More than a thousand construction workers on one campus at peak is the scale the Valencia County data center market has already shown, according to a July 2025 report on the Los Lunas campus. That number is a useful warning for anyone planning a hall in the Albuquerque metro: labor, logistics, concrete supply and inspection capacity all get stretched when big buildings go up at the same time, and the builder's job is to plan around those limits before they become delays.
We build data center halls and the shells around them: site preparation, foundations, tilt-wall or precast and steel structures, roofs, slabs, mechanical and electrical rough-in, and the coordination with the owner's equipment, commissioning and security teams. Our goal is a building that is ready on the date the first rack arrives, not a date that moves each time a long-lead item slips.
Land, power and rail help. The Village of Los Lunas sits on Highway 6 east of Interstate 25, and its leaders told a legislative committee in October 2024 that the data center campus covered 750 acres and 4.2 million square feet, with more than 50 active projects, an I-25 interchange due in 2025 and a newly announced hospital site. The Huning Business & Tech Park adds 716 marketed acres next door.
Access is improving as well. The Los Lunas Boulevard interchange at exit 201 is under construction, with an expected 2029 opening, and a new interchange will help move trucks and workers to the south end of the Rio Grande valley. We plan haul routes and worker parking around the road schedule.
A data center schedule has two real deadlines: the date the utility energizes the site and the date the first rack goes live. Everything between them is a chain of dependencies, from foundations to structure to roof to dry-in to mechanical and electrical installation to commissioning. We build a schedule that shows each link and each long-lead item, and we update it weekly with owner and engineer.
Dry-in is the milestone that unlocks the interior, since electrical and mechanical crews cannot work efficiently in a building open to wind and dust. We push the shell to that point early, using concurrent crews on separate bays, and we protect floors and equipment rooms from the construction environment.
Most campuses are built in phases, and each new hall happens next to an operating one. We design the construction logistics to keep the two apart, with separate haul routes, laydown areas, crane locations and access gates. A written interface plan covers where we stop and where the operator's work begins, including fire watches, dust control and vibration limits near operating equipment.
We also use repeatable details. When the owner builds multiple halls to a standard design, we capture lessons from the first, adjust rebar, panel sizes and sequences, and bring them to the next. Our long-lead procurement management tracks switchgear, generators, chillers and cranes against the master schedule.
Halls in New Mexico fall under the 2021 New Mexico Commercial Building Code, which adopts the 2021 International Building Code as amended and took effect July 14, 2023, and the 2021 New Mexico Commercial Energy Conservation Code. Electrical work is permitted under the 2020 New Mexico Electrical Code. Mechanical and plumbing permits can use either the 2021 or 2024 editions until January 1, 2027, and only the 2024 editions after.
Large projects strain local inspection capacity, so we schedule inspections early, prepare documentation in advance and stage work so completed sections can be inspected while others proceed. Our permitting and entitlements coordination service handles the interface with the village, the county and the state.
Cost in a data center is dominated by electrical and mechanical systems, which the owner often procures directly. For the building, the main drivers are structure type, slab design for equipment loads, roof loads for rooftop units, fire protection and the finish level of support spaces. Concrete and steel pricing swings with demand, and a market with multiple large builds can see prices and lead times move quickly.
We keep budgets clear by splitting the project into packages that can be bought and tracked: site, structure, envelope, interiors and tie-ins. That lets owners see where value engineering will help and where it will not.
The best-known campus is in Los Lunas, but data center land is also being marketed on the west side of the Rio Grande. The planned Paseo del Volcan corridor is about 30 miles long, with termini at I-40 and US 550, and promotional materials describe it as opening acreage for data center and warehouse use. We work across that geography, from Valencia County to Sandoval County.
Each part of the metro has different winds, soils and utility access, and we adjust foundations, drainage and construction logistics to match. Our Central New Mexico Rail Park offers rail-served ground, so heavy equipment and bulk materials can arrive by train and move to the campus by truck.
We schedule and supervise earthwork, utilities, foundations, slabs and underground electrical, which together make up most of the early critical path. Our trade partners pour thick equipment slabs, place conduit for power and communications, and set embeds for tilt-wall or steel connections. Controlling these tasks removes handoffs and lets us respond when conditions change.
For the structure we use tilt-wall construction or steel, whichever fits the owner's standard, and we coordinate with precast suppliers where the design calls for it.
Our data center work serves developers building for lease, operators building for their own use and utilities and power companies expanding into digital infrastructure. We speak the language of data center owners and utility and power clients, and we know how to work with their engineers, commissioning agents and security teams.
Whether the project is a single building or a campus, we start with the energization date and build the plan backward from it.
Send us the site, the power timeline and the hall size. We will return a phased plan, a budget by package and a schedule built backward from your date.
It depends on size, structure and equipment lead times, but the shell is usually quick compared with the fit-out. The critical path often runs through utility energization and electrical equipment. We give a dated sequence after reviewing the design and the equipment list.
Yes. Many owners choose design-build to compress schedule and bring the contractor into early decisions. We also work as a general contractor on owner-designed projects.
With early dry-in, sealed openings, temporary floors and filtered air during mechanical work. We also keep haul roads watered and stabilized so dust does not enter finished spaces.
Yes, with separate logistics, vibration monitoring where needed, strict hot-work rules and clear communication with the operator. We write the plan with their team before mobilizing.
Completed systems, clean spaces, startup documentation and support during integrated testing. We track readiness by system and hand over test records in the format your commissioning agent needs.
Tell us about the property, the building and the schedule.
Request a Project Review