Site readiness dominates week's coverage

Sep. 30—Development news — from future manufacturing projects, site readiness to shoring up health care resources for the state — dominated this week's edition of Outlook.

The cover story was about site readiness and what changes economic development professionals think would make New Mexico more attractive to businesses. Site readiness is essentially a broad term about how prepared sites are for new businesses to set up shop in the state.

New Mexico leaders, such as those with the Albuquerque Regional Economic Alliance, said it takes New Mexico longer than other states to prepare an area for business development.

Roads, water and electricity are part of the site readiness puzzle. Some officials have said New Mexico can take about twice as long as surrounding states in getting areas ready for business development.

There are some changes underway to try to fix that problem. The New Mexico Economic Development Department's 2025 fiscal year budget included $500,000 for site readiness studies.

That's just a drop in the bucket compared to what some professionals think is needed to address the site readiness issue. For example, Danielle Casey, the president and CEO of AREA, proposed the state invest $100 million for site characterization and pre-development work, and later invest $500 million to $1 billion to fund public infrastructure.

We also have an update on Maxeon Solar Technologies' proposed development in Albuquerque's Mesa del Sol area. Maxeon and New Mexico officials in August 2023 announced the company planned to immediately invest $1 billion to build a solar cell manufacturing complex in southern Albuquerque.

However, in the last year the company's stock price has plummeted to around 8 cents per share, which may lead the company to be delisted from the Nasdaq Stock Market.

The Singapore-based company, which produces solar cell technologies, said it is still committed to New Mexico and hopes to break ground at the manufacturing complex in the fourth quarter of 2024 and have the manufacturing site come online in 2026.

The site would demonstrate a key goal of the Inflation Reduction Act, which President Joe Biden signed into law in 2022. One of the goals was to onshore domestic solar cell technology to make the U.S. less reliant on global supply chains for renewable energy projects.

Albuquerque officials also last week broke ground on a future branch of the Touro College of Dental Medicine.

New Mexico doesn't have a dental college, which local government officials said has led to a dental hygiene desert of sorts.

A local dental school could ultimately increase the availability of dental care throughout Albuquerque and New Mexico.