Exactly $600,000 has been approved for renovations to the busy Roosevelt Science Hall on the Portales campus of Eastern New Mexico University.
Originally built in 1953 as a men’s residence hall, the 42,000 square foot Roosevelt building was repurposed in the mid-1990s as the center of the school’s science department, housing classrooms, labs, and offices.
Renovation work on the structure, which is a part of ENMU’s five-year capital improvement plan, will include upgrading the building’s heating, cooling, and electrical systems.
The building is also the home to the Miles and Minerals Museum, which features a collection of animals, plants, and insects indigenous to New Mexico.
ENMU officials have said that they expect to see work begin on the Roosevelt building early next summer.
The Governor also signed off on $350,000 for the construction of a covered storage facility on the Portales campus, as well as just over $800,000 for the building of a new video surveillance system, along with electrical system upgrades, on the Roswell campus.
The main Silver City campus of Western New Mexico University is receiving $390,000 for campus pathway improvements, along with another $70,000 for the renovation of its Veterans Resource Center.
The largest WNMU capital outlay, at $2.5 million, will go for the construction of a new learning center, which will go up on a 42-acre site at the school’s Deming campus.
By design, the center, currently housed in a building at 2300 E. Pine Street, is dedicated to English as a Second Language and General Education Development instruction for a primarily rural, multicultural, and multilingual population.
By Garry Boulard
