E-mail Story
Print Friendly
Journal North: Home | Sports | Opinion | Obits | Entertainment
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Caldera To Lease Building for Conference Center
By Deborah Baker
The Associated Press
Trustees of the Valles Caldera National Preserve, the federally owned former cattle ranch in the Jemez Mountains, have agreed to lease — and perhaps one day buy — a 25-bedroom facility in Jemez Springs to use as an education and conference center.
The Valles Caldera Trust's executive director, Gary Bratcher, signed the 16-month lease on Wednesday.
The 15,000-square-foot building is owned by the Servants of the Paraclete, a Roman Catholic religious order that once used the facility as a residence for old and infirm priests and brothers.
The trust already leases a nearby complex of buildings from the religious order for its administrative offices.
The proposed conference center is about 20 miles from the entrance to the 89,000-acre Valles Caldera National Preserve.
Bratcher said leasing the facility allows the trust to ramp up its education and science programs without the disruptive, prolonged and expensive process of building on the remote preserve.
“It allows it to happen and it allows it to happen now, without the tremendous footprint and without that tremendous investment,” he said in an interview.
Bratcher said the board approved the lease at its June meeting, along with $306,000 from the trust's revenue account — fed by visitors' activity and recreation fees — for furniture and to equip a laboratory at the building.
It will cost $9,250 a month to lease the facility, he said. The trust currently pays $7,500 monthly for the administrative complex, which also includes 24 apartments that are rented by seasonal and permanent employees.
The new lease allows for the possibility of a purchase, but no price is specified and “there's no commitment on either side to that effect,” Bratcher said.
The education and science center could be used year-round; the preserve is effectively closed for much of the winter because of snow.
Bob Parmenter, the preserve's director of science and education, said the new facility would allow school groups from more than a couple of hours away to visit the preserve.
Currently, “it's too far for a day trip and there's no way to stay overnight,” he said.
The preserve has been used for limited summer programs including science camps for children and training for science teachers from northern New Mexico.
Volunteers conducted a “bio bug blitz” this summer, a series of intensive collecting expeditions to determine what invertebrates are on the preserve.
The education center — where an existing recreation room will be converted into a laboratory — could mean expanding current projects and offering “permanent programs to a national audience,” Parmenter said.
The trust anticipates that the center would be used by school groups, volunteer groups that do science projects on the preserve, and businesses or organizations looking for a place to hold conferences or workshops.
Bratcher said the facility, which could accommodate 48 overnight guests, would eventually pay its own way.
The Valles Caldera National Preserve was purchased by the federal government in 2000 and is run by a board of trustees, most of them presidential appointees. Its mandates include being financially self-sufficient by 2015. New Mexico's U.S. senators recently asked the National Park Service to study the possibility of putting the preserve in its system.
The Servants of the Paraclete's Jemez Springs operations included a center for priests who were pedophiles.
Copyright ©2009 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
You also can send comments via our comment form
|
|
