VI. Lease-Build-Renovation options

Raton Municipal Building

Armex Building

Colfax County Jail

Recent new construction in Colfax County has produced hard, accurate, actual numbers on the costs of building and renovating.

Prefabricated building costs, all-inclusive with foundations,

slabs, utilities, building and finish, parking lots, etc. are: $80 dollars per square foot

Building costs of ‘stick-built’ buildings, all-inclusive with

foundations, slabs, utilities, building and finish, parking lots,

interior improvements are: $120 dollars per square foot

Renovation costs of existing buildings, including new interior

walls, flooring, utility augmentation, ceilings, and bringing up to

code compliance are: $15 dollars per square foot

An obvious and excellent example of renovating/refurbishing a local building to a new purpose is the Raton Municipal Building, which was formally a Safeway Grocery Store. The costs of renovating noted above show that a considerable savings could be attained.

Raton Municipal Building former Safeway Store

During the last 5 years while the County tried to push a new tax through to pay for the $6 million dollar Courthouse Renovation, there were many alternate plans ready and waiting to be presented to the County Commission, if they had just wanted to consider citizen input.

1 - One plan was to acquire the Armex Building owned by the City of Raton. This would have been a win-win situation, which would have benefited the City by acquiring the building they were trying to divest, and turning it into a useful County facility.

Some would say the Armex (also known as the Budweiser Beer distributor building) was unsightly, but as with all renovation plans that could have been resolved for a lot less money than $6 million. A new brick or concrete block façade could have been constructed on the building, a facelift if you will. This would have cost significantly less than new construction.

Armex Building

A second option was to “re-skin” the building, which would have entailed removing the metal panels off the I-beams of the building, and then applying new panels.

In either the façade or re-skin plans, the interior of the building would have then been renovated just as the old Safeway grocery store was into the current Raton City Building. The costs obtained for the interior renovation of a building were/are $15 per square foot. For the 60,000 square foot Armex Building this would have totaled $900,000.

The parking areas around the building would have been paved, and/or repaved, landscaping completed, new façade and interior – all for certainly less than the $6 Million Courthouse Renovation cost. The 60,000 square feet of totally renovated interior and exterior would have far exceeded the needs of both the County Administration and Courts.

Unfortunately, the Armex Building is now being renovated for use by the Raton Schools and is no longer a viable consideration for renovation. However, the City of Raton has expressed an interest in letting the County use land directly west of the Armex Building.

2 – If the Bank of America building is being considered as a short-term solution to the overcrowding of the County Courthouse, then other buildings in Raton should be considered. Renovating the interiors of other large downtown buildings such as the old Penney’s Building, or the recently vacated Records Hardware Building should at least be considered.

Penney’s Building – South Second Street

Old Records Hardware – South Second Street

Either of these buildings could be purchased outright for less than two years rent of the Bank of America building, and renovated to the needs of the Court or County Offices and be completely serviceable. The obvious savings in costs over $2.6 million plus purchase price of the Bank of America is obvious. The impact to the downtown parking and economic situation would be the same as the Bank of America plan.

3 - Design-Build-Finance-Lease Option used for the County Jail

The Colfax County Jail was built with a creative idea put forth by Whitney Hite, the former County Manager. The County owned land and needed a jail. They issued an RFP for a Design-Build-Finance-Lease for a new jail. The companies responding to the RFP put forth the design/architect plans for a jail, agreed to finance it, build it and lease it to the County. The County had several companies respond to the RFP and accepted one plan, which resulted in the building of the jail as agreed, with no upfront costs to the County.

The County then paid the Design-Build Company for the use of the jail; the Company paid the County for the lease of the land. At the end of the 15 Years of this arrangement, the County then did not negotiate an extension of the lease and the Design-Build Company forfeited the building to the County, having been paid off in full for their efforts during the 15 years. The County did not give the company the option to extend the land lease after the 15 years, and under New Mexico Law all of the improvements to the land (i.e. the building) then belonged to the County.

The County voters passed by negative referendum a 1/8 Gross Receipts Tax to pay for this specific plan, and it worked out wonderfully over the years. The County in fact, just paid off the jail and took complete title to it last year. It is this same ‘Jail Tax’ that the current County Commission will probably re-task to pay for whatever their plan is. Since the taxpayer is going to probably have to continue to pay this tax for the next twenty years or more, then they should insure that the tax money is going to the best capital improvement plan possible.

Design-Build-Finance-Lease firms have indicated they could build a 15,000 square foot judicial center building for a cost of $100 per square foot. That makes their building costs for a completed building $1,750,000, including all costs, fees and investment banking fees. Once plans were approved, a design-build contractor could complete the building within 12 months of breaking ground.

4 - An obvious consideration should be that the County weigh the costs of building a specific Courts or Judicial Complex, thus freeing up space in the Courthouse for the County Administration. The building of a Judicial Complex would be done to the exact needs of the Courts and not be adapting an existing structure, impacting an area of the City, and of course resulting in significant cost savings to taxpayers.

If this option were considered, the availability of land would be the first concern. This is not a problem, if the County would just look into it, as the availability of land in and around Raton for this purpose is abundant. The following is a list of properties found to be available, and the list is certainly not complete. If the County started to look or expressed its desire for a site there would no doubt be more properties found.

Land Availability:

The City of Raton has expressed willingness to allow the County to use the land
adjacent to the Armex Building. This land is near 3 other County offices.

Colfax County Health Office near Armex land

- The County owns two 5-acre parcels south of the current County Roads Department facility.

The County owns land around the present jail facility.

The CS Cattle Company has expressed a willingness to exchange land

on the South end of Raton for County use.

Land is obviously available in various locations for constructing a new County Judicial Complex, a new County Administration Complex, or a new combined County Administration and Courts Building Complex.

If the County was to decide to build a complete combined building (similar to the Chaves County example) the old Courthouse building could be used as a museum, for community groups or meetings, auxiliary County offices, or a number of other uses.