Not Southland

Unless you’re intrigued with jet engines you might not have heard the excitement over the Double Eagle II airport area becoming an aviation center.  Unless you drive far west I-40 everyday you might not have noticed the gigantic new mattress plant that will soon bring us a bright future. (Although local mattress plant Bright Future Futon Company has been doing that since the 80's. )

Who does all this land belong to?  It isn’t secret but it isn’t obvious.

The two largest single land owners on the Westside are John Black, whose family owned Black Ranch and who is developing "Quail Ranch," and Westland Development Company. 

Westland owns over 56,000 acres and controls the assets of what was the Atrisco Land Grant to benefit some 6,000 shareholders - many of whom live in New Mexico.  And quite a few work in local government or hold elected office. 

Westland's history is provocative, to say the least, and largely unwritten.  Good background about Westland from the days when the feds bought land for the National Monument from them in High Country News.  

An older New Mexico Business Journal story tells of Westland's evolution and more recent news and comments about land grants are in this  Santa Fe New Mexican

piece. 

Westworld,  Coco 

Comments

[linda]

It would be interesting, to say the least, to determine who the largest shareholders are now in the Westland Development Corp. and match that list to the financial contributors to Mayor Chavez's campaigns. To my mind, much of the push for unbridled and unregulated West Side development comes from those who don't care a whit about quality or preservation, but only in upping the value of their shares in Westland. One would think the original heirs of the Atrisco Grant would be rolling in their graves.

[Inky Ink, Inc.]

Forget it, Coco. It's... Chinatown.

[Hibernia]

As a follow-up to Linda's post, would it be too much to ask for the names of the top 10-25 shareholders?

[Coco]

Would if I could Hibernia.

[linda]

Here's a link to the Westland Development site that explains some of the twists and turns of the land and its ownership, at least according to the corp:

http://www.westlandnm.com/