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Protecting San Pedro's Cultural Assets

The San Pedro corridor carries more history than its storefronts let on — Route 66-era shopping centers, mid-century commercial buildings, more than eight decades next door to the State Fairgrounds, and at least one building where the tech industry as we know it got its start. Historic preservation is written into RSPP's founding purpose, alongside beautification and economic vitality, because we believe a neighborhood's history is part of its economic future — not separate from it.

The Cal Linn Building, founding headquarters of Microsoft Corporation, stylized as a cartoon

Revitalize San Pedro Partnership's historic preservation work is supported, in part, by:

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Why Historic Preservation Is Part of Our Work

Historic preservation isn't a side project for RSPP — it's one of the Six Standards Main Street America uses to evaluate accredited programs like ours: preservation-based economic development. The idea is simple: buildings and places that carry a corridor's history are assets, not liabilities. Protecting them protects everything else we're building — foot traffic, investment, identity, pride.

State and National Register listings aren't just honorary, either. They open doors: rehabilitation tax credits, grant eligibility, and a framework that lets the corridor's story be told around what's here, not just what's missing.

What the work looks like

Grant-funded restoration support

Through programs like Facade Squad, we help property and business owners refresh and repair storefronts — often on buildings that carry decades of corridor history — without the burden of a traditional grant application.

Formal recognition

We support property owners pursuing State and National Register listing for corridor buildings — work that unlocks funding and puts the corridor's history on the official record.

Corridor storytelling

From Route 66-era commercial architecture to the San Pedro corridor's 80-plus years alongside the State Fairgrounds, we work to make sure the corridor's history is part of how it's known — not something visitors or new neighbors have to discover on their own.

Property owner partnerships

We build direct relationships with the owners of the corridor's most historically significant buildings, so preservation happens with them, not around them.

The Cal Linn Building

At the corner of Linn Avenue and California Street sits a strip-mall storefront that doesn't look like much — and that's part of the story. From 1975 to 1979, this building housed the original office of a young company called Micro-Soft, founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen, who developed the Altair BASIC programming language here before relocating the company to Bellevue, Washington.

DSC07552 Jessica Roybal

The Cal-Linn Building was recently added to the New Mexico State Register of Cultural Properties, and it's now before the National Park Service for listing on the National Register of Historic Places. RSPP already works directly with the building's owners through the Cal-Linn Condo Association, and we want this recognition to succeed.

The National Park Service is accepting public comments through Sunday, August 31, 2026.

  • By email (preferred): National_Register_Submissions@nps.gov — subject line: Cal-Linn Building, Bernalillo County, New Mexico

  • By mail: National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service, 1849 C Street NW, MS 2013, Washington, DC 20240

A comment can be short — a sentence or two on why this building, or the corridor's history in general, matters to you is plenty.

Don't know what to say? Copy/paste/adapt this:

I am writing in support of listing the Cal-Linn Building (MITS and Microsoft Headquarters), 6320 Linn Avenue NE, Albuquerque, NM, on the National Register of Historic Places. This building is a significant piece of Albuquerque's San Pedro Main Street corridor, our International District, and national/global technology history, and I urge its designation and protection.

[Your name] [Your organization or business, optional]

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