First UNM building scheduled for December 2009 completion
The University of New Mexico Board of Regents on Tuesday approved UNM’s partnership with the Sandia Foundation to build the first building located at the new UNM West campus in Rio Rancho. UNM and the Sandia Foundation anticipate the building will be completed in time for classes to begin for the spring semester of 2010.
“The people in Rio Rancho have made it very clear they want to see UNM build in their community sooner rather than later,” said UNM President David J. Schmidly. “Thanks to the partnership with the Sandia Foundation and the continued support of the community of Rio Rancho, we will fulfill their expectations.”
Nearly three-quarters of the 40,000 square foot building will house classrooms and student support services. The UNM Medical Group will use approximately 10 percent of the space for administrative functions, with the rest being used for faculty/staff offices and building systems. The building will be designed as a student-oriented, architecturally distinctive, flexible-space learning facility.
Under the agreement, UNM will initially lease to Sandia Foundation approximately 8.5 acres of UNM-owned land at the Rio Rancho City Center site for the construction of the building and related site improvements. Sandia will in turn finance 100 percent of the cost of construction. UNM may then lease the entire space within the building for an initial term of up to five years, with a five-year option to extend. However, the University may also elect to purchase the building from Sandia at any time during the term of the lease.
Base rent for the building during the initial term of the lease would be approximately $900,000 per year, with funding from users of the facility and from other revenues associated with the UNM West Campus.
The new building will act as an “incubator” for both program and campus development, and may ultimately become multi-institutional in nature as UNM’s “2+2” partnership with Central New Mexico Community College is refined and a new partnership with New Mexico State University is developed for the delivery of select programs such as tourism and hospitality management that do not duplicate UNM offerings.
Total project costs are estimated to be $10.98 million.
Media Contact: Susan McKinsey, (505) 277-1807; e-mail: mckinsey@unm.edu
Posted by scarr at November 12, 2008 11:27 AM