Nob Hill Business Center
3500 Central Ave. SE, Albuquerque, NMConceived in 1945 and begun in 1946, the Nob Hill Business Center was Albuquerque's first shopping center and is one of the best-preserved examples of its type nationally from the early postwar period. The Center represents the first attempt in Albuquerque to provide one architecturally unified building under a single management space for separately owned businesses, with an on-site parking area that is an integral feature of the design of the complex and a mix of tenants intended to serve the immediate needs of the residents of outlying subdivisions. As such it was the first major step in the abandonment of the downtown that had been Albuquerque's railroad-era commercial center and presaged the vast spread of shopping centers and office complexes that characterize the setting of Albuquerque business and professional activity today. More broadly, Nob Hill represents the post-war shopping center, which was a major force in shaping the growth of cities, especially in the West. Architecturally, it is an early example of a new form that was codified only in the 1950s, the shopping center, and is an unusual, relatively unaltered example of Moderne design in Albuquerque.
Listed in National Register of Historic Places in 1994.
The National Register of Historic Places is the official list of the Nation’s historic places worthy of preservation. Authorized by the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, the National Park Service’s National Register of Historic Places is part of a national program to coordinate and support public and private efforts to identify, evaluate, and protect America’s historic and archeological resources.