At a Lobo Development Corporation meeting Monday, board members unveiled plans that detailed future dormitories and Athletics facilities construction at UNM.
Paul Krebs, vice president of Athletics, said Athletics needs new tennis courts, a renovation of UNM’s baseball field and improvements to the existing parking lots.
Krebs said the baseball field renovation carries a price tag of $4 million. So far $2 million has been provided by the state, and $1 million has come from donations, Krebs said.
“We are actively trying to raise another million dollars for the renovation,” he said.
To help fund parking lot
renovations, Krebs said the Athletics Department has charged for parking in lots close to the Isotopes stadium during games and shared profits with the Isotopes.
“Part of the reason we’ve charged for parking is to help us pay for some of the improvements to parking lots,” he said.
Krebs said he hopes to finish work on the indoor practice facilities, which are only usable when wind speeds are under 50 mph.
“Part of our master plan calls for the potential development of a soccer-only facility where our tennis complex is,” Krebs said. “That’s probably not something that’s likely to happen in my lifetime.”
In addition to the Athletics Department’s plans to build, Kim Murphy, the director of UNM Real Estate, discussed plans for additional student housing in the UNM area.
Murphy said his department is organizing weekly open meetings with students and the surrounding neighborhood to decide the location for new student housing, but times and locations for the meeting are still being worked out. He said a site will be chosen mid-October and then be presented to the Board of Regents. The proposed housing complex will have 500 to 1,000 beds.
“We have eight sections planned, which will result in the selection of sites for new housing on main campus,” Murphy said.
He said adding student housing to south campus will make the area more appealing to the 1.6 million people who attend athletic events per year.
“Rather than having exclusively a Science and Technology Park and athletic facilities, (we want) to
introduce other activities, other uses that will complement those two major anchors and round out the use of the south campus and make it more of a destination,” Murphy said.
Murphy also presented draft plans that he said would double the health sciences facilities on North Campus within 20 years. The plans have not been approved by the Board of Regents.
Don Chalmers, who was re-elected as vice chair of the LDC, said plans are one thing, but turning them into reality is another.
“One of our challenges is developing an appropriate revenue source moving forward,” he said. “We are in need of seed money to continue to move these commercial developments forward.”
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