ENMU wants input on next presidential residence

PORTALES - Eastern New Mexico University is looking for feedback from faculty, staff, students, alumni and community members regarding how to proceed with the university's next presidential residence.

ENMU put up an online survey earlier in the week to elicit input regarding the timing, financing and needs of a new president's home, which Regent Terry Othick said had already received over 420 responses as of Friday afternoon.

He said the search for a new home was sparked by the discovery of mold in one of the house's hallways, which then led to the finding of asbestos in the walls, floors and ceiling.

With the total cost of removing the asbestos and replacing the materials in the house at around $200,000 according to Jeff Elwell, president of the Portales campus and chancellor of the three-college system, the university wanted to proactively look at potentially building a new home to house presidents for the next five or so decades to come.

That won't be cheap either, according to the survey the cost to renovate the current 4,700 square foot home would be about $490,000, building a new 2,500 square foot home would be about $500,000 and a new 3,500 square foot home would be about $700,000.

Elwell said the large expense is brought on in part by the state's 15 percent premium for state buildings plus gross receipts tax.

Since 1973 the university's president has lived on campus at 1600 W Cherry Street. During the 1960s and early 70s the president's home was off-campus at 1532 W 17th Lane and 1500 S Avenue A, and before that on-campus at the current site of the Kappa Sigma fraternity house.

The Cherry Street home was built in 1962 and has been added on to several times, though the addition on the west side was built on a slab about six to eight inches below the original foundation, which Othick said would make renovating the home problematic.

While the university could potentially look at purchasing property off-campus, Othick said there are benefits to housing the president close to the students and faculty.

"If you read the literature about most universities, the faculty, staff and leadership see a value in the president living on campus and even more value in the house being used as both a public and private residence that the university opens it up to the faculty, staff, students and community," Othick said.

That has certainly been the case on Cherry Street since the Elwell's moved in, as Othick told The News by the end of the month there will have been approximately 80 events hosted in the home in the past year.

Should the university elect to build a new home, Elwell, acknowledging that the facility would more than likely benefit his successor rather than himself and the current first lady, said he would like to see a modern style house that's more open and has better flow than the current 1960's style ranch home which has a wall in between two separate living spaces.

"If you're in one room and have more than eight, nine, 10 people, you can't interact with the others because there's a wall that's at least 16 feet long," Elwell said.

Othick said the new building would also need to improve things like the single pane windows and poor insulation present in the current home.

"If you've been there when the wind is blowing, sand is coming inside, noise is coming inside and the insulation is poor, so we would want to look at modern things like the construction of windows and insulation, and I personally would love to see some incorporation of renewable energy, at least solar or something like that because there's an abundance of that in Portales," Othick said.

A new home could also be used as a recruiting tool to find Elwell's successor, as Othick said the president's residence is generally one of the top concerns for candidates, according to the national recruiting firm the university hired for its latest search.

Othick said he has invited one of the architects who assessed the home to attend the Dec. 13 regents meeting to answer any questions and discuss the firm's recommendation and the board will discuss the results of the survey at the Jan. 16 meeting in Santa Fe.

He said the timing of the project is one of the next things the university needs to determine and funding it would not impact potential raises for employees or new buildings for students.

"As a regent one of our responsibilities is to make sure that once a decision is made that we have the ability to do that without impacting the students, their educational process, the quality of their education, or the faculty and staff," Othick said.

"I think Eastern has invested over $200 million in buildings over the last 15, 20 years and this is another university building that's an important one that we want to make sure is taken care of as well."

To participate in the seven question survey, visit http://www.surveymonkey.com/r/RegentSurvey.