The Changing Face of Rio Rancho



New Rio Rancho Cinema

Rio Rancho’s mayor, Thomas Swisstack, likes to jokingly remind audiences that Rio Rancho is not a suburb of Albuquerque. Knowing the history of both cities, helps us understand the reason for this perception.

Albuquerque, founded in 1706 as a Spanish colonial trading post along the Rio Grande River, an almost three hundred years start to becoming the largest city in New Mexico when some developers thought to acquire and develop lands northwest of the city. By then Albuquerque's population was well on its way to its current 545,852  to make it the 32^nd largest city in the United States.

The first homes in the community that was to become the city of Rio Rancho were built in 1962 in the then Rio Rancho Estates. They were mostly for retirees from New York and other East Coast cities. Almost twenty years later in 1981, the city of Rio Rancho was incorporated with its population at 10,000. In the meantime, the city continued to share many Albuquerque City resources.  

Fast forward thirty years. Increasingly independent, Rio Rancho developed its own school and library systems and began to attract small and large businesses beginning with semiconductor chip manufacturer, INTEL that first moved to the city in 1981 and has since increased its commitment with the building in 2004 of what was then its largest and most advanced semiconductor fabrication plant.

Presbyterian Rust Medical Center

Rio Rancho City Center

During the last ten years many other businesses have moved to this Sandoval County, largest city as residential construction boomed. Newer employers include Wal-Mart who moved in 2006; Hewlett Packard, Sprint, UNM and CNM that are part of the New City Center Development project; Presbyterian Health Care that has supplied services to the city for several years but this year (2011) is contributing to changing the skyline with its just completed Rust Medical Center, a new hospital close to the Albuquerque city line in southeast Rio Rancho. In this area, along Unser, up to Southern Boulevard, spate of business including a 14-screen, 2,600-seat cinema and several eateries have suddenly sprung up changing the face and the skyline of Rio Rancho.

In less than one quarter of the time that Albuquerque has been existence, Rio Rancho has grown to be the third largest city in New Mexico, outranking Santa Fe, the capital. It continues to be one of the fastest growing cities in the nation and is expected to catch up and surpass Albuquerque and Las Cruces in the near future. The 2010 census places Rio Rancho’s population at 87,521.

One has only to take a ride along Unser from the Albuquerque border past the City Center and the Mariposa residential development to Highway 550 to get an idea of the beginnings of the new Rio Rancho. It is no suburb of any other city but a proud  city developing city with its own urban and suburban areas. Watch out Las Cruces and Albuquerque!