Reflections on Public Spaces

Taos County’s New Complex

According to Richard Sanchez, project manager, Taos County’s new administrative, judicial, and detention facility should be ready for occupancy in mid to late May. Yesterday, we, Debra, Butchie, and myself, toured the new facility with Richard as guide. Thanks to architects Beverly Spears and Don Dwore, the exterior design—modern Pueblo with Territorial details—displays an economical scale that compliments the local architecture and landscape. Despite its size, the two-story u-shaped concrete and steel structure is softened by adobe-like feeling and encloses on three sides a central outdoor area that we predict will become the “New Plaza” for Taosenos.

Inside the 135,000 square foot edifice, the building seems to expand. From the outside, then, it appears to be smaller than it is. Inside, certainly, the County Assessor, Clerk, and Treasurer will have modern bays and offices, the latest in cubicle divides, meeting rooms, and storage. Similarly, the county and its administrative departments, as well as the District Attorney, District and Magistrate Courts will join together in mutual good feeling–offices with windows, lock-down rooms for inmates awaiting hearings, two-story clear stories marking entrances to the county commission chambers and various courts.

There are a couple of seemingly endless hallways, about 200 feet in length, and a tunnel that connects the detention center and the courts. No inmates need be seen until they greet the judge.

The Detention Center, aka County Jail, aka County Hotel, is a marvel: industrial washers and dryers, a first rate kitchen with the latest equipment, medical center, a variety of central and side pods with double and single cells, common areas with metal stools and tables to accommodate the best and worst of the criminal class. The driving force behind the sale of GRT bonds to build the facility was the idea that “we must take care of our own.” The new jail will hold 108 adult males, females, and juveniles in segregated areas with outdoor exercise areas and indoor classrooms, meeting rooms for inmates and families or attorneys.

Throughout the facility, one notices wires being pulled, complicated looking gray junction boxes, the products of the high tech age. To the untrained eye, there’s no skimping. The construction and the results appear first rate and thorough. And there appears to be more than enough space to accommodate growth.

Our guide, Mr. Sanchez has a grasp of the complex intricacies and we hope the County keeps him on to keep track of the maintenance necessary for so grand a complex.

The county will be sending out an RFP for kitchen operations and landscape contractors. An advisory committee is under consideration by the commission to consider rotating displays of visual art. I suppose one could quibble about form and function but given its public purpose, I suggest the quality of design and construction for this facility is analogous to the Harwood Museum. Both buildings are a step up from other facilities like the amorphous expansion at the Town of Taos or the acoustically challenged TCA.

Butchie and I helped promote the sale of GRT bonds for the complex, despite thelack of an architectural plan—other than Horse Fly’s illustration of the wished for facility by Nora Anthony. (See Aug. 2007, drawing for cover story.) So we approached the tour with trepidation. We were afraid of buyer’s remorse but pleasantly surprised by what we saw. Naturally, there will be unintended consequences, glitches and struggles, during the first months of occupancy. The workers in the complex had their Barrone gloves on and we wish them luck in finishing the project in time for the May deadline. We think county employees, members of the judiciary, and residents of the in-house hotel, will be pleased.

Community Spaces

Regardless of the complexities, the commissioners have done their best to meet the challenge and the new complex is a helluva building. Just as the Harwood represents excellence, so, too, the new athletic facilities at Taos High School and the school-town soccer field on Salazar represent a new wrinkle in attention to detail and long-term quality and use. Out at Klauer Campus, the UNM Branch similarly represents a commitment by the community to the future. During the last few years, construction of roads—Canon By-Pass west, El Prado north, the West Rim Road all represent how the public sector has geared up and waits for growth.

The private sector with some exceptions is suffering due to the economic downturn. While empty storefronts continue to plague a changing retail market, including the once renowned gallery scene, the food and beverage sector seems to be expanding. Despite the dribble drabble of tourists, hope springs eternal in some entrepreneur’s hearts.

The old Apple Tree on Bent St. is being renovated. Hotel La Fonda is seeking an operator. The Stray Dog Cantina operators from TSV are getting ready to open a discreet bar in the Cantu building upstairs at the Southeast corner of McCarthy Plaza on the Plaza, where a variety of eateries and entertainment spots have come and gone. A brewpub operator is remodeling the former Eklectic Afghan store for beer drinkers, across the main street from Dragonfly. On 64 West on the way Tune Drive or the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge, out behind Waste Management, a five-thousand square foot Quonset hut has been erected as a Brewery and venue for live music. Back in town, right next to Parks Gallery, just north of World Cup and Michael McCormick’s gallery, in that little plaza, I noticed a new petite café yesterday. Recently, Marco of Downtown Bistro, opened a second Italian café, called Stella’s, in what was once known as Café Loka.

Still, and sadly, La Martina’s renovation of Old Martinez Hall, a victim of internecine discord among Ranchos residents, remains closed. On Civic Plaza Drive, three large and costly public spaces, like the Town’s convention center—Bataan Hall (old armory) Rio Grande Hall (old motor pool), and Don Fernando Hall (old swimming pool)—remain underused. Similarly, the historic old county courthouse on the Plaza slowly decays.

The Town, in addition to owning the underused convention center still rents space to UNM-Taos for offices and library downtown on Civic Plaza Drive. Yet, the Town has taken possession of the state’s Mary Medina Building for a new police shop on Cruz Alta. But there is no money available for renovations.

Indeed, there are a number of public and private nonprofit areas (Sheriff’s posse rodeo grounds, LULAC circus setting) that seem underused—not unlike KCEC’s new Command Center. Despite decreased enrollment at TMS, current and necessary renovations continue but one wonders if the schools will ever recover from family flight to better jobs and better schools elsewhere.

Local Cultural Realities

While the need for planning once existed—due to the amount of town, county, and school owned property inside the town limits—cooperation and community planning are not a biological component in the Taos genes. Rather the jeans bulge with testosterone aimed at controlling turf and taking care of one’s particular constituents or cuates. Taosenos, like contemporary artists, create best in an ad hoc manner–even when in comes to public actions. See the collage of new and empty buildings, some executed with excellence and human beings in mind, others are just ugly, muddled, and acoustically unsound.

The grand old dame comes personally to mind—the Plaza Theatre, once a focal point of community entertainment and Saturday afternoon matinees. It remains a hollow shell on the Plaza—due as much to architectural missteps as a changing economy. Now the County will demolish the 1970 era forty year old “new courthouse and administration” building with its multi-levels and poorly plastered exteriors, decaying sidewalks, cave-like offices in the basement. The new-old Armory and temporary setting for the TCSO at the non-existent blinking light intersection will become a warehouse and storage facility for aging deputies and file boxes containing the history of Taos.

Like the America we have grown to emulate, we now have our share of large empty private and public buildings as well as a few fancy new ones, and who knows how many museums and privately preserved historical homes.

Given that the chief employers in Taos are public or private-public entities like the Town, County, Schools, KCEC, and HCH, not to mention the USFS and BLM, how are we going to keep paying for projected salaries and pensions of public employees–if we can’t jack up the tourist business and keep families from leaving town? We’re getting our inmates back off the roads to jails in San Miguel and Cibola and Grants. We also need some folks who bring back dollars to Taos.

Still, instead of looking outward at the world, we look inward and fight with each other—see the current land grant conundrum as a creative way of shooting each other in the foot. Even as the culprits aim at realtors, their primos are suffering a drop in property values as property becomes less saleable.

We can sell the drama of the sunset and landscape and even cultural attractions to tourists. But we haven’t figured out how to market the family fight. Yet, we prepare for the future come what may or even for what doesn’t come, whether via the high tech wire service on Broadband or for traffic on the West Rim Road.

There are a couple of architectural details in the new Complex that remind me of county commission discussions about the road to nowhere in northern Taos County. Some days, I think that we all live at the end of that road.

Marijuana may be de facto legal in Taos County. But you can get high on reality, too. (Or is it magical realism?)

The Disappeared Barber tells me he’s going to visit his Saint Tropez relatives. Los Tropezes, he says, were primos detained in France, lo’ these many years ago. He also says he wants to get away from the poisoned fish in El Prado. There’s a message there, I’m just not sure what it means.