RFP De Anza motel – Albuquerque

The city of Albuquerque is looking for development teams to redevelop the historic De Anza Hotel. A full copy of the RFP can be found by clicking here and a copy of the market study we did for the City can be found here.

Of the many consulting assignments I’ve had the pleasure to work on, this was one that I probably learned the most. Our stakeholder sessions included some of the original employees who worked at the hotel in its hey day and remember the pink cadillac the owner used to pickup VIPS as well as the numerous political announcements made there.

Something very unique to the hotel is the priceless artwork embedded in the main common area space. The original developer, CG Wallace, hired native american’s to depict an medicine ceremony with life size Shalako dancers. To the best of historian’s knowledge, this artwork is the only piece like this that can be found off of a reservation.

priceless art in the De Anza

Announcing our Social Networking scavenger hunt


Would you like to win a new iPad2 with red leather cover (notice the CCIM logo?)

Correctly answers the first 10 questions on our social networking quiz and give us some feedback on the next 4 questions at:

www.canteraconsultants.com/scavengerhunt

Good luck!

This marketing effort will be used to gauge the effectiveness of social networking in the marketing of the CCIM Technology and Social Networking course http://www.ccim.com/education/course/TSN/TSN0001 .

While big boxes are downsizing, Apple credits iPad sales to their physical stores


Within 24 hours of each other these two stories became headlines:

Apple announces their update to the iPad – the iPad2 and as part of Steve Job’s keynote speech and presentation he indicates that 2010 was the year of the iPad, that its sales have outpaced anything they thought possible, AND, were due in large part to its retail stores.

The Wall Street Journal indicated today that most big box retailers are downsizing, subleasing or vacating their big box locations in pursuit of a better retail model.

The article goes on to indicate that it may have less to do with the size of the store than the quality of the experience and, in fact, the article mentions the “customer experience” of an Apple store.

From a CCIM market analysis standpoint, if retail big boxes truly downsize, we can anticpate a glut of retail to hit market in the next couple of years. If you haven’t taken CCIM 102, and would like to be able to calculate the impact of this spatial change in your market, the course provides the tools and processes to help you calculate what this will do to occupancy, rents and values.