From weed-filled dirt patch to brand new playground: Subdivision celebrates neighborhood park

Jun. 1—When Rudy Vigil was a kid, the bare, triangular patch of dirt and weeds around the corner in the Carlson subdivision was just the place he waited for the bus, or where the neighborhood children would ride their go-karts.

"It was weeds, just a bunch of weeds," said Vigil, now 44, who several years ago moved back to his old neighborhood from Albuquerque to raise his kids near family. "Some people would kind of cut through [with] their cars here. It was just a completely empty lot."

Today, that's all changed. A dark-green, still-polished jungle gym, a swing set, a carpet of wood chips and a basketball hoop on a small concrete court stand in place of the weeds and bare dirt. The barbed wire fence added in more recent years is gone, too, replaced by a chain-link barrier with gates.

On Saturday, that fence was festooned with balloons as community members gathered to celebrate the new playground and the new name: Nicholas Sanchez Park, in honor of another neighborhood boy who died 20 years ago just before his 20th birthday.

Vigil, who got the project rolling back in 2021 when he learned the lot had been earmarked as a park back in the 1960s, said he's thankful for the county and state leaders who found the funding and got the playground built — and he's glad his own three kids now have a safe place to play.

"I feel amazing," Vigil said. "It's like a huge accomplishment for me, and I'm super proud of what we were able to accomplish and the fact that it's here. ... I'm really glad to have that for my children."

Back in 2021, when Vigil had just moved back to Santa Fe with his wife and children, he got curious about the old lot at the intersection of Emily and Carlson roads.

He did a little research and discovered the one third-acre open space lot was donated back in the 1960s by Conrad and Emily Carlson, for whom the neighborhood itself is named.

"I guess Mr. Carlson had allotted this piece of property as a park," Vigil said.

Vigil wanted to make that park a reality. He reached out to the county and said now-spokeswoman Olivia Romo helped him connect with county officials. He also rallied support among his neighbors.

Vigil recalled Romo told him to expect a long process.

"She was like, 'Well, you know, projects like this, they're going to take a long time, six, seven, sometimes eight years,' " Vigil said. "I said, 'Well, if we don't ever start it, we're not going to finish it, so let's get it started.'"

Speaking at a ribbon-cutting event Saturday, County Commissioner Hank Hughes said while the county originally committed to $160,000, the park ultimately cost about $226,000, thanks in part to pandemic-era inflation. The county paid for the lion's share, while State Sen. Liz Stefancs, D-Cerillos, and Rep. Reena Szczepanski, D-Santa Fe, also secured $50,000 in state capital outlay funding.

The playground, designed by Andrea Neal from ExerPlay, opened to the community in January and features a decorative rock with a picture of Sanchez, who was killed a month shy of his 20th birthday in 2004 in a four-wheeling wreck. Sanchez, a wrestler and avid bow-hunter, worked as a Santa Fe County jail officer at the time.

Sanchez's mother, Johanna Sanchez, who has lived in in the Carlson Subdivision neighbor nearly all her life, said when she first heard Vigil — who she calls "Little Rudy" — was ginning up support for a park, she thought it was a great idea.

"In the back of my mind, I thought, maybe they could name it after Nick," she said, adding she kept that thought entirely to herself. "It crossed my mind."

Then one day, she said, Vigil approached her.

"He said ... 'What if we named the park after Nick? What do you think?'" Johanna Sanchez said.

Sanchez said she watched for weeks as the park went up, piece by piece.

"When the first sign [with Nick's name] went up, that was heartbreaking," she said.

On Saturday, Sanchez, whose family also attended the celebration, said she's glad the park came to fruition.

"To me it's just bittersweet, seeing this lot used rather than just the empty lot," she said. "When I drive up here and see kids sitting on the chairs, playing in the park ... that's a great thing."