ARTICLE:

Santa Fe Economy: Optimism tentative, but definitely in the air: Turnaround time?
Bob Quick | The New Mexican 

It’s not a rip-roaring recovery, but things are finally starting to pick up after several woeful years, say local business people, an economist and others.

“I think we can say the worst is behind us,” said Mark Boyd, an economist with the state of New Mexico’s Department of Workforce Solutions. “The economy looks a lot stronger these days.”

“The feeling I get in the last couple of months that things are starting to turn around, thank God,” said Maggie Hanley Welles, the new association manager of the Santa Fe Gallery Association.

There’s still negative job growth in New Mexico, Boyd said, but the economy has reached the point where it’s going to start showing some positive growth again.

Santa Fe, Boyd said, was ahead of the rest of the state in lost jobs, especially when it came to construction. “Construction jobs stayed down a long time,” Boyd said. “It was a huge hit, and it showed just how deep the recession was.”

Most recently, the mining, logging and construction sector of the local economy lost more jobs — 100 jobs since November, according to the state Labor Market Review.

On the other hand, three industries — information, government and other services — reported over-the-year employment gains.

Four important industries — retail trade, transportation, warehousing and utilities and educational and health services — reported flat employment levels.

“The Santa Fe job market has been weak for over two years but is improving,” the Labor Market Review said. “At its worst last summer, the number of jobs was down as much as 6.8 percent over a
12-month period.”

By the end of 2010, Santa Fe’s employment picture started to improve with the pending construction of a new Walmart, with 300 employees, later this year and the announced expansion of CleanAIR Systems, with 50 new jobs.

Boyd expects revised economic performance numbers to be available around the end of March.

Bryan Chippeaux, president of Century Bank, said Santa Fe took longer than many places to feel the effects of the recession and is now seeing a belated turnaround.

“Real estate is improving, but no one is calling it a trend,” he said of Santa Fe’s real-estate market. “Everybody is nervous.”

Chippeaux said Santa Fe has benefited for the last year or so from a stronger stock market performance. Santa Fe is a beneficiary of discretionary income earned from investments in stocks and bonds.

As for Century Bank, “we made money this year, just not as much as we’ve typically done,” Chippeaux said. “We’re working much harder and making less money.”

One reason for that is the federal regulations that continue to come down, often resulting in additional expenses for banks, he explained. That means a lot of banks will be looking for additional fees to compensate for those expenses.

As for Santa Fe’s important tourism sector, Art Bouffard, president of the New Mexico Lodging Association, said last year’s tourism numbers “showed a slight uptick” over the previous year. “We think it’s going to increase slightly in 2011.”

Santa Fe’s Community Convention Center is bringing visitors to town, but not enough, Bouffard said. “It’s a lot of locals. They’re not bringing money to Santa Fe.”

Bouffard also said the Hyatt Place, Santa Fe’s newest hotel, off Cerrillos Road, “is doing fairly well.” Given the downturn in the economy and tourism numbers, no other hotels in Santa Fe are being planned, Bouffard added.

Keith Toler, director of the Santa Fe Convention and Visitors Bureau, said “the word is out that we’ve got a convention center. So far this year, 74 events are under contract, with another 38 tentatively planning to sign contracts.”

He added: “We will probably exceed the 182 events we had last year” at the convention center.

Among the returnees are the Bead Fest and the Japanese Cultural Festival. One of the largest conventions, with 500 visitors, is a cancer research group arriving in mid-February.

Art sales have been and will continue to be an important part of Santa Fe’s economy.

When it comes to those sales, “I am somewhat of an optimist,” said Welles of the local gallery association. “We’ve seen mixed reports of slow times and fairly good sales this month and during the holiday season.”

Welles calls it “lucky” that Santa Fe is a winter resort as well as a summer one. “It’s good for the hospitality industry and for the gallery industry,” she added.

Artists, Welles added, “need to be very creative and exert a certain amount of ingenuity to keep their numbers up.”

This includes visiting art fairs around the region and the country and doing art auctions online, she said.

Welles also said a new website, www.santafeart.tv, was launched at the beginning of the year and is a “fantastic way” to foster interest in Santa Fe galleries and artists.

The Santa Fe Gallery Association has also introduced a new category of association membership that allows for associate business members to join at reduced rates.

“This is a good time to be a member,” Welles said. “We’re really trying to get this show on the road.”

Link to Original Article Here

Contact Matt Desmond and Ryan Bolton

And, now that scientists have created superintelligent rats, getting rid of the pesky things will be even harder. Maybe that’s why SITE Santa Fe is giving them away. For SITE’s 2004 biennial, artist Kim Jones created a grotesque facade made of rubber rats and, apparently, the place has been infested ever since. This year, highfalutin art rats are handed out willy-nilly at the organization’s holiday book sale. SITE has a hell of a library of art books and artist catalogs for sale this year, at discounts of up to 50 percent. A modest purchase enters one into a drawing for a limited edition Lorna Simpson print; additional prints are on sale at benevolent-baby-Jesus prices. SITE is open Christmas Eve for those procrastinators among us, but the sale goes on into the new year. Disclaimer: Rats aren’t entirely free. They come with a $50 purchase; but having been hanging out on art books, they won’t just be superintelligent, they’ll be hyper-cultured.