Expansion at the Capitol

A new project in Santa Fe's Capitol Complex is adding space for state employees while preserving an important piece of the city's architectural landscape.

Contractors from Santa Fe-based Cameron Construction recently buttoned-up the four-story, 41,000-sq.-ft. "Villagra" office project on Cerrillos Street in downtown Santa Fe, with interior crews moving forward with drywalling, paint and tile.

The new, $4.8 million office building sits next to the historic "34" Building on Galisteo Street. Although the 34 Building needs extensive remodeling to bring it up to code, the structure, which was designed by Santa Fe architect John Gough-Meem and built in 1934, is an excellent rendition of the "Santa Fe" style.

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"We needed to respect the old building, so we had a lot of design discussions on how we were going to step from the new to the old," said architect Bill Fanning of Albuquerque's Fanning Bard Tatum Architects. "The new addition is much larger and we didn't want to overpower the existing building."

Rather than connect the center of the old 34 Building to the new office building, crews from JMT Construction Inc. tore down a 1951 addition to the 34 Building. The demolition allowed crews to link the two buildings on the north end of the property line, creating a sunken courtyard in the process.

But demolition contractors faced a tough job to remove the old foundation, which was shared by the 34 Building. The thick floors were cast-in-place on top of layers of brick capped off with a topping slab.

"It was like cutting through a block of cheese to cut that old 1951 building off," said Nancy Kerr of JMT Construction Inc. "It was incredible to see the way that old structure was built. It was built to last forever."

Crews were also slowed and the site shut down for 28 days to allow archeologists to conduct studies on the area, which was the site of an early 20th Century military garrison.

"We had to shut down because we found an old well, built at the turn of the century, right in the middle of the project," said Roxy Flanders, Cameron Construction project superintendent. "We found a bunch of old marbles and that was about it."

Sitting on a slab-on-grade foundation, the steel-framed building features three stories above grade and offices and the sunken courtyard below grade. Employees can access the sunken plaza through below-grade conference rooms.

Landscape designers from Albuquerque-based Morrow Reardon Wilkinson LTD created the courtyard, with planters, benches and tables. They used low-water landscaping that emphasizes native plants.

Drainage issues in the sunken courtyard forced designers to develop a complex pumping system and foundation drainage system to move the water from the below-grade areas.

"On the civil part of the project, we had to come up with a system to pump the runoff water off the grade and then up the side," said Mike Walla of Walla Engineering of Albuquerque. "We had a piping system to a manhole to get the water back to the parking lot."

As with many projects involving old infrastructure, finding suitable utility tie-ins was complicated and frustrating.

"The primary power was out in the middle of the street and it took a little investigating to find it. We didn't know where it was," said Tom Hagen, president of Corrales, N.M.-based THECO Inc.

Connecting the old building to the new one created issues regarding the fire code.
Because it was going to be some time before remodeling work on the 34 Building began, designers needed to meet stringent city requirements for a line of demarcation between the two buildings.

"The new building is fully sprinkled, but the old building is only sprinkled in the basement," said John Baumgartel, president of M & E Engineering of Santa Fe. "We needed to consider the fire situation, so we have a two-hour fire wall separating the old and new building."