Public safety institutions recognized for exceptional facilities

From a Santa Fe emergency communications center to a public safety training center in Bernalillo County, public safety institution projects around the state pulled in a slew of awards from the 2024 NAIOP New Mexico Awards of Excellence.

What especially stands out for the safety agencies? The state-of-the-art facilities their employees work in, relieving stress in the extremely high-stress jobs.

The integration of people-friendly design elements like natural lighting, good acoustics and calming colors all play a role in maintaining a happy and healthy workplace, as shown by NAIOP's public/civic project award winners.

Public/civic project winners

Winning the Eagle Award, Santa Fe County’s Regional Emergency Communications Center, or RECC, is a critical operational building for northern New Mexico.

The new 7,200-square-foot center, open 24 hours / 7 days a week, takes emergency and non-emergency calls, including for 911, the sheriff’s office, the fire department, medical needs and animal control.

The center gets an average of 30,000 incoming calls per month and dispatches about 6,000-8,000 calls a month, according to RECC Director Roberto Lujan.

Before transitioning to the facility in April, all the administrators and dispatchers were cooped up in a smaller space in a public safety complex, said Rod Lambert, project manager with the Santa Fe County Public Works projects division.

“They were in a substandard space trying to offer the (most) top-end services that they could,” he said. “And so it was recognized, through the development of this project, that we need to give them the space that accommodates them.”

The new center has plenty of natural daylight filtered by sunshades to keep the building cool, a large break room, an employee patio, desks equipped with built-in lighting and individual heating and cooling controls and a quiet room with a fold-out couch and massagers.

“They're dealing with life and death situations daily, and I think it's important to give them emotional reprieve, both in the design and the aesthetics of the building,” Lambert said.

Lujan said he’s seen a huge morale boost among staff.

“Actually, today, one of the dispatchers made breakfast for everybody, which is something they're doing routinely for the whole staff,” he said with a smile. “It's just really cool how it brought camaraderie and teamwork.”

Lambert said the change in environment will help retain and recruit RECC employees, something the center has struggled with in the past. It’s something Lujan said other critical operation agencies should consider doing too.

“I worked in (our old) building for 10 years, and it was very sad and depressing to go in there every day. … And just being here and seeing the staff happy, it definitely had a huge impact,” Lujan said.

The biggest challenge in creating the new center was incorporating the human factor with dispatch user needs, Lambert said, including working with a complicated phone system.

“Underlying all of this is this overlay of technological concerns that I think we were a little bewildered by,” he said, “... This is essentially a data spinal column that is the brain cell of this entire building.”

He said he respects Studio Southwest Architects and Jaynes, the design and construction team, respectively, on the project, for their constant communication for the project. This has brought attention to dispatchers, he said, who are often unseen and unheard but “serve the entirety of Santa Fe County in ways that people don't even understand.”

Also recognized in the small-scale public/civic category was the Rio Metro Valencia County Transit Facility and the Pueblo of Sandia Fire/EMS Station.

Public safety projects

Outdated spaces in dire need of repairs and renovations, scattered across multiple locations for different public safety programs, once plagued the Bernalillo County Fire Department and Sheriff’s Office. Now, the agencies are unified in a state-of-the-art public safety training center.

The Bernalillo County Public Safety Training Center won a Merit award in NAIOP’s public civic category, specifically for larger projects.

It’s a 40,000-square-foot metal building, which moves away from a “typical industrial warehouse appearance and feel,” according to SMPC Architects’ award submission — the entity that submitted the project for an award. The building has clerestory windows to enhance natural light and was designed with acoustics in mind.

“This thoughtful approach supports the advancement of public safety training and enhances the overall functionality of the center,” SMPC Architects wrote in its submission.

The center also allows the Bernalillo County Fire Department and Sheriff’s Office to have a consolidated facility, as opposed to previously scattered locations that “complicated logistics and hindered effective training,” according to SMPC Architects.

“This project addresses these issues by uniting both departments in a state-of-the-art facility, which not only streamlines operations but also enhances collaboration between the departments,” the award submission states.

The Eagle Award went to a mental health center project: the University of New Mexico Hospital/Bernalillo County Behavioral Health Crisis Center, which supports adults with severe mental health diagnoses. HB Construction submitted the project for an award.

“The long-awaited facility is the first of its kind in the state and serves as a blueprint for addressing our nation’s mental health crisis through the built environment,” HB Construction’s award submission reads.

The nearly 50,000-square-foot, two-story steel structure center expands mental health access in New Mexico, something the state has long had a shortage of. The $30,000 contracted facility underwent construction from July 2023 to June 2024.

The center utilizes trauma-informed design, like the use of calming colors, visually ordered environments, daylighting and outdoor space, and naturalistic materials.

“Specialty elements were used to meet a residential appearance while maintaining institutional-level quality and performance,” the award submission reads.

The team also used Building Information Modeling to successfully approach the building’s high ceilings and myriad systems, which resolved “clashes well ahead of construction and produced a seamless shop drawing process,” according to HB Construction.

The Sandoval County Sheriff’s Office & Emergency Operations Center and the New Mexico State Police District 1 facility were also honored with Merit awards in the large-scale public/civic project category.