Office Building in Uptown Albuquerque Up For Sale for $6.4M as Residential Conversion

By Anca Gagiuc, Associate Editor

In difficult times for the office market in Albuquerque, solutions begin to surface. The four-story office building located in the center of Uptown offers one: it’s up for sale as a residential conversion opportunity.

To offer a point of comparison, a nearby apartment property contains 198 units and is located at 2222 Uptown Loop NE, next to Trader Joe’s. It has been opened by Hunt Development Group in 2008 and ever since it has been one of the top-performing apartment properties of the metro area.

“We’ve had this collision of a depressed office market, which I think will take a long time to recover, and the Uptown Village apartments that are fully occupied with a waiting list,” said John Lewinger, who is part of a local investment group that owns the building at 2424 Louisiana NE.

The property is located at 2424 Louisiana NE, and the asking price is $6,395,000, reports Albuquerque Journal. The building encompasses 77,647 square feet and is part of an upscale mixed-use property, with plenty of parking space. The conversion from office to residential would reduce the parking needs, increasing the 3-acre site to 10,500 square feet of new retail development.

The conversion from commercial to residential properties is not unique to Albuquerque. In fact, it’s on the rise throughout the country, stated architect Dale Dekker. Offices built between 1960 and 1980 became less functional for the current office market (the 2424 Louisiana dates from 1980). Moreover, these office buildings are now situated in prime locations most suitable for housing, Dekker added.

Photo courtesy of Colliers International.