The Changing Face of Los Alamos

Los Alamos County Municipal Building Site

On January 28, 2010 the Los Alamos County Council met in a special meeting to hear public comments on and to select the site for the new Municipal Building. The old Municipal building was torn down about a year ago because of structural deficiencies. For the past several months, a Site Selection Committee has been working through a list of 25 possible sites with the responsibility to recommend the top two or three sites to the Council. The Committee recommended two sites. Their first recommendation was the site of the Los Alamos Apartments (aka, the caves) just east of the Bradbury Science Museum which the County had previously purchased as part of a bankruptcy sale. The second site was directly south across Central Avenue on property owned by the Shannon Corporation. In a 5 to 2 vote the Council chose the Los Alamos Apartment site. As this photo shows, demolition of the apartment buildings was started a couple of months ago.

On February 25 the County Council decided to go big with the new Municipal Building. The new building will have a minimum of 47,170 gross square feet of space. Gross square feet include the outside walls of the building. Another 17,530 square feet may be included depending on the building design and costs. If all the options are included the GSF of the final building would be 64,680 GSF. The old municipal building had 27,133 GSF. Why double the size? To allow for future expansion and to get more of the county departments under one roof. It is anticipated that the new building will have a basement and 5 stories. A design - build contract is expected in June. Stay tuned as this saga unfolds.