The intriguing provenance of Cottonwood Mall

New Mexico Business Journal, Nov, 1996 by Paula Paul

The new Cottonwood Mall on Albuquerque's west side is teeming with glitz and glamour, crowded with shoppers and the latest in fashion, the newest gadgets, the fastest food, the most up-to-date everything.

Yet, in spite of its sheen of newness and artful attractiveness, Cottonwood could be any mall in any town in the country. After all, it has the same chain stores, the same multi-level structure, the same wide walkways and wide openings to shops, even, it would seem, the same Generation X sales staff working in all the stores.

However, if nothing else sets Cottonwood Mall apart, the history of the land on which it is located does. The first recorded documents on the land go back to January 2, 1710, when King Philip V of Spain granted 89,000 acres of land, including the area on which Cottonwood Mall is located, to Francisco Montes Vigil for services rendered to the king. The grant became known then as the Alameda Grant, presumably because. of the cottonwood grove (alameda in Spanish) growing along the river.

While the stretch of land along the river might have shown some promise for farming, most of the land was nothing more than a wide expanse of sparse and dry desert grass that appeared to be not much good for anything, so Vigil put the land up for sale immediately. By September he had a buyer, Captain Juan Gonzales of the Spanish army.

Apparently red tape had already been invented by then, because it took three years for the governor of the Province of New Mexico to approve the sale. Gonzales had visions of a local commercial center in the area. It's hard to imagine that he could have envisioned Cottonwood Mall, however, since he started with a collection of corrals where cattle could be gathered and shipped to market. It was not long, though, before the village of Corrales sprang up around the cattle pens and did indeed become a center for local commerce. The desert land to the west, however, remained uninhabited by anything except rabbits, rattlesnakes and coyotes.

Over the next 220 years, the land remained in the Alameda Grant and the heirs became diverse and scattered. Parts of the grant were sold over the years, including several thousand acres on the west mesa, which in the 1920s was owned by the San Mateo Land and Cattle Company. In 1929 Albert F. Black moved to Albuquerque to buy 20,500 acres of desert grassland, along with a partner. They established the Seven Bar Ranch.

Seventeen years later in 1946 Albert F. Black's son, A.J. Black, bought out his father's partner and built an adobe home on the ranch in a location overlooking the Rio Grande and bosque. The following year the Black family built the Alameda Airport near the ranch headquarters at the request of A.J.'s brother, Ed Black, who had been a World War II pilot, and who, family members say "caught the aviation fever."

The signs of change on the ranch became more and more apparent in the post war years as the small town of Albuquerque began experiencing growing pains, and in 1959 the Black family sold a portion of the ranch to developers of Paradise Hills. The next year they granted an easement to the New Mexico Highway Department for a new road to serve a settlement that was to become known as Rio Rancho.

When Albert F. Black died in 1968, the family partitioned the land among family members and in 1972 John Black, his grandson, established a real estate company, now known as Las Colinas Realty and Development Company, to handle family real estate matters. A small shopping center, known as Corrales Center was begun.

By 1976 a master plan for the development of part of the land showed a 59-acre regional site for a major shopping mall. In 1983 an agreement was reached with a development company to develop the mall on the present 95-acre location, and it was approved by the city in 1985.

Alameda Airport closed in 1986 to make way for the mall, and the site was sold to developers in 1988. A year later A.J. Black died. By 1995 the family had leased the old ranch quarters and home site, adjacent to the mall site, to Brinker Corporation for four restaurants.

This July Cottonwood Mall opened, occupying 95 acres, and a. Chili's restaurant sits next to it where the ranch house used to be. A part of the old Alameda Airport runway is still visible just north of the new mall.

"It was a little difficult giving up the home I grew up in," says John Black, "but my dad had died and we had to move my mother out. But she has a good sense of humor. Now she jokes about the rental income on the property being better than an oil well." Black won't divulge just how much the rent is on the old home place, however.

A total of 6,700 acres is still owned by the Black family, held in trust for the grandchildren of A.J. Black. It is still a working ranch with 80 acres of farm land and 250 head of cattle.

There is no ranch house anymore, not even a bunkhouse, just two cowboys with mobile phones. The foreman is actually a fulltime accountant who runs the ranch as a hobby, says John Black.