Any town the size of Alamosa would desire to have the type of development happening in the core of its community the way the capital city of the San Luis Valley is seeing a quarter of the way into the 21st century.
Alamosa has always been the straw that stirs the drink for the Valley’s small communities spread across nearly 8,000 square miles – offering a destination to the bigger college town for dining and shopping, entertainment and other happenings.
It’s also always been the gateway to the Great Sand Dunes, which in Alamosa’s past was a nice national monument that drew tens of thousands of visitors and is now a wonderful national park and preserve that alone attracts more than 400,000 visitors each year in and through Alamosa and destinations beyond.
New developments on Main Street and the surrounding neighborhood has Alamosa seeing a revival of its downtown, one that will bring a growing number of white-collar workers and high school-aged students mixed with visitors staying at new downtown hotels, locals celebrating monthly festivals, a summer and fall farmers market, concert events – and retailers looking to attract it all.
“The identity of a downtown or of a community is usually the downtown,” says Alamosa City Manager Heather Sanchez. “When you look at trying to attract employers, when you look at trying to attract and retain employees, when you want to retain your own locally grown people, that feeds into quality of life, economic development. And if your downtown’s dead or it doesn’t have an identity from a rural perspective, any other efforts for economic development are crippled.”
In 2017, Alamosa completed a comprehensive plan that created a pathway for reinvigorating a downtown that had lost its mojo as the town spread west with the arrival of Walmart in 2000, a store with 183,221 square feet that pulled other developments around it, further and further away from Main Street.
Now with the aid of a popular toy-and-hobby store, recent openings of a downtown appliance store and furniture store, a commitment to public arts, a few new restaurants, and continued investments from Alamosa’s sizable and meaningful non-profit sector, Downtown Alamosa is set to take off again.
The Alamosa City Council’s decision in November to look past its existing central business district zoning to allow for the arrival of the Alamosa School District and its alternative and online schools downtown is the latest maneuvering to create a bustling core filled with pedestrians for the community once again.
Adding to the new Alamosa Downtown will be a pair of hotels, one a Marriott-branded 80-plus room hotel off Sixth Street, the other a boutique hotel set above Narrow Gauge Book Coop on Main Street.
“In regard to the two lodging properties, we see the potential positive impact it will bring to the local restaurants and retailers that will be in walking distance,” said Kale Mortensen, executive director of Visit Alamosa. “Bringing over 100 rooms to downtown will put those visitors directly in front of our local businesses.”
Visit Alamosa anticipates an economic impact annually of around $12.1 million with the arrival of two new downtown hotels, said Mortensen. The figure assumes 60 percent year-round occupancy of the downtown rooms, and includes what the typical traveler spends on lodging, restaurant and retail shopping during a visit.
“We have seen average daily rates increase over the last few years and summer prices at an all-time high,” Mortensen said of Alamosa’s hotel scene. “With added supply, we expect to see those rates decrease and continue to be an affordable destination to visit.”
Alamosa County currently has around 630 rooms, not counting campgrounds and short-term rentals.
But it’s not visitors alone that are reviving Downtown Alamosa. It’s the local community.
An investment in 2023 by Boys & Girls Clubs of the San Luis Valley to remake the northeast corner of Sixth Street and San Juan Avenue for its own administrative offices and a non-profit incubator kickstarted a new rush to downtown by local organizations.
The Alamosa School District, the 12th Judicial District Attorney’s Office through Alamosa County, and Valley-Wide Health Systems have followed suit and have major projects underway in their own buildings downtown.
“Alamosa Downtown will have a completely new feel once these projects get completed. It brings more demand and liveliness to this corridor which is made up of locally owned businesses,” Mortensen said.
In addition to the five development projects below, Downtown Alamosa will see a remake of its alleyways to spark more rural design, and a re-do of its Hunt Avenue corridor which stretches from Cole Park to the new Visit Alamosa parkway along Sixth Street.
And it’s at Cole Park that, if all the plans come to pass, a new riverfront park will accentuate the improvements to Alamosa’s core and the town will have a new lifestyle to carry forward.
Five Downtown Alamosa projects
1.) SpringHill Suites Downtown Hotel
A Marriott-branded SpringHill Suites is expected go up off Sixth Street and State Avenue, yielding Alamosa its first downtown hotel in decades. Hotel developer Manny Patel has been working for years to bring a hotel back downtown and he found the right synergy when the city of Alamosa condemned and took possession of the old Walsh Hotel. That move allowed Patel to negotiate a deal with Alamosa that yielded him the old hotel property along with the rest of the block that extends east to State Avenue. With 89 rooms along with a hotel restaurant, this project, supported by local tax incentives, will add to the options travelers have as they come through Alamosa. Watch for an opening sometime in 2027.
2.) Hotel 1900
Above Narrow Gauge Book Coop at Main Street and State Avenue will be an 11-room boutique hotel developed by the building’s owners, Molly and Keith Curley. Downtown Alamosa historically has had both hotels and “boarding rooms” above its many buildings along State Avenue. Hotel 1900 will add to the flavor and mix of bringing visitors downtown and offering them a place to stay that is convenient and walkable to restaurants and local retail. It doesn’t hurt that Narrow Gauge has become one of downtown’s most popular shops since its re-opening in 2019. Watch for an opening of Hotel 1900 sometime in 2026.
3.) The Valley-Wide Health and Wellness Center
Revival of the historic Alamosa Courthouse at the corner of Fourth Street and San Juan is one of Alamosa’s most anticipated projects downtown. Valley-Wide Health Systems purchased the property in 2023, then hired RTA Architects and Nunn Construction and now has renovation underway. “Today we stand on a cusp of a remarkable journey. A journey that signifies a commitment and collaboration to build a healthy community,” Valley-Wide CEO Jania Arnoldi said at the November groundbreaking. Valley-Wide, with close to 700 employees statewide, put its eyes on the building following its acquisition and merger in 2022 with Southeast Health Group, a community mental health center serving the lower Arkansas Valley of Colorado. The merger had Valley-Wide Health looking for a third building in Alamosa for its community health services, and with Arnoldi’s taste for restoring historic buildings, the old Alamosa Courthouse renovation came to be. “The courthouse is going to be a big project,” Arnoldi said. “There’s opportunities at the courthouse to maybe do some additional community stuff because there’s 19,000 square feet there and we don’t need all of that. So what else could we do something new? We’ve talked about bringing in businesses, that could help support our patients or specialty services that maybe people don’t have access to here. So we’ve talked about ‘how could we build out that third building to help the community?’” Watch for a grand opening in the fall of 2026.
4.) 12th Judicial DA Office
When you tear into an old bank building like Alamosa State Bank on Main Street and State Avenue, you get to figure out new interesting uses for the existing space. Take the vaults of the old bank, for example. As part of the renovation underway, the vaults that the building was built around will remain. One of them will be transformed into a bathroom, while the others will be used for the DA’s office and the Colorado Bureau of Investigation. See what we mean. The building essentially was given to local taxpayers by Alamosa State Bank when it sold the property to Alamosa County for $1. It was the bank’s way of giving back to the community and helping to revive Main Street in Alamosa. A district attorney’s staff of 20 will soon move from its current offices above SLV Brewery down the block to the former Alamosa State Bank building, where there will be more space for employees and a dedicated public conference area. The first floor entrance will serve as a reception area as well as the conference space. The new office will also be ADA accessible. Like Valley-Wide and its renovation of the downtown courthouse, the 12th Judicial DA office through Alamosa County will have space to lease to others. In this case, it would be space to lease to Colorado Bureau of Investigations for a SLV satellite office, something the Valley’s law enforcement have sought for some time. During intense or major investigations, most Valley law enforcement agencies work with CBI. Yet, CBI is based out of Pueblo and getting agents over La Veta Pass or Poncha Pass to investigate SLV crimes is a proven challenge. CBI is also equipped with forensic experts and equipment that no Valley agency has. Having CBI along with the 12th Judicial DA in the new downtown headquarters helps in that regard.
5.) Alamosa School District headquarters and educational campus
Monday, Nov. 25, was moving day for the Alamosa School District. Its headquarters are now at 700 Main Street, following its purchase of the property. “Everything is great, and we have a lot of space, so a lot of opportunities,” said Chief Financial Officer Amanda Hensley as she settled into the school district’s new offices. Directly across the street is Woody’s Q Shack and the San Luis Valley Brewing Company. It’s those types of downtown restaurants and coffee shops that will benefit, particularly in the slow winter months of tourism, from having the professional staff of the Alamosa School District as neighbors. “When complete it will be a real asset for us and downtown,” said Assistant Superintendent Luis Murillo. “We often have guests coming to work with us, or use our space.” In addition to the school superintendent and other administrative offices with about 20 employees, the Alamosa School Board will hold its public meetings in the downtown building. Then come August 2025 and the start of the 2025-26 school year, dozens of high school students will find their way to attend classes downtown or, in the case of the school district’s online students, the place where they will periodically check in for their own needs and progress. The school district will be renovating the two-story building over the course of the next six months. For school administrators like Hensley, it will mean moving twice. Once from the former school district offices in East Alamosa to the first floor of the downtown headquarters, and then later to the second floor of the downtown office when the educational programs and students arrive in the summer of 2025 for classes on the first floor. The school district will also eventually create a retail space on the first floor to comply with a condition placed on it by the city of Alamosa and its efforts to have retail shops in its central business district facing Main Street itself. The school district has five years to make that happen.