Planning commission approves Serios Road redevelopment; requires mural recreation and new local-art commission

The Santa Fe Planning Commission on May 21 approved a coordinated special use permit and development plan to redevelop the former Empire Builder property at 1802 and 1750 Serios Road into an indoor climate‑controlled storage facility with supporting creative-workshop suites, a community meeting room and a small dog park.

Senior planner George Terry told commissioners the two requests are one coordinated record: a special use permit to allow indoor self‑storage in the C2 zoning and a development plan addressing site layout, circulation, dimensional standards and technical conditions. Staff recommended approval “subject to Attachment A,” a package of technical corrections and later-stage conditions that will control frontage work, fire-review compliance, signage, landscaping and other implementation details.

The project team said the redevelopment would occupy roughly 2.72 acres and include about 480 climate‑controlled storage units, roughly a dozen creative office/workshop suites on a second parcel, community office or meeting space, parking, pedestrian connections, water harvesting and a small dog park. Applicant representatives said the proposed buildings would have an approximate finished height of 29 feet 6 inches, below the 45‑foot maximum for the corridor, and that provided parking and open-space percentages meet code minimums. The applicant also said the use generates far fewer peak trips than many permitted C2 uses and that the project would reduce trip generation compared with the site’s prior commercial uses.

Opponents focused on corridor character, public-safety and land‑use policy. Forest Thomas, owner of Santa Fe Self Storage, argued the city’s overlay policies and adopted corridor guidance discourage storefront self‑storage on major thoroughfares and urged denial. Several neighbors said the area already has a cluster of storage facilities and expressed concern that a major operator would change neighborhood character. Supporters, including Frank Culver — whose family owned and operated Empire Builders for decades — said demolition of the existing structure and the community‑facing elements made the proposal an improvement for the neighborhood.

Commissioners debated design, landscaping, the mural and operations for the proposed dog park before moving to a pair of motions. A motion to approve the special use permit (case 2025‑11756) carried after a successful friendly amendment requiring the applicant to reproduce the original mural on a publicly visible building face and to add a second mural executed by a Santa Fe artist in coordination with city staff. The development plan (case 2025‑11753) then passed on a separate roll call. Both approvals were recorded as passed with unanimous yes votes from the commission members present on the roll calls.

Commissioners and staff emphasized that approval is not a building permit: the action adopts staff findings, allows recordation and permits later-stage permit review and technical approvals if Attachment A conditions are met. Those conditions require coordination with the Department of Transportation on curb ramp and frontage timing, fire-review and construction-access requirements, final landscaping and signage plans, and other typical public-works and building-code items.

Project proponents said the creative-workshop suites are intended as small, flexible spaces for artists, craftspeople and micro‑businesses (rents were estimated in the presentation at roughly $10–$15 per square foot in market scenarios), and the applicant described water-harvesting and other sustainability measures. The applicant also proposed digital recreation of the mural after staff and neighborhood input concluded the original painting could not be restored in place.

The commission recorded the special use permit and development plan approvals and conditioned the approvals on the attachment A technical corrections and the newly adopted public‑art conditions. Next steps include final plan corrections, recordation and subsequent building and construction permitting if later-stage reviews are satisfied.