If you've lived near the University of New Mexico for more than a year, you've probably heard some version of "there's a Target coming" more times than you can count. You may have also heard about a hotel going up on Lomas, or a burger place that finally opened across from campus. All three of those things are true. None of them are the same project, and none of them are arriving on the same calendar.
That distinction matters if you're the one driving past the fencing and dirt every week trying to figure out what you'll actually be able to walk to this year versus what's still two football seasons away.
The Burger That Already Beat Everyone to the Punch
Start with the one piece of this story that's already finished. In February 2025, Laguna Burger opened its sixth location overall, and its third within the Albuquerque metro area, at 105 Harvard Drive SE in the Bricklight District, right across Central Avenue from UNM's main quad. The opening came with a UNM partnership that goes back more than six years, including a longstanding presence as the official concession of the Lobos at The Pit.
For anyone living on the Nob Hill side of campus, this is the one piece of "new near UNM" that's genuinely done. No renderings, no groundbreaking ceremony still to come. It's been serving green chile cheeseburgers for well over a year and a half.
That's worth sitting with for a second, because everything else on this list is still in progress, and the progress is happening in two places that aren't especially close to Harvard and Central or to each other.
The Retail Center That's Still More Than a Year Away
The bigger, louder project is happening on the opposite side of campus, down near The Pit and Lobo Village. For years, the stretch of land near the northeast corner of I-25 and Gibson Boulevard sat as vacant land and overflow parking. That's the site of Lobo Crossing, a 363,000-square-foot open-air retail center that closed its land sale in April 2026 and held a groundbreaking that same spring, according to UNM's own newsroom.
Target anchors the project, with committed leases from Burlington, Marshalls, HomeGoods, Sierra, Boot Barn, Five Below, Michaels, and Old Navy, plus roughly 45,000 square feet set aside for smaller retail and restaurant tenants. Developer SimonCRE says the center was 90 percent pre-leased before the sale even closed, putting the total investment at around $150 million, per reporting from citybiz. Lobo Development's own chief operating officer, Tom Neale, has described the area bluntly as a food and retail desert for years, and university and city leaders have called it the first project of this scale in the Albuquerque metro in more than two decades.
A few things about the surrounding area have already changed. A Raising Cane's opened nearby within the same South Campus development district earlier this year, and a future In-N-Out Burger, the chain's first location in New Mexico, is planned for a site next door, with an opening targeted for 2027, according to KOB's coverage of the project. But the anchor tenant, the one that actually solves the grocery and general merchandise gap this part of campus has dealt with for years, isn't scheduled to open until fall 2027. Developers have said they're aiming to have the center ready ahead of the 2027 holiday shopping season, per the Daily Lobo's reporting.
So if your daily routine runs through Lobo Village, University Boulevard, or the streets around The Pit, you have one new fast-food option right now, one more coming next year, and the actual retail center you've been waiting for is still more than a year out from today.
The Hospital-Adjacent Project With a Rooftop Bar
The third piece sits on Lomas Boulevard, closer to UNM Hospital than to either of the other two projects. Black Bear Development announced a $53 million mixed use project called The District in October 2025, planned for roughly five acres at 1300 Lomas NE that had sat as an underused parking lot for years. The centerpiece is a seven-story, 140-room Courtyard by Marriott with a rooftop bar called Volaré, alongside nearly 20,000 square feet of retail and dining space split across two standalone restaurants and a landscaped central plaza, according to the Albuquerque Journal.
Co-owner Prakash Sundaram has said the goal was a gathering space for hospital visitors as much as for students or travelers, something closer to a respite than a retail strip. That framing lines up with what's actually driving demand in this specific corner of the neighborhood. UNM Hospital is expected to double in size in the coming years, and the area has historically lacked places for visiting families to eat or stay within walking distance, according to KRQE's reporting.
The developer's own timeline put the restaurants, retail space, and plaza on track for delivery by the end of 2026, with the hotel itself following by late 2028. That means the smaller, less flashy half of this project, the part with actual restaurants you could eat dinner at, is closer to opening than the Target anchored center on the far side of campus, even though the Lomas project was announced later and involves a hotel that won't be finished for another two years.
Three Projects, Three Very Different Clocks
Here's the full picture side by side, as of this month.
Project | Location | Status as of September 2026 | Target Opening |
|---|---|---|---|
Laguna Burger, Bricklight District | Central Ave & Harvard Dr SE, across from main campus | Open and operating since February 2025 | Already delivered |
Lobo Crossing | University Blvd & Gibson Blvd, South Campus near The Pit | Groundbreaking held spring 2026, under construction | Fall 2027 (Target and most tenants) |
The District | 1300 Lomas Blvd NE, near UNM Hospital | Restaurants and retail portion in development | End of 2026 (restaurants/retail); late 2028 (hotel) |
Laid out this way, the pattern is clear. The project closest to the academic core of campus is the one that's finished. The project with the biggest name attached, and the one people talk about most, is also the one furthest from being usable. And the project that will actually put new restaurant seats in the ground soonest isn't the headline grabber. It's the smaller half of a hotel development most people know for the words "Target is coming."
Why "Near UNM" Is Doing a Lot of Work
None of these three sites are within easy walking distance of each other. Bricklight sits at the edge of main campus. The Lomas project sits several blocks north, oriented toward the hospital. Lobo Crossing sits on the far southern edge, oriented toward Lobo Village and the athletics complex, closer to I-25 than to Central Avenue. Someone living near one has a genuinely different experience of "what's new around here" than someone living near another, even though all three show up under the same UNM-adjacent search results and the same general talk of a building boom.
If you live within a few blocks of Harvard and Central, your new option already opened, and what's left to watch is whether Lomas delivers its restaurants on schedule by the end of this year. If you live near South Campus or Lobo Village, you've had one new fast food option land this year, and the retail center that's supposed to change your weekly grocery run is still more than a year from opening its doors. Both of those things are true at the same time, in the same general neighborhood, and they're easy to conflate if you're only half paying attention to the headlines.
What Actually Changes This Fall
For residents planning around what's usable right now rather than what's been announced, the practical read is this. Nothing new opens in the next few months at Lobo Crossing. The site is under construction, and the earliest realistic completion window developers have given is fall 2027. The nearer term thing to watch is whether The District's restaurant and retail portion actually lands by the end of this year as planned, since that would be the first tangible piece of that project to open. And if you haven't yet made it to the Bricklight location, it's been open long enough that "have you tried it yet" is a fair question rather than a preview.
None of this is really about anticipation anymore for one of the three. It's about tracking which promise turns into an open door first.
If you're watching this stretch of Albuquerque change and wondering what it means for property values, timing a move, or just understanding a neighborhood before you commit to it, House of Homes NM keeps a close eye on exactly this kind of on the ground shift. Ready? Let's Talk About Your Next Move.
