Kendra Henning, Member
Municipal Building Site Selection Citizen's Steering Committee
On January 28th at 7:00pm at the Community Building, our County Council has municipal building site selection on its agenda. The Municipal Building Site Selection Citizen's Steering Committee looks forward to discussion and a final site selection decision at this meeting.
The Site Selection Citizen's Steering Committee enjoyed the opportunity to serve our County to select a new municipal building site that will host a symbol of our community, provide an efficient facility to serve County employees and residents, and enhance our County’s downtown and economic development goals. Our committee of 16 members evaluated 25 prospective building sites with the help of many County staff and outside economic and architectural consultants. We participated in 10 meetings, hosted 5 community outreach events, and used a rigorous, well-documented process. Our evaluation centered on 13 detailed evaluation criteria given to us by the Council. In summary, the criteria were:
- Best Fit for Building/Parking Requirements,
- Project Cost,
- Project Schedule,
- Economic Development Opportunity,
- Conservation of Views/Open Space,
- Impact on Surrounding Properties,
- Optimal Utilization of Land,
- Redevelopment of Blighted Property,
- Support for County Master,
- Comprehensive,
- Downtown and Economic Development plans,
- Achieving LEED Silver Building Criteria
Our meeting schedule was published, meetings were open to the public, and all committee data (including the detailed selection criteria) and discussion was regularly posted to this public County website and is available for your review at any time: www.losalamosnm.us/PROJECTS/
In October 2009 our committee delivered a comprehensive final report to Council. We responded in detail to Council’s questions about our process and our reasoning for evaluating some sites more favorably than others. In the end, our Committee recommended two sites as our top picks for the new municipal building: Site 6, the former location of the Los Alamos Apartments on Central Avenue; and Site 13, a series of existing commercial properties consisting of 1247 Central Avenue plus 1360 and 1372 Trinity Drive. Based on Council’s site selection criteria, the committee determined these two sites to have the most benefits and least shortcomings of all 25 possible sites with no close runners-up.
Many residents are aware that the municipal building effort has been ongoing since early 2007 when plans to demolish the old building started taking shape. Since the building was demolished in 2008, County employees have languished in transportable buildings scattered across town compromising their efficiency of operations both internally and for the public. These transportable buildings have blighted the downtown landscape, and cost the County considerable money in rent.
New building site selection and plans for a new building was started, completed, and aborted once before in 2008. Over a minimum of three years, thousands of man-hours and considerable dollars have been spent by Council members, County staff, outside consultants, local commercial property owners, site selection committee members and residents to provide input and achieve the goal of constructing this new, important building.
Three years of analysis is more than enough. Due diligence has clearly been exercised. We must satisfy our current (and long overdue) need for a new municipal building. It’s time to move ahead with Site 6 or Site 13. Let’s show that we’re not only a community of thinkers, but also a community of doers.
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