Coming strip mall includes a Subway

A local investment group is planning a 66 Strip Mall along South First Street that includes a Subway restaurant among its first tenants.

The strip mall will be in the 2400 block of South First Street, between the Allsup’s convenience store and the Blake’s Lotaburger restaurant, said Al Patel, owner of the nearby Desert Inn motel and a principal in the mall’s investment group.

Patel said the 66 Strip Mall will contain six suites of 1,500 to 2,000 square feet each.

He said construction will begin in February, with a goal to have it open by summer.

He said the first tenant is a Subway not associated with a local group that operates a Subway in Logan.

Jean and Diane Morency, who run the Subway in Logan, operated another Subway in a Circle K convenience store on South First Street until it lost its lease there last year.

Patel said the second tenant would be an accounting firm.

Patel said he and his fellow investors want to attract tenants that not only draw a local clientele, but travelers from nearby Interstate 40.

He said the building would have a facade that is Route 66-themed and a New Mexico adobe style.

The fact that stretch of South First Street never was Route 66 didn’t bother Patel.

“I think all of Tucumcari is Route 66,” he said. “We’re keeping to our roots, though we don’t have to.”