Skyscrapers, Skyline, Albuquerque, NM (appointed, homes, cabinets)

[catman]

I live close to Dallas. If I want to see Dallas, I'll go there, but it's usually not worth it. I like Albuquerque's skyline the way it is. If you want to go up high, take the tramway! Tall buildings don't impress me, but mountains do.

[finmqa1]

Denver has both beautiful mountains and beautiful highrises. When I advocate more density (400-500 foot towers) I'm not proposing some 700 foot replica of the Sears Tower. The Bank of Albuquerque building Downtown currently stands at 352 ft. So adding a few towers at 400 feet would not make our downtown look like Dallas, Chicago, or any other major metroplex in the country.

[nmguy]

In order for Albuquerque to LOOK like a real city, it must ACT like a real city.

Luring professionals to Abq requires quality schools. It's my belief that, when we offer good education, professionals with kids will be more inclined to move to this area.

[LLD]

Not quite sure what you mean here... there a ton of professionals here -- at UNM and at Sandia and several of the high tech companies in Albuquerque, not to mention all the doctors and lawyers too.

[nmguy]

LLD,

Sorry for being ambiguous.

I guess I'm talking about prospective film industry employees at the places being built south of the SunPort, as well as employees at Intel in RR, and some of the nano technology companies that are sprouting in the area.

Many of these folks have school-aged kids and, from what I've read and heard, are scared off by the dismal education system that APS offers.

[LLD]

Well I think there are lots of professionals here and as to school districts - seems that in many cities the public schools are lacking in general but then there are always some good schools within the district and then of course there are private schools and suburban schools to the city -- all of which attract people to an area.

Personally I think one of the deterrents here are the generally low salaries for professionals. I remember looking at the salaries in the Albuquerque magazine not long ago and I was frankly totally surprised. And I've had friends and family look for jobs here and say no way would they take a 20-45% pay cut. And I'm not talking CA or East Coast salaries -- I'm thinking of comparable places like Austin -- IT professionals make much higher salaries there than they do in Albuquerque in general.

[councilor j]

How do yall feel about skyscrapers in downtown Albq. Im not talking about sears tower height, but like the average ones in Denver.I think they would look good with the mountains in the back drop.

[Zoidberg]

My vote:

Denver can keep theirs.

Albuquerque doesn't need a skyline that looks like anyplace but Albuquerque.

Despite all the downtown revitalization, there is a glut of space in downtown. No reason to build new high rises when the existing ones go vacant.

If Albuquerque doesn't look like a "real city" to you, and you want to live in a "real city", then I think the solution's readily apparent.

[LLD]

I would like to see Albuquerque do it's own thing. Some medium height buildings woudl be fine but I think skyscrapers would look a bit out of place.

[councilor j]

ZOIDBERG---- I dont wanna live in another city-Albuquerque is the perfect size and has the perfect weather, but I just dont want it to end up looking like Phoenix with low rise buildings,lots of strip malls and cant tell the difference from the city and the suburbs. So understand that.Albuquerque needs a modern city downtown like Louisville,KY,Oklahoma City,Nashville, places like that. We need taller buildings or mid-size for multi-use,maybe a mall on the top floors,restaurants,downtown arena,more hotels,and maybe more stuff for adults to do, such as a doc and eddys restaurant, a grocery store, you can do many things with a high rise,citys half our size have much larger ones and fill them, and anyways Albq could use some creativity on filling them up.