Plans to build a massive $221 million New Mexico government executive office building should be revised to take in the impact of telework.
That’s the conclusion of a report recently completed by the New Mexico Legislative Finance Committee looking at the cost of building new government structures, as well as maintaining existing ones.
The report, Program Evaluation: State Facilities and Space Utilization, notes that the State of New Mexico has been planning for more than a decade to build an executive office building that would house several agencies currently located in a variety of office buildings in other parts of the city.
In 2009, members of the New Mexico State Legislature voted to approved authorizing the New Mexico Finance Authority to issue up to $115 million in bonds for the project. During the most recent legislative session earlier this year, lawmakers appropriated $70 million from the state’s general fund, along with another $15 million in severance tax bonds, for the project.
But, according to the Legislative Finance Committee report, four of the seven state agencies expected to eventually move into the new executive office building have high rates of employees.
Those agencies are the State Auditor’s office, the Office of the State Treasurer, the Public Regulation Commission, and the Public Education Department.
Each agency, at the time the report was being put together late this summer, had well over 50% of its staff teleworking, and in some cases upwards of nearly 80%, prompting the report to question the need for building new office space for those agencies.
The report additionally notes that the planned three-story executive office building project could cost upwards of $221.6 million, with anticipated annual cost escalations coming in at around $27 million.
Noting a proposed $46 million parking structure that will be a part of the project, the report also asserts that current state government parking space has a utilization rate of around 41%. For that reason, the report recommends construction of a parking structure with no more than 723 parking spaces.
Ultimately, says the report, the state should “revise plans and cost estimates for the executive office building with recent construction cost calculations and expected occupant telework practices.”
The long-anticipated executive office building project has been partially delayed as the state awaits a decision from the Santa Fe Historic Districts Review Board regarding the demolition of four smaller office buildings dating to the early 1930s at the site of the proposed project.
By Garry Boulard
