Westland Development Company's billion dollar nest egg - Atrisco Land Grant - includes article: Atrisco: a trip back 300 years

New Mexico Business Journal, April, 1990 by Jack Hartsfield

WESTLAND DEVELOPMENT COMPANY'S

It's a billion dollar plum ripe for the picking.

Westland Development Co. Inc., development arm for 4,714 stockholders spread across the nation with 716,000 shares, sits squarely in control of the land.

They know - better than anyone else - they've got the goose that laid the golden egg.

The properties are part of the original Atrisco Land Grant of 1692, managed in total by Westland formed in 1967 to represent the interests of the original heirs, now stockholders in the unique corporation.

Sosimo S. Padilla, chairman of the ninemember board, doesn't quibble about the future of Westland properties.

"I'll never see it," he says, "but one day there'll be a whole new Albuquerque right here. Albuquerque can't grow south; it can't grow north; if it goes east, it has to go over the mountains. . . . .

"So where is it going to grow? It's going west. Here," he says, looking out over the western escarpment. "I envision another Coronado Center right here, a lot of other developments."

It is that clear prospect that has Westland Development Co., the only such corporation in the U.S., to grow out of a land grant, moving cautiously and deliberately today.

"We intend to turn this company completely around," says Barbara Page (Gallegos), president and chief executive officer of Westland. "We're going to be a very aggressive developer in the west end of the city."

Page took her post last July with Padilla assuming the chairmanship after a number of rocky years for Westland, dating back to 1970 when the acreage was almost lost in a hasty decision.

There's irony in the billion dollar nest egg today that almost sold for a $100,000 down payment in a proposed $11 million sale in the early 1970s to the late State Rep. Eugene R. Cinelli, D-Bernalillo, who had development plans of his own.

Page and Padilla first came on the Westland board in 1971 in what amounted to a market basket turnover on the nine-member panel shortly after the barely aborted Cinelli purchase.

Westland has been fraught with controversy ever since the development arm was permitted under a new state law in 1967, but Page and Padilla claim they're out to be the peacemakers in the new image-building currently underway.

They're trying to soothe some stockholders who for sentimentality have opposed sale of Atrisco land as severing them from their 300-year ties to their heritage.

"Many keep referring to themselves as heirs to the property," says Padilla. "There are no more heirs. They became stockholders when Westland was formed in 1967. I can say I'm an heir of Westland, but I'm not. I'm a stockholder. It's that simple.

"Our shareholders are no different than the stockholders in Chrysler," says Padilla. "They don't tell Lee Iacocca how to run his business every day . . . . The stockholder has his say once a year when he votes for management posts."

Padilla, toughened to nuances in his years on the Westland board, says he often feels he's involved in a popularity contest - where popularity doesn't always make money.

"Politics is New Mexico's main industry," he says. "It's the prime means of entertainment . . . and at Westland, it's no different.

"Our obligation is to all of the stockholders," says Padilla. "If we don't succeed in turning things around, stockholders will never get a dividend."

Westland lost $3 million last year despite the potential wealth it controls. The losses, says Page, primarily resulted from the sluggish market in shopping centers the company owns, including Rodeo Plaza in Santa Fe; Mission Square on Juan Tabo, Lariat Square, 3250 Coors, Bluewater Warehouse and Volcano Business Park, all in Albuquerque.

If the petroglyph national monument is approved by Congress, Westland stands to make $32 million from the sale of the 1,964 acres it controls in Atrisco land that would be part of the project.

It's sale versus joint ventures or leases that for years kept Westland in turmoil, something Page says she wants to change.

"We're turning around," she says confidently. "We're on our way up. And we're determined to become a very successful company.

"For the first time in history by the time of our November board meeting, we had 68 percent of the shareholders' votes in for three posts on the nine-member board. Three run every year.

"It's that kind of positive response from shareholders that shows us new confidence. Keep in mind, we're talking about 716,000 outstanding shares all over the country."

Page says while Westland still prefers to maintain as much of the land grant properties as possible in leases or joint ventures, the company will sell if it has to, regardless of some opposition from shareholders.

"We are going to operate as a New Mexico business and do what we have to do," she says. "We're master planning properties right now. We expect to see a lot of rooftops here in the future; certain areas are being planned for industrial parks; it will be quite a mix, but a proper mix.

"We can't and won't go under because some don't want us to sell," she says. "We're dealing with a number of proposals that keep coming in. We've been saying we were going to turn the company around and this is the group that's going to do it."