Tucumcari tonite!

New Mexico Business Journal, April, 1996 by Sandy Starr

New Mexico's Eastern gateway is spreading its wings

Travelers crossing the wide open spaces of the Southwest have found Tucumcari a place to rest and refuel since before the days of Route 66 and certainly before billboards beckoning "Tucumcari Tonite!" went up along I-40 from Arizona to Oklahoma.

Tucumcari's economy has always reaped the benefits of travel and tourism dollars from year-around highway traffic and seasonal recreation at nearby lakes. However, with an optimistic eye on the future, leaders aren't content to have Tucumcari as just a pit stop. They want to broaden the economic base and make the town a destination in its own right.

With lodgers and gross receipts taxes up, nobody is complaining, but, as Art Rosenberg, director of Greater Tucumcari Economic Development puts it, "We're able to get them here. We need to get them to stay more than a night."

A big step in that direction came with completion of the Tucumcari Convention Center a little over a year ago. The 30,000-sq. ft. facility, adjacent to baseball fields and the Quay County Fair Grounds, has already been a boost to the community.

Bringing a variety of groups to town for conventions, meetings and seminars, the center has played host to weddings, banquets, doll and car shows, a computer seminar for ranchers, New Year's Eve church services and the largest high school reunion in the state with alumni from every class since 1930.

Penny Pray, director of the convention center, says she thinks it's the "best thing that's happened in the community in a long time." Not only did the community get behind building the center, they have continued to work toward making it successful, bringing in conventions of groups they belong to and by showing visitors a town filled with friendly, service-oriented people.

Cheese and Ostriches

The Center works to promote local business and products to visitors, booking tours and serving ostrich meat from local ranches and cheese from the new cheese factory. Highlighting Tucumcari's link with popular Historical Route 66, they book tours and theme parties, complete with car hop waitresses.

Booked into 1997 with such groups as The Association of Counties, New Mexico Nurses Association and The Harley Owners Group from Milwaukee, Pray hopes to see Tucumcari become the convention center for the eastern part of the state.

Another step toward broadening the economic base is establishment of a city-owned, agriculturally focused industrial park. Rosenberg says recruitment of small manufacturers, food processors and a warehouse distribution center is underway. With affordable land, taxes and utilities, lower employment costs, a temperate climate, and easy access to major interstate highway and rail thoroughfares, he thinks the community has a great chance to lure business and industry.

Recruiting dairies and related service companies, Rosenberg again points to climate and transportation access as incentives. Also, he says alfalfa grown around Quay County has the highest protein content of any grown in the United States, a plus for feeding dairy herds.

Rosenberg says contacts with an ostrich meat processing plant look positive, which would allow local ostrich ranches to process their products more economically.

City Manager Bernadette Moya says a task force was set up last year to study a maximum security juvenile detention facility. Public hearings have shown good community support for such a project, which, if built for 100 beds, could provide 85 to 90 direct jobs.

Revitalizing a Downtown

Other prospects include a dude ranch, with walking trails, wagon rides, overnight horse/backpacking rides and old fashioned cookouts; construction of a large retirement village near Conchas Lake by a national fraternal organization, and an 18-hole golf course and planned community.

Along with the pursuit of possibilities, concrete things are happening in Tucumcari. Efforts to revitalize the historic downtown area are seeing some success, thanks in part to Lee Miller, a hometown boy who returned from the bright lights of Hollywood. Miller has fond memories of when "downtown" was the social hub of the community and is spearheading efforts to bring life back into the buildings he frequented as a child.

He and his wife, Charlene, opened The Big Dipper Cafe and Good Life Health Store at 2nd and Main Streets last year and have already seen a profit. Miller says support from other downtown merchants helped him achieve success.

Restoring the art deco colors and terrazzo floor of the building before opening his business was important to Miller, who says, "We need to get a feeling of pride and history. If we don't get a sense of pride, we could lose a lot of old historical buildings."

Tucumcari Mountain Cheese Factory is another new downtown merchant, located in the old Coca-Cola bottling plant. Owner Charles Krause, a fourth-generation Wisconsin cheese maker, says the factory, opened in December, has received good response and is seeing repeat customers. Krause makes gourmet and specialty cheeses, shipping to statewide markets, and sending UPS orders across the country. Producing about 10,000 lbs. of cheese weekly, Krause expects production to climb with orders. There is also a factory store on site.