Albuquerque Plaza

The Albuquerque Plaza development was built by BetaWest Properties, a commercial real estate subsidiary of US West and sister company of the Mountain Bell telephone company. The company was planning a new office tower to replace the old Mountain Bell building, which was originally built in 1953 as a Fedway department store and was notable for having New Mexico's first escalator. Concurrently, the city was planning a major expansion of the Albuquerque Convention Center and convinced BetaWest to add a luxury hotel to the proposed development. In order to secure the hotel deal, the city gave BetaWest $10 million in loans, a seven-year exemption on property taxes for the hotel, and a three-year catering concession for the convention center. Designed by HOK Architects, the planned development consisted of a 22-story office tower and 20-story hotel tower connected by a shared base. Construction began in early 1988 with the demolition of the Mountain Bell building and was completed in the summer of 1990. The total cost of the project was $100 million. With the real estate market struggling in the early 1990s, US West began selling off many of its commercial properties. Both of the Albuquerque Plaza towers were sold to Crescent Real Estate Equities of Fort Worth in 1995 for $69 million, though US West kept its offices in the building. In 2005, the office tower was sold to a local investment group, now under the umbrella of Allegiance Realty of Charlotte, North Carolina. Meanwhile, the Hyatt was sold to an out-of-state investor. In 2019, Jim Long, owner of Heritage Hotels and Resorts, purchased the building from Allegiance and as of early 2020, the building is now managed by his own commercial real estate company called Heritage Real Estate Company. ==Architecture==

Albuquerque Plaza is tall and has 22 stories, making it New Mexico's tallest building by both height and floor count. The tower, roughly square in plan with angular projections, is situated at the southeast corner of the block and contains of class-A office space. It rises 20 stories above a two-story base which is shared with the Hyatt Regency hotel. The first floor contains a retail promenade, while the second floor houses banquet and conference rooms. The complex was designed by HOK Architects and is an example of postmodern architecture. It is constructed from reinforced concrete with pink granite trim, and both towers are capped with distinctive pyramidal roofs which contain mechanical equipment. ==Tenants and signage==

When it opened, the building's main tenant was US West, occupying floors 4–12. Several other floors were occupied by law firms. Another large tenant was the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which left in 2007. The Bank of Albuquerque logo was replaced with U.S. Eagle Federal Credit Union signage in 2015. announced that they will be opening up an office inside Albuquerque Plaza and bought the building signage, which was installed in May 2021 and gave the building its new identity. ==Environmental impact==

In addition to providing downtown Albuquerque with of commercial office space, the tallest building in New Mexico is also one of the state's most sustainable structures. Albuquerque Plaza, utilizes a hybrid thermal energy storage system from CALMAC. The system helps alleviate the building's dependence on the electric grid, cut carbon emissions and reduces the energy required to cool its occupants. For over 20 years, shifting the electric demand used to cool the building from on-peak to off-peak hours has saved the property over on electric utility bills. In 2002, the Bank of Albuquerque Tower was awarded BOMA’s “Office Building of the Year” award, which considers energy conservation as part of its judging criteria. ==See also==