The lengthy quest to rehabilitate and reopen the long-shuttered De Anza Motor Lodge in Albuquerque took another significant step forward last week.
The city’s Landmarks and Urban Conservation Commission on Wednesday approved a redevelopment plan for the Route 66 motel that would keep most of its vital historical elements, reported, the Albuquerque Journal.
As proposed, the $8.2 million project would involve tearing down and rebuilding dilapidated buildings on the 2.3-acre site. The preliminary site plan for 4301 Central NE calls for construction of a mix of one- and multi-story buildings that evoke the Pueblo look. […]
The redevelopment seeks to preserve historic Zuni Pueblo murals at the site while providing visitors and residents amenities including a boutique hotel, complete with workout facilities, movie and game rooms and communal kitchen; and modern apartments located on the ART route. The ambitious undertaking also calls for retail and office space; and a restaurant complete with rooftop seating.
Anthea @ Nob Hill LLC is the company with the redevelopment plan. The newspaper reports no groundbreaking date has been set.
Zuni trader and Indian art collector Charles G. Wallace built De Anza Motor Lodge in 1939. The motel at 4301 Central NE is on the National Register of Historic Places. The site was used in a scene in the acclaimed television drama “Breaking Bad” and as a shooting locale for a 2016 Tina Fey movie, “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot.”
Meanwhile, construction on the redevelopment of another historic Route 66 property, El Vado Motel, in Albuquerque continues. It’s slated to possibly reopen by late summer. The revamped El Vado will feature a boutique motel, an event center, food pods, a tap room, an amphitheater and a pool.
Irish immigrant Daniel Murphy opened El Vado Auto Court Motel on Route 66 in 1937. It’s cited as one of the best examples of pre-World War II motels in New Mexico. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1993. El Vado closed in 2005.
(Artist’s rending of De Anza Motor Lodge project courtesy of the City of Albuquerque Planning Department)
I think it is great, to see interest in preserving at least some of the historic look of Central Avenue. I was sad to see the TRADEWINDS Motor Hotel destroyed to build a strip mall that 5 years later is still mostly empty, at Central and San Mateo. Sad it is, that having arrived in Albuquerque in 1956, many of the changes made on the road to modernization, have been done at the expence of historical beauty, such as the destruction of the Alverado Hotel and Santa Fe Railroad station complex. I must also include being impressed in 1949 at the Adobe architecture of the old terminal building at the airport, as our DC-6 stopped for fuel on a flight from New Orleans to Los Angeles. The terminal provided Adobe Portals from plane to terminal, shading passengers from the sun.