Teenage Waitland

During his March State of the City address, Mayor Alan Webber included the long-awaited Southside Teen Center as one of the highlights of 2022: “We committed the money to build the teen center, then built it, furnished and staffed it,” he said to applause at the speech.

Webber’s crowing followed decades of vague commitments and the center’s “festive groundbreaking” in the fall of 2021. Now, the city’s May opening goal has come and gone. Surrounded by bare earth, machinery and stray tools, the center will remain unrealized at least through the summer.

Roman “Tiger” Abeyta recalls hearing of plans for a nearby teen center in the early 2000s when, as executive director of the Boys and Girls Club, his organization provided programming in the Zona Del Sol building.

Abeyta, now executive director of the Community Housing Trust and a member of the Santa Fe Public Schools Board of Education, was born and raised on the Southside and later served as county manager, then city councilor. He says the message to the city as far back as 2018—both from him and from then-candidate Webber—was, “Let’s do it, let’s get it done.”

The city doesn’t have a lot of experience in overseeing large construction projects, he notes. Similar large, ground-up, public-dollar projects in Santa Fe include the Genoveva Chavez Community Center, which opened in 2000 at a cost of $25 million, and the Southside Library, completed in 2007.

“It’s unfortunate the center’s not being opened in the summer,” Abeyta says. “When teens don’t have something to do they’re going to find something to do, and that’s not always healthy. That’s why this has always been important to me.”

Santa Fe contracted with Jaynes Corp. of Albuquerque to build the $9.2-million facility at Valentine Way across Country Club Road from the Southside Branch of the Santa Fe Public Library. Construction broke ground in September 2021. The city budget for the fiscal year that began July 1 includes over $1.3 million for equipment and 10 new full time employees for the center.

In late June, the city’s jobs portal included openings for full- and part-time youth specialists, a youth program coordinator and a recreation supervisor, all of the postings labeled “teen center.” The listings, which were set to expire June 30, advertised hourly pay rates from $15 to $29.31.

Construction was expected to take about 18 months, but Community Services Director Maria Sanchez-Tucker says the city now expects a late summer or early fall opening after COVID-related delays in materials—about two years after the groundbreaking. IT equipment and furniture are being installed now.

“The teen center is a program that has been a result of years of planning by community groups, teens and families, and now the city is working toward opening a state-of-the art facility that will serve the needs of teens in Santa Fe into the future,” she writes in an email to SFR.

Visitors will initially have access to a gym and stage, computer lab, gaming stations and an outdoor courtyard space, the city says. More will come when there’s more data from teens who use it, according to Sanchez-Tucker.

Abeyta hopes the city will explore partnerships with groups like the Boys and Girls Club, YouthWorks, Earth Care and others so the space becomes more than just a place for recreation.

“That’s a good way to get people in the door, but they’ve got to see services and providers and education there as well,” he says.

A good deal of input from teens in the community exists. Earth Care, the nonprofit empowerment and community-development organization, prepared an “Outreach Report” in 2019 after holding workshops, surveys and interviews on what young people were looking for in the planned teen center.

Among the findings from the 937 community contacts the report was based upon were a desire for open hours, outdoor sports and diverse spaces including a health and wellness resources center.

“The general theme from the results was a focus on youth development and leadership,” Miguel Acosta, co-director of Earth Care and a candidate for City Council’s District 3 seat, tells SFR. “The city really doesn’t have experience or expertise in that area, so they seem to be focused on recreation instead.”