Government Garage Groomed for Livery Service

2600 Galisteo Road

Drivers on one of the city’s main thoroughfares might easily miss the old Santa Fe County Public Works Building. Tucked away on the other side of the railroad tracks from St. Francis Drive, the 1950s era structure has a relatively low profile.

fordable housing taking center stage in Santa Fe and development pushing further away from the center of town, the land carries potential for redevelopment, but for now the county isn’t planning to do much with it.

The boxy exterior recalls a time when this part of town, just north of the current city limits, could have been considered the sticks. Built to accommodate large government vehicles for repairs and service, these days the spaces are typically filled with shuttle buses and high-end SUVs.

tion standing alone next to the outline of a single fireplace whose home returned to dust decades ago.

The ruins that remain have witnessed more than their share of disaster since—including one particularly memorable crash when a train carrying corn syrup derailed on the Devil’s Throne curve as its contents sloshed to one side. Now the site is probably seen more frequently by late night Amtrak travelers on the still-active line than by area locals. But according to Brown, those few visitors who do seek out Waldo tend to bring a certain Wild West lawlessness with them—enjoying a little illegal target practice or evading Santa Fe police.

“You don’t wanna be by yourself,” Brown cautions. “You gotta let this shit happen out in the desert.”

(Siena Sofia Bergt)

The plain-looking building dominated by vehicle maintenance garage bays sits on a triangular 6-acre plot of land, wedged between the Candlelight and Vista Hermosa neighborhoods and within walking distance of the Zia Road Rail Runner station. With a shortage of af-

Paul Thompson, who owns Santa Fe Valet, moved his business into the building in 2022 after having his fleet of cars, shuttles and full-on buses spread throughout the city at various vacant lots. Santa Fe Valet shares a wall with a Santa Fe County clerk warehouse, situated at the south end of the building. But Thompson says the section that’s currently filled with a few offices, an employee pool table and mechanical accoutrements was mostly untouched since Public Works left in 2009 for its current location near the Santa Fe Regional Airport after occupying the Galisteo space since 1980.

“This side, this was all vacant,” Thompson says. “It was kind of rundown and just not being used. A bunch of stuff here went to the dump.”

Thompson and his crew decided to keep a few artifacts, however. One was the giant ceiling-mounted crane with a range of motion that spans the entire front service area and which Thompson estimates has enough power to lift a car. Another is a small mural, not much bigger than a household picture frame, above a garage doorway. Thompson says a man stopped by not long after the business moved in, claiming to be the artist of the painted image of a pair of shades and a mustache that elicits thoughts of New Mexico’s rich Chicano culture.

Thompson doesn’t know the man’s name or the age of the easy-to-miss artwork, but tells SFR it became clear the painting needed to stay.

“It was important enough to him to stop by,” Thompson says.

When they moved in, the Santa Fe Valet crew also found a cow skull among the heaps of leftover items, which is now mounted above a window in a compliance office in the back.

Thompson says when he took on the lease, the structure was basically a concrete shell before he added office walls. But the building itself only accounts for approximately 15,000 square feet, according to a county spokeswoman. Most of the land is still unused by Santa Fe Valet because it lacks adequate lighting for vehicle storage, Thompson says.

County officials have long talked about redeveloping the land—eventually. Housing Authority Director J. Jordan Barela tells SFR a recent study named the property as one of several possible locations for housing, but that no real action has been taken on any of those spots.

“Right now there are no definitive plans for the Galisteo site for affordable housing or otherwise to my knowledge,” Barela says in an email. “Various types of pre-development analysis have been completed on the site in the past.”

The County Board of Commissioners has not signaled when or if they would consider converting the land. County housing officials repeatedly denied interview requests, noting there is no long-term plan for the Galisteo property. For now it will remain the home to the fleet of 52 vehicles and their black tie-clad drivers. (Andy

Lyman)