SIDE STREETS: Could housing project, Centennial Boulevard extension resurrect school?

You’ve probably never heard of Mesa Springs. It’s a 50-year-old neighborhood of modest homes hidden behind the sound wall along the west side of Interstate 25 near the Fontanero Street exit.

Maybe you’ve raced through it on your commute when I-25 is choked. Otherwise, it’s a quiet place you’d never notice.

But you might be racing through it more if a recently unveiled development project takes flight.

Mesa Springs residents were told in October that owners of a 47-acre vacant lot along Van Buren Street want to build a housing project with up to 12 units per acre, or upwards of 500 new homes, condos, townhomes and apartments. (See my blog for maps.)

Even worse for Mesa Springs’ tranquility, the project would include another big chunk of the long-awaited extension of Centennial Boulevard south from Fillmore Street to I-25.

That’s the same extension Mesa Springs residents fought for years to protect themselves from becoming a Bermuda Traffic Triangle, trapped between I-25, Fillmore and Centennial.

The project is in its infancy, said Ron Bevans, of NES Inc., a Springs land planning group hired by property owner MVS Development of Albuquerque, N.M., to file a rezoning request.

There are no blueprints for townhomes or apartments. But the fact developers are rezoning and talking to neighbors about concept plans has Mesa Springs residents worried.

Some view the project like an incoming meteor, fearing an impact similar to what they experienced when I-25 was realigned a decade ago. That project brought the sound wall and led to the extinction of 127 Mesa Springs homes.

The three dozen folks who attended the neighborhood meeting on the housing project are doubly-worried because they are still reeling from the recent closing of their neighborhood school — Pike Elementary.

But some see the project as an opportunity.

“Sometimes things happen that you don’t like,” said Carol Gravenstein, a long-time Mesa Springs homeowner. “We didn’t like it when they tore the houses out to expand the highway. We thought the sound wall would be terrible. But it’s been beautiful. You get out there and see your neighbors walking along.”

So what is the upside of 500 new homes or condos and a new boulevard on the neighborhood’s western perimeter?

“Maybe the housing they are proposing will bring families,” Gravenstein said. “If so, maybe we’ll get enough new people in here we’d get our school back.”

Gravenstein said resurrecting the school is critical if Mesa Springs is going to thrive.

“A grade school in the neighborhood is always an asset,” she said. “And Pike is such a nice school. It’s in excellent condition. We’re hoping it will be a school once again.”

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