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vibrant beginnings

Pulte Homes’ ambitious Loma Colorado community offers a fresh mix of neighborhoods and home options, convenient amenities, and a forward-thinking green sensibility.

By Jane Mahoney
Photography by Andy Mattern

This article first appeared in Autumn 2008 Su Casa

Even an admirer of old homes would likely concede that there is a certain vibrancy in a brand-new community rising from the ground up. The sky seems a little bluer and the clouds a mite fluffier as they float above the bustle of new walls growing, cranes effortlessly lifting beams, and newly settled children scurrying to school. Here, where walking trails are expanding daily and parks show crisp fall foliage for the very first time, there is something exciting happening. Loma Colorado by Pulte Homes, a master-planned community in Rio Rancho, New Mexico, offers the promise of new beginnings, a chance to come in at the start of a first chapter rather than the middle of the book.

There’s something fascinating about watching a development that is bigger than many small New Mexico towns spring to life. Loma Colorado is expected to include nearly 1,000 new homes within three years. Encompassing 433 acres, the Pulte Homes development is in the spotlight as the Signature Community in the 2008 Homes of Enchantment Parade, an event sponsored by the Home Builders Association of Central New Mexico.

Pulte Homes, a national home builder with a 58-year history, is the sole developer and builder of Loma Colorado, which until just five years ago was an assortment of several hundred vacant lots owned by investors and dreamers who had banked on Rio Rancho’s burgeoning development back in the 1970s.

Things changed in 2004 when the antiquated platting was thrown out in a metro redevelopment plan, leaving choice acreage positioned about a mile from Highway 528, Rio Rancho’s main thoroughfare. Pulte Homes, facing competition from production builders and local companies alike, won the development rights and has since entered several public and private partnerships to build, improve, or expand nearby amenities ranging from the Rio Rancho Sports Complex to the Indoor Aquatic Recreation Center.

“A home on a lot in a community,” says Matt Geisel, the local director of Pulte’s Sales and Marketing division, as he explains Bill Pulte’s mantra and philosophy of creating a cohesive neighborhood of production homes for buyers with widely varying tastes and pocketbooks. Twenty floor plans span price ranges from the $170,000s to nearly $400,000, and 18 furnished model homes represent the 6 different product lines found in Loma Colorado’s 10 distinct neighborhoods. The models are open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily except Wednesday, when they are open from 1 to 6 p.m.

Despite its grand scale, Loma Colorado is no one-size-fits-all community. Streetscapes display an inviting mix of architecture, home designs, and colors. Streets curve for visual appeal and to slow traffic. Pocket parks and cul-de-sacs help preserve mountain views.

Centered in the community is the model village, where prospective buyers can wander among model homes to see how a swimming pool might fit in the backyard or if the dining nook can accommodate the whole family. The backdrop is the Loma Colorado scenic overlook, a hilly outcropping accessible by a stair-stepped trail where residents can survey the entire subdivision and beyond. A shade structure and benches reward climbing to the top. With sweeping 180-degree views to both the mountains and the west, here neighborhood residents can congregate to enjoy sunsets that turn the Sandia Mountains pink.

That the hill remains and hasn’t been bulldozed into submission speaks of Pulte’s attention to land development within this infill pocket in Rio Rancho. Long before groundbreaking, Pulte began strategic planning to ensure cohesive design and functionality throughout the community. The company came up with an extensive three-mile trail network connecting neighborhoods within Loma Colorado as well as links to nearby retail businesses and the high school.

“We are the developer as well as the builder, and that has made all the difference,” says Russell Grayson, Pulte’s local director of land entitlement and development. “One of the first questions we asked was ‘What is around us?’ As we planned the community design and amenities, we tuned in to the home buyer at all times. Who is the consumer? What kind of product do they want? How do we differentiate the products for buyers?”

Of Loma Colorado’s 433 acres, about 90 acres have been set aside for open space, trails, and parks, most of which have already been built. Another 90 acres along Loma Colorado Drive have been reserved for commercial and retail development. A Lowe’s is slated to open this fall.

Loma Colorado’s neighbors have helped shape the new neighborhood. At the development’s southern entrance off High Resort Boulevard is the Rio Rancho Sports Complex, a grassy maze of playing fields. Along Loma Colorado Drive just a street’s width from the development is Rio Rancho High School, with its academy-based approach to learning. And lined up within walking distance of Loma Colorado are the new Loma Colorado Park, the Indoor Aquatic Recreation Center, the Loma Colorado Main Library, and the Blades Multiplex Arena.

Instead of duplicating services within the Loma Colorado community, Pulte Homes has chosen to forge public-private partnerships to help build or expand the existing nearby facilities. So far, the company has contributed more than $4 million to help underwrite several municipal projects, including $3 million to help build Rio Rancho’s Indoor Aquatic Recreation Center. In a partnership with the Southern Sandoval County Arroyo Flood Control Authority, Pulte Homes committed more than $1 million toward building a new flood control dam. A $100,000 donation to the new Loma Colorado Main Library funded a teen room.

Still, this is a community about homes. Pulte expects to build nearly 1,000 single-family new homes. Despite a market slowdown, Loma Colorado had more than 200 sales in its first 10 months after opening, according to Geisel. The floor plans are designed to appeal to first-time home buyers, families moving up or downsizing, and even discriminating luxury buyers. Young families and empty nesters might visit the El Mirador and La Mesa series starting in the $170,000s; families “moving up” might consider the El Bosque and El Prado series from the $220,000s; and folks seeking luxury might shop the La Loma and La Terraza series from the $320,000s. J.D. Power and Associates ranked Pulte Homes “highest in customer satisfaction” with new home builders in Albuquerque two years in a row.

The community’s broad offerings have attracted buyers from the metro area and elsewhere. Geisel estimates an astounding 30 to 40 percent of the home sales at Loma Colorado have been to out-of-state families relocating to New Mexico. Meanwhile, Pulte’s Everyday Heroes program offers special sales incentives for civil servants. Eligibility is extended to Rio Rancho’s and Sandoval County’s city, county, and school employees, U.S. military, and public safety employees with the fire, police, emergency medical technician, and sheriff’s departments.

Energy efficiency has become part of Pulte’s mantra at Loma Colorado. As part of the Environments for Living program, the company guarantees annual energy usage for heating and cooling homes. Incorporating green features from low-E windows to blown-in insulation, every home in the development meets certain certification levels set by three different agencies—Build Green New Mexico, Energy Star, and Environments for Living. High efficiency and “right-sized” HVAC systems, fresh air ventilation, and tight construction are standard features regardless of the home’s price tag.

Loma Colorado, without a doubt, is bringing new residents and amenities to Rio Rancho. But then, “new” is what it’s all about in this master-planned community.