New luxury neighborhood is ready in Rio Rancho

Feb. 22—A new luxury home community with stunning views and close proximity to the outdoors will soon be ready for Rio Rancho residents.

Hakes Brothers, a locally owned home builder, held the grand opening of Rio Rancho's newest premier community, Los Diamantes, on Saturday. The community's model home is at 3055 Opalo Drive in Rio Rancho.

"Los Diamantes is unquestionably one of the premier new communities in the metro area," Chris Hakes, Hakes Brothers Albuquerque division president, said in a statement. "Our wonderful team at Hakes Brothers is thrilled to offer our professionally designed homes, our quality building practices, and our award-winning customer service for our Los Diamantes buyers."

Hakes Brothers has 44 lots designated to build spec homes with open-concept floor plans ranging from 1,638- to 2,127-square-feet, according to a Hakes Brothers news release. Buyers can choose from four elevation options include Spanish, Tuscan, Contemporary and Mediterranean designs. Pricing begins at just under $400,000. A tour of the homes and community can be made by calling 505-439-9700 or by visiting hakesbrothers.com.

Architectural details include open floor plans, decorative tray ceilings, 8-foot doorways and hand-textured walls. Buyers can also customize the living space with a gourmet kitchen, additional bathrooms, an extended dining room, outdoor living areas, a guest suite, a study, designer bath selections and more.

The housing community is close to Joe Harris Elementary School, Intel, Hewlett Packard, and Presbyterian-Rust Medical Hospital.

Hakes Brothers' Los Diamantes housing community is the most recent addition to the Los Diamantes residential and commercial area.

"A few years back, out in this particular area, some land investors started assembling land out in this area," said Rio Rancho Mayor Gregg Hull. "This is an area known as Unit 10 in Rio Rancho, and they started assembling property because one of the legacy issues that we deal with out here in Rio Rancho is that we've got all these half-acre properties out here that are owned by numerous different people. Basically, it could be in certain areas, it could be dozens if not hundreds of different property owners, so it's really hard to pull together property in a meaningful way to do meaningful development."

He said it took public and private investment to get the Los Diamantes residential and commercial area off the ground.

"Los Diamantes was really assembled by a man named Mike Skolnick, and he had an investor by the name of John Lewis and they worked to get out there and kind of pull all the properties together," Hull said. "But the big problem we had out there is there was no infrastructure. There was no water or sewer out there. It was just dirt and desert up there. So we had to work with the developer and a bunch of other partners to figure out how we could bring that development forward."

In this case, the city had to work with Rio Rancho Public Schools. The school district agreed to move the original location for Joe Harris Elementary School to another space about five miles north.

"We said if y'all can move the school down here, the city can work with you on the infrastructure," Hull said. "The infrastructure is supporting the school, and then because we are bringing the infrastructure in for a public facility, it's able to benefit the developers in the area that will bring the houses. And so, it was really a very unique public-private partnership that involved private investors, the city, the school district and the flood control authority. There were a lot of people involved in all of this."

Through the partnership the developer, Pierre Amestoy, built Westside Boulevard, which goes from Unser Boulevard all the way out to the project.

"The developer paid for all of that, not the city of Rio Rancho," Hull said. "The school district built the school. The city brought the infrastructure out, meaning the water and the sewer. We didn't bring all the water and sewer, but we made a large contribution to bringing it to the school and then with all of that pulled together. The flood control authority worked on some of the flooding issues in that area. We were able to get some of the drainage fixed."

The Los Diamantes project involved several moving parts.

"The (school) district immediately moved to build Joe Harris and within about a year-and-a-half Joe Harris was there," Hull said. "And not long after that, the houses started dropping and we've got a lot of development out there that includes single family, multifamily, there's some commercial out there. But more importantly we teed up an absolutely beautiful community that is truly a place that, not to be cliche, it really is live, work, and play, because you have so many things that are popping up, the hospital that is right there, the Park Above, which is a great little retail park, and then of course there is a huge amount of development that is teeing up right now in an area that we refer to as The Village."

Los Diamantes is not the only growth happening in Rio Rancho.

"We've got Market Street coming in," Hull said. "We've got a new Blake's Lotaburger that's coming in. We have American Eagle Credit Union that's coming in. Furniture Row is coming in so just a huge amount of development. That's not specifically Diamantes but it is in the area that we refer to as The Unser Gateway."

The north side of the City of Vision also is seeing growth.

"It is very exciting," Hull said of the new developments. "The north side of the city is seeing a huge amount of activity in the Enchanted Hills area with the building with a new library and community center called The Hub and we have a new development called The Block as well. Plaza Enchanted Hills, which has been under development for the last 10 years, brought in all kinds of retail into that area. It's been impressive to see the amount of investment in Rio Rancho."