret.
"Projects like that are coming in that 10 years ago were unheard of,"
Rennick said. Some residents wish they weren't
having to hear about it now, much less see the walls going
up. "A lot of the locals were sad to see (the $85
million River Crossing development) happen because it changed the flavor
of the town," said John Daniels, who with his wife, Helen, owns
Cornerstone Bakery Cafe. When developers cut down
a swath of pine trees to make room for it, "a lot of people had a heart
attack," added the Austin native, who moved here permanently three years
ago.
One sure
bet Though River Crossing's future
success remains unknown, that of the reconstructed Inn of the Mountain
Gods has proven a sure bet, bringing to the area a wealthier
clientele. The massive modern structure, decorated
with hulking bronze sculptures and wall-size paintings by local
Mescalero Apaches, looms spaceshiplike over its former 28-year-old
cedar-shingled self. Its 273 rooms have been
booked almost every weekend since the opening in March. Rates range from
a low of $130 per night during the week to more than $300 for a suite on
the weekend. The resort's casino has 1,000 slots
and 34 table games. There's an 18-hole championship golf course, piano
bar, privileged pets program and indoor pool. And
the resort just received a four-diamond rating from AAA, said chief
operating officer Brian Parrish. Brad Treptow,
executive director of the Ruidoso Valley Chamber of Commerce, said the
resort "has put Ruidoso at another level." Though
a new breed of business seems destined for the area, much of the retail
activity remains seasonal. Entrepreneurs who open shops and restaurants
with high expectations of success are sometimes forced to close within
the year. Those that are established make it by planning for the off
months. "We do fine in the summer. We don't do
fine in the winter," Daniels said of the bakery, which caters to an
upscale breakfast crowd. "We could actually just close the door during
ski season. Skiers tend to be a 'grab an egg-McMuffin and run' type of
crowd." However, Daniels, who is also an associate
broker for the Ruidoso Realty Group, said seasonal airline flights could
turn Ruidoso into a year-round destination. A
nonprofit group of about seven local businesspeople, called Fly Ruidoso,
has been leading the charge since February to get American Airlines'
American Eagle regional jets to provide seasonal daily service between
Dallas-Fort Worth and the Sierra Blanca Regional Airport, about 18 miles
northeast of Ruidoso. In late August, the Federal
Aviation Administration agreed to provide a $600,000
grant. The goal is to have service in the summer
and winter, approximately Memorial Day through Labor Day and
mid-December through March, said Doug MacAlister, a Ruidoso developer
who spearheaded the Fly Ruidoso committee. Flights
are expected to begin in May or June 2006. "Now
that we're offering services available at larger areas, we need to match
those services with a means to get here," said the chamber's
Treptow. "Folks that can afford a $750,000 condo
rarely want to drive," he added.
Population shifts Right now,
most tourists still visit on weekends. Treptow estimated that they more
than triple Ruidoso's population, to between 35,000 and 40,000.
Full-time residents number between 10,000 and 12,000 (Lincoln County's
population is 23,000), though no one, not even the Census Bureau, seems
to know for sure, he said. That the year-round
population is increasing is a certainty. It's expected to double by
2025, Treptow said. Ruidoso's mild climate at
7,000 feet, mountain vistas and activities, such as golf courses, ski
runs, the neighboring Ruidoso Downs race track and the casinos, have
caught the eyes of retirees as well as families choosing lifestyle over
urban bustle. Mike Jones, owner of Picture This
Gallery for about 18 years, said, "It's really not just tourism that's
picked up, but people moving to Lincoln County" from all over the
country. He said he has already noticed an
increase in automobile traffic. On a weekday morning now, pedestrians
trying to cross Ruidoso's main street suddenly have to wait it
out. "We want it to be the way it's always been.
That's what people say. But you just can't keep it that way. Not with
the population growth," said Rennick of the Planning Department. "We try
to make it smart growth, but you're still gonna have more cars on the
street and neighbors where you previously saw just a forest. That's
unavoidable." Carol Chappell of Abilene said
Cloudcroft today is more like the old Ruidoso. "That's what people are
saying— if it starts getting too crowded (in Ruidoso), let's just head
to Cloudcroft." With that, Ruidoso one day could
actually live up to its name, which means noisy in
Spanish.
At a
glance
Gross receipts taxes have increased steadily from $7 million in
fiscal year 2001-2002 to $8.2 million in 2004-2005, according to the
Ruidoso Valley Chamber of Commerce.
Lodgers tax collections have increased from $370,535 in 1995-1996 to
slightly more than $1 million in 2004-2005, according to the
chamber.
Assessed taxable value of houses, townhomes and condominiums in
Ruidoso has increased 9.34 percent in the last year, from just more than
$216 million in 2004 to slightly above $236 million this year, said
Lincoln County Assessor Rick
Silva.
.gif)
.gif)
E-mail the Story
Printer Friendly
Dictionary
.gif)