March 24, 2025
Eighth Street between the Central Avenue traffic circle and Copper looks much like a typical urban block, with two lanes for cars, two lanes for parking, and two standard sets of sidewalks. But a lot is asked of this stretch of asphalt. On Saturdays, it becomes a staging area for the Downtown Growers’ Market. On Sundays, it’s an especially popular lowrider and classic car display area, and every day, it’s a front yard of sorts for the Arrive Albuquerque Hotel.
That helps explain why three Downtown area groups – the Raynolds Addition Neighborhood Association, Arrive, and Downtown ABQ MainStreet – have been busy imagining an Eighth Street better suited for its multiple purposes. They’ve been working separately, for the most part, but they’ve also been talking to each other. The effort seems on track to come up with the sort of consensus proposal that can be shopped around to funders and actually built.
Of the three, RANA looks to be the furthest along. Their idea grew from casual brainstorming among volunteers staffing its regular growers’ market bike valet (DAN, 8/16/22), and it borrows much from a Dutch street design approach called Woonerf. RANA proposes narrowing Eighth’s two existing traffic lanes, keeping its east side parking spots, and recycling its west side parking spaces into a sort of multi-use plaza.
RANA also envisions removing the existing curb along the park side of Eighth and putting the street and park on the same level, long-time member Christopher Frechette told DAN. The traffic lanes, sidewalk, and plaza would be distinguished from each other by design elements often employed by Woonerf practitioners – things like bollards, planters, or different sorts of paving material.
“Eighth Street will be drivable – just tighter, less wasteful of space,” Frechette said. “The desired goal is a transitionless interface for activities, people, gadgets, etc.”
On market day, vendors could use the plaza for loading and unloading, and Sunday evening car fanciers could display many more vehicles there than they can now by parking them at an angle, Frechette said. During other events at the park, the multi-use area could accommodate pedestrian-oriented activities best conducted on a paved plaza. The hotel would gain for its guests “a more seamless and greener pedestrian-friendly streetscape,” he added.
RANA even got planner Jack Brancatelli to draw up its proposal, and in January Frechette presented it to MainStreet Director Shawna Brown, City Councilor Joaquín Baca, and ABQCore Neighborhood Association representatives.
“We’re just pitching an idea, trying to get the first idea on the table,” Frechette said, “because a lot of the time the first one out of the gate is the winner.”
This is not RANA’s first foray into influencing the evolution of public infrastructure: Their most recent victory saw a mini dog park added to Bennie Hargrove Park (DAN, 10/27/23), something they’d pushed for many years. Having made a thorough proposal for Eighth, they’ll watch to see what other players do, Frechette said.
One of those other players is MainStreet, which oversees the growers’ market and is working with the city to do a feasibility study of how Robinson Park and Eighth might be made more useful for community events. It has since put up a study website and is planning public meetings to gather ideas, with a goal of presenting a finished report for the council by the end of the year. Brown has had informal conversations with Arrive, they said, and MainStreet will invite hotel representatives to the community meetings.
Arrive, for its part, has “casually mused” about the idea of closing Eighth during the growers’ market to give pedestrians more room, but it’s only just learning about what sorts of changes could be made, hotel co-owner Ezra Callahan said.
“We have a great relationship with the growers’ market,” he added, and “are eager to work with the city, civic groups, and our neighbors on a ‘Yes, and…’ approach for making Robinson Park into a safe and beautiful landmark for the area.”
At this early point, the question of where to find money for any upgrades – and how much might be needed – is unclear, Frechette said. Trying for state funding through the legislature’s capital outlay process is one obvious avenue, he added, but for that, the project would have to wait at least a year (the regular annual session in Santa Fe concluded last week).
“Money is always going to be a problem unless Aristotle Onassis shows up,” he said.
—By David Lee