Gary Sapp, president of the Southwest division for HuntDevelopment, says the office presence in New Mexico will help thecompany to better focus on projects in the three principal cities:Albuquerque, Santa Fe and Las Cruces. "When we began expansion ofour development activities in the early 1990s, we'd defined themarket scope in terms of available opportunities in the Southwest,"adds Sapp, a long-time Hunt executive who will head up the NewMexico operations. "We've done business in New Mexico andAlbuquerque so we had familiarity with market dynamics, physicallayout and some of the business and political communities in thestate."

Sapp tells GlobeSt.com that, while New Mexico is a smallermarket than markets in Texas, California and Hawaii where HuntDevelopment has regional offices, Albuquerque represents thebusiness and commerce center of the state. "Albuquerque has a longhistory of business," he says. "Some would argue it has the oldestbusiness legacy in the US."

Sapp says his company doesn't have a volume mandate. Thecompany's goal is to "see every significant real estate project inthe state," he says. "We pursue both public and private developmentopportunities. We have a long history of partnering in public andprivate ventures. State projects, city projects, universityprojects, they're all right up our alley."