Campus Construction Continues

by George Zamora

SOCORRO, N.M., April 19, 1999 -- Thanks to last year's passage of the state General Obligation (GO) Bond, a major construction project at New Mexico Tech will be completed on time later this summer, while another is scheduled to soon get underway.

The university received nearly $2.5 million to complete construction of the second and third floors of the Jones Hall addition (which is scheduled for completion in the first week in August) and also was allotted about $3.5 million of GO Bond monies to begin the Cramer and Weir halls renovation project.

Another $930,000 from the GO Bond also has been allocated as infrastructure money for New Mexico Tech, providing the university with a new student database with roughly half of that total, while the other half goes to improvements and upgrades to campus lighting, water and gas lines, and roads, as well as a mechanical refurbishment of the Kelly Building, which houses the Petroleum Recovery Research Center (PRRC).

An additional $54,000 of the GO Bond monies Tech received have been earmarked for various projects associated with complying with the American with Disabilities Act (ADA).

The Jones Hall addition is a $7.8 million three-story building which will provide an additional 44,000 square-feet of space for classrooms, laboratories, and offices on campus.

The New Mexico Tech biology and environmental engineering departments will become the tenants of the new building shortly after its completion, sometime before the start of the 1999 fall semester.

The renovation of Cramer and Weir halls, however, currently remains on hold because of the uncertainty surrounding the state's budget for the next fiscal year. The Cramer and Weir project had been given the highest priority of all the state's educational capital projects under the scope of the New Mexico Commission on Higher Education's facilities committee.

The $2.8 million needed to complete funding for the Cramer and Weir renovation is still pending legislative action.

Notwithstanding the current uncertainty surrounding state budgets, plans are continuing at New Mexico Tech for the Cramer and Weir renovation, as well as other campus building projects.

When the Jones Hall addition is completed, construction is scheduled to begin on a new $4 million residence hall complex which will provide 144 more beds for Tech students who choose to live on-campus, probably in time for the start of the 2000 fall semester.

Presidents Hall, one of the older dorms on campus, eventually will be retired in its established role as a residence hall and will be modified to accommodate departmental offices being temporarily displaced during the complete makeover of Cramer and Weir halls.

When renovation of Cramer and Weir is completed, Presidents will continue to house other academic offices and provide additional student space.

The construction on campus won't slow up with these project's finish: there are plans on the drawing board for a new Student Union Building and other facilities at New Mexico Tech to begin construction sometime after 2000.