New Mexico Universities and Colleges in Line for State Project Funding

The 243-acre campus of New Mexico Junior College, located around 5 miles to the northwest of the city of Hobbs in the southeastern corner of the state, may soon see extensive work planning, designing, and constructing a series of shade structures and vestibules.

The New Mexico Higher Education Department has submitted a capital outlay request of just over $1.7 million for the work at the school to lawmakers meeting in the winter session of the state legislature.

That request is one of two dozen individual capital outlay requests from the Higher Education Department this year, totaling just over $9 million.

At $1.7 million, the shade structures and vestibules work is the largest individual higher education project request lawmakers will review, with the second largest, at $1.3 million, also belonging to NMJC: the upgrading of the school’s Watson Hall on the north side of the campus.

That building houses classrooms and offices as well as a theater.

Other higher education capital outlay requests include $868,000 for HVAC system replacement and installation in the North Campus Gym of the Dine College in Shiprock; as well as $500,000 to plan, design, and build the infrastructure of the Workforce Training Center at Central New Mexico Community College.

Another $500,000 is pegged for the planning, design, and construction of emergency management and fire suppression systems at Santa Fe Community College.
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The smallest higher education request is for $20,000 to purchase and install equipment for Luna Community College’s welding program located on the school’s Mora campus.

​By Garry Boulard

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