Plans for one of Santa Fe County's most interesting housing and open-space projects, the Galisteo Basin Preserve, are moving along slowly but surely, according to officials with the nonprofit spearheading the project. Though development plans for the 13,522-acre preserve are being weighed against the harsh realities of the current economy, officials with Commonweal Conservancy are preparing to present a preliminary plat for the first phase of the Village at the Galisteo Basin Preserve to the Santa Fe County Commission on Jan. 12.

And some good news was delivered earlier last week: Commonweal announced Monday that the Thornton family has turned over a 600-acre donation in the central area of the preserve, worth about $1.86 million. The acreage will be dedicated as open space.

The Galisteo Basin Preserve is located between Galisteo and Lamy west of N.M. 41.

"The land donation is land we would have been slated to purchase. It's a huge gift," spokeswoman Lauren Whitehurst said last week.

"The Thornton's donation exemplifies the importance of sustaining philanthropic partnerships," said Ted Harrison, president of Commonweal Conservancy, in a news release. "This 600-acre gift ensures that the heart of the Galisteo Basin Preserve will be permanently protected. It is a gift that will be forever celebrated by residents and visitors to this remarkable region."

Commonweal has been working with the Thornton family on a phased land sale of the Thornton ranch since 2003, and Monday's 600-acre donation brings the acreage acquired by the nonprofit to 9,135 acres, or about 70 percent of the total preserve. The Santa Fe Conservation Trust holds conservation easements over the preserve's larger open spaces.

The acquisition is expected to be completed over the next two years, Whitehurst said.

A village master plan for the 13,522-acre Galisteo Basin Preserve was approved by the Santa Fe County Commission in 2007. It consists of 965 residential units concentrated in about 300 acres, 150,000 square feet of commercial, institutional, educational and recreational land uses and 10,316 acres of open space, parks and trails.

Commonweal envisions a 60-acre first phase of 149 ecofriendly homes and 37,500 square feet of commercial and civic space, a small café, an environmental center, post office and buildings for Charter School 37.

Plans also call for hundreds of acres of parks and open space, and a five-acre "memorial landscape" for green burial purposes.

The preliminary plat was granted approval by the Santa Fe County Development Review Committee earlier this summer, and, if given a thumbs-up by the County Commission in January, a final plat will be brought back to the county this spring or summer. It could set the stage for construction to begin in 2011.

Commonweal will be looking to "gauge where the economy is to see what's feasible with the first phase," Whitehurst acknowledged.

"Mid-2011 is probably the earliest village home sites would be marketed for sale," she said.

The nonprofit has yet to bring a builder on board for the village, though it is chugging ahead with planning, much of it done by Seattle-based landscape architectural firm Site Workshop, Whitehurst said.

Full build-out of the project is expected to take 10-12 years over five phases, though Whitehurst acknowledged, "Any number is subject to adapting to market forces... Phase one may have its own plan depending on what the market forces are."

"The timing and scope of each phase will necessarily respond to Santa Fe's local and regional market conditions and the state of larger economy," she said in a separate e-mail.

The sale of "conservation properties" — lots consisting of hundreds of acres, owned by individual parties but dedicated largely to open space — "have helped us ride the economic wave that has been part of the landscape," she said.

Private conservation land will eventually comprise 4,731 acres of the preserve, and about half that acreage has been sold, Whitehurst said.

Delays in the county approval process have also turned out to be something of a blessing. "We'd be in a much different place if we had begun the Village by this point and had homes sitting on the ground."

Whitehurst said Commonweal isn't too worried about maintaining interest in and excitement about the project, however.

"You have the opportunity to create a community of people who are actively invested in the landscape in which they live," she said.