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The Bright Spot of New Mexico – Sandoval County

If you want to do business in New Mexico, look no further than Sandoval County and Rio Rancho.

By Livability.com on November 11, 2019

Rio Rancho - Sandoval County, NM dam
Rio Rancho / Sandoval Economic Alliance

Let’s Do Business

If you want to do business in New Mexico, look no further than Sandoval County and Rio Rancho.

As a part of the state’s largest metro, the county offers forward-thinking business leaders and entrepreneurs in an environment that encourages growth and innovation. 

The county of approximately 142,000 possesses a highly educated workforce – nearly 67 percent of all residents have some form of post-secondary education – making it one of the best-educated communities in New Mexico.

Industrial space and land assets are in high demand, with Rio Rancho having 17 percent of all of the industrial square footage in the Albuquerque Metro area. 

In addition, Sandoval County and Rio Rancho offer competitive and unique incentives to job creators to help reduce the overall cost of doing business here.

Sandoval County has three primary target industry clusters – Life Sciences, Professional Services & Support and Advanced Technology & Manufacturing.

The fastest growing of the segments is health care, followed by industrial machinery, biomedical, creative content and software/IT. Manufacturing is the largest source of income generation.

The Life Sciences cluster, with more than 300 jobs, covers a range of technology, products and services that focuses on human, crop and biological health and management.

The Professional Services & Support cluster encompasses a variety of operations that primarily serve other businesses or specific roles in a broader corporate structure. Sandoval County currently has more than 3,100 jobs in this sector.

The Advanced Technology & Manufacturing cluster includes businesses that transform raw materials into high-value components and finished products using complex machinery. This cluster is three times more concentrated in Sandoval County than the U.S. average. 

This article is sponsored by Sandoval Economic Alliance.

Rio Rancho - Sandoval County, NM population statistics
Rio Rancho / Sandoval Economic Alliance

Are You Ready? We Are.

 Sandoval Economic Alliance offers VeriReady Sites – a verified sites program – to prospective builders.

The VeriReady site designation is designed to identify both publicly and privately owned sites throughout Rio Rancho and Sandoval County that are suitable for immediate development or expansion. 

The program gathers uniform information to increase both the quality of site documentation and the overall number of sites that are ready for development. Sandoval Economic Alliance actively markets these sites to regional, national and international site selectors, helping the county stand out against the competition.

The Alliance also offers ReadyBuild – a Virtual Buildings program – to accelerate development time frames for a potential employer tenant, providing building development/design services for 40,000 to 80,000 square feet of flexible space.

The virtual building has all the required elements in place to allow economic development prospects to easily visualize a building on a site, offering advantages over constructing on spec, reducing the construction time frame by 2-3 months.

Rio Rancho - Sandoval County, NM dam
Rio Rancho / Sandoval Economic Alliance

Life is Good!

Sandoval County has set high standards for its quality of life, which is why many people are choosing to put down roots here. 

The area offers a temperate, four-season climate with approximately 300 days of sunshine, affordable housing options and one of the state’s lowest crime rates.

In fact, Corrales and Rio Rancho are both consistently ranked in the Top 10 safest cities in the state by Safewise, while Sandoval County

is ranked No. 2 for the safest New Mexico counties.

Rio Rancho’s public school system is considered one of the best-performing school districts in the state and is New Mexico’s third-largest district, with 17,711 students. The University of New Mexico and Central New Mexico Community College both have campuses in the county.

Sandoval’s cost of living is lower than the national average, offering an affordable quality of life. The economic hub of the county is Rio Rancho.

Residents can enjoy a diverse array of year-round outdoor activities, including golf, biking, skiing and snowshoeing, hiking, fishing, hunting, hot-air ballooning and water sports such as kayaking, paddleboarding, swimming and windsurfing. 

The county’s two hospitals offer a wide range of medical services and local treatment options for residents.

Residents also appreciate the area’s cultural diversity, which includes 12 Indian reservations and two joint-use areas. Authentic celebrations, captivating artwork, museums and historical sites, such as the Jemez and Coronado Historic Sites, Valles Caldera National Preserve and the Bandelier National Monument, make Sandoval County a colorful and harmonious place to live and work.

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