"This is how you save democracy, getting people involved." Marcus Porter said that this summer, standing near a corner of San Mateo Boulevard that had spent the better part of a decade being described mostly by what used to be there. Porter sits on the board of the South San Pedro Neighborhood Association, and this fall he's also part of the working group deciding how $1.7 million in city money gets spent within walking distance of his own front door.
That's not a metaphor. Anyone who lives near San Mateo and Kathryn in the International District has nine days left, as of this week, to help decide what gets built next. The ballot closes September 30.
What Actually Opened at San Mateo and Kathryn
The People's Market held its ribbon cutting on June 9, 2026, on a lot that had sat empty for years at San Mateo and Kathryn. Ten shipping containers, decorated by local artists and fitted out for vendors, now anchor the site alongside space set aside for food trucks and rows of newly planted trees. The city used state funds to install a public restroom known as a Portland Loo, and Councilor Nichole Rogers has said a "respite station" is coming next, with lockers, phone charging, shade, and an emergency call button for anyone who needs it. The whole project, from land prep through construction, ran about $2.5 million.
What makes the market worth writing about isn't the shipping containers. It's how it got there. In 2025, District 6 ran the city's first participatory budgeting pilot, putting $1.5 million of Councilor Rogers's council set-aside funds directly in front of residents and letting them vote on how to spend it. Community members eleven and older, including unhoused neighbors, submitted 243 project ideas. The San Mateo/Kathryn grower's market won more votes than any other proposal. City staff broke ground on it, and less than a year and a half later, it was open.
A Vote Nobody Expected to Run Twice
Most cities treat a successful pilot as a story to tell, not a process to repeat. District 6 repeated it. This time there's $1.7 million on the table, more than 250 submissions came in from residents, and a steering committee spent the summer narrowing that list down. On August 8, ten finalist projects went live for a public vote at a Project Expo, and the window has been open ever since.
Two of the ten finalists carry price tags worth knowing if you live nearby: a Community Space Signage project in multiple languages, budgeted at $350,000, and a skate park for the International District, budgeted at $400,000. The idea-gathering phase that fed this ballot ranged wider still, touching on bus stop upgrades, added trees and green space on vacant lots, and support for small food and homelessness-related projects. Even Nob Hill got in on it. A proposal came in to remodel Triangle Park at Don Perkins Square, the small green space that sits between Nob Hill and University, a reminder that District 6's boundary runs further than most people assume.
If you live, work, or study in District 6, here's what actually matters before September 30:
- Confirm you're inside District 6. The boundary runs well past the International District proper, into parts of Nob Hill and University.
- Review the ten finalist projects and their costs on the city's PBABQ page before voting, since the ballot won't reopen once it closes.
- Cast your vote through the city's official portal. One ballot, one deadline, and then the results shape actual construction, not just a plan.
The Market Still Needs Someone to Run It
Here's a detail most coverage of the market skipped. The People's Market opened, but the city still hadn't locked in who runs it day to day. A working group of more than 40 District 6 community members, convened back in December 2025, wrote the qualifications for a market operator, and the city's Call for Potential Operators has been reviewing applications on a rolling basis, with a working group evaluation and finalist interviews happening over the late summer. Whoever gets the job takes on twelve months of market activation and programming, with the explicit goal of eventually handing the market off to a Main Street-style organization for the long haul. If you've ever wanted a hand in shaping a public market's identity from its first year, this is a door that's still open.
The Cranes Show Up After the Foot Traffic Does
Redevelopment usually works in the opposite order. A developer buys land, draws up a plan, and residents find out about it at a public hearing near the end. San Mateo Boulevard flipped that sequence, and the private investment followed the market instead of preceding it.
The ten-story tower at San Mateo and Central, known for years mostly for its vacancy and the vandalism that came with it, now has a signed development agreement. The city partnered with Silverstone Equity Partners to convert it into Serenade at Park Central, a 110-unit mixed-income housing community, with $2 million in city funding matched by $23 million in private capital. A groundbreaking was targeted for early 2026.
"It locks in commitments, gives the project a clear path forward," said Terry Brunner, Director of the city's Metropolitan Redevelopment Agency.
A few blocks away, at the same intersection where the People's Market now runs its shipping containers, the city's Metropolitan Redevelopment Agency selected Sol Housing to build Cosecha, a mixed-use development planned for the southeast corner of San Mateo and Kathryn. The plan calls for 92 rental apartments alongside 2,500 square feet of commercial space designed for local entrepreneurs, explicitly positioned as part of the same master plan that produced the market next door.
Here's what's converging on this half-mile stretch of San Mateo right now:
- The People's Market, open since June 2026, still searching for a long-term operator
- Serenade at Park Central, 110 mixed-income units inside the long-vacant tower at San Mateo and Central
- Cosecha, 92 rental units plus retail space at San Mateo and Kathryn
- A $1.7 million community vote closing September 30 that will fund whatever residents chose next
There's a smaller thread running alongside all of this too. As Route 66 hits its 100th anniversary this year, the International District is getting its own illuminated gateway sign, funded by a $75,000 National Endowment for the Arts grant and shaped by artist Sammy Yuen working with the nonprofit Friends of the Orphan Signs. It's a separate project from the housing and market work, but it points at the same thing: investment in this stretch of Central and San Mateo isn't waiting for someone else to make the first move.
The Order Most Neighborhoods Get Backward
None of this happened because a developer identified an opportunity and residents got a say afterward. The market came first because residents voted for it and then the city built it. The private capital came after that, once there was already a reason to stop the car at San Mateo and Kathryn instead of just driving past it. Cosecha and Serenade at Park Central aren't betting on a neighborhood that might come back. They're building next to one that already voted itself into existence.
Porter's line about democracy wasn't really about the market. It was about what happens when residents get to set the terms before the capital shows up, instead of reacting to it after the fact. That's the part worth understanding if you live along this corridor right now, whether or not you ever fill out a ballot before September 30.
Jenny Nguyen Real Estate keeps an eye on changes like these because they shape a neighborhood's character years before they show up in a listing description. If you're curious what a corner like San Mateo and Kathryn might mean for your own address, Get Your Free Home Valuation from a team that's been tracking Albuquerque's neighborhoods block by block.