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ACCION provides lending and client services to entrepreneurs, enabling them to grow, create jobs, and boost the economy in a region where small businesses are an economic driver. In the Albuquerque metropolitan area alone, 94 percent of all businesses had fewer than 50 employees in 2008, and more than half of all businesses had between one and four employees.

 

In the central region of Bernalillo, Torrance, Sandoval, and Valencia counties, ACCION has provided more than 3,190loans totaling more than $18.2 million from its inception in 1994 through September 2009. A historic average of these loans indicates3,070 jobs created or retained since 1994.

 

To serve entrepreneurs and small business owners in this region more effectively, ACCION saw the need to make itself more accessible to the community with a physical space that would be welcoming, and allow ACCION to deepen its lending and support services. As a result, in April 2008, ACCION purchased 2.6 acres of land in the historic Sawmill District of Albuquerque outright with no debt as the site of its new regional headquarters. Construction of these headquarters is now becoming a reality thanks to a $1.75 million grant from the U.S. Commerce Department’s Economic Development Administration.

 

“ACCION’s lending to small businesses is critical, but even more important is the hope ACCION provides aspiring entrepreneurs to reach for their business dreams and to realize them,” said James H. Hinton, ACCION board chairman, and president and chief executive officer of Presbyterian Healthcare Services. “This regional headquarters and training facility will do just that.”

 

ACCION officials have chosen Dekker/Perich/Sabatini as the lead architectural firm to design a LEED-certified, 7,500 square-foot building that will provide a home for its entrepreneurs and will blend into the residential environment of the Sawmill Community Land Trust. Conveniently located near major freeways and Rio Grande Boulevard, ACCION’s new headquarters will also have easy access to parking, especially for those with disabilities, and will provide an inviting, home-like setting for its entrepreneurs, complete with conference space and training facilities.