Downtown Albuquerque hotel construction ‘back on track’

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – After years of pandemic-related setbacks, transformation of The Hotel Blue into ARRIVE Albuquerque, near Central and 8th Street is finally underway.

It will be a boutique hotel, with a restaurant on the ground floor, and other local ties built in.

“We want to create downtown as more of a destination for everybody,” said Terry Brunner, the Director of the Metropolitan Redevelopment Agency. “And they come to downtown to eat, have fun, give them something to do. Maybe they’re living downtown as well. So I see a lot of potential in the area.”

Developers are also talking with the non-profit that runs the Downtown Growers Market every Saturday for months during the year, about bringing the market experience into the hotel experience. The market is at Robinson Park, across from the hotel.

“This park is definitely home to a lot of unhoused residents, and so there’s a bunch of folks that are here throughout the week,” said Danielle Schlobohm, director of Downtown Albuquerque Main Street and Arts and Cultural District. “Saturday mornings, you know, the park turns into a whole new space.”

She says the sky is the limit when it comes to finding ways to work the local culture, and market vibes into the new space.

“It would be great to be able to say to a visitor coming to Albuquerque, that we sourced this food right across the street from this market,” said Schlobohm. “From hard working farmers that are growing things in the state.”

By the time ARRIVE comes online at the end of 2024, there will also be progress on two other projects in that corner of downtown.

Ex Novo Brewing Company is expanding in the old Firestone building on 7th Street, and leaders say the city also invested in an apartment rehab project on the other side of the hotel, on Copper.