by Caleb Fort
Daily Lobo
UNM officials completed a trade Monday that will give the University land for a Rio Rancho campus.
Jamie Koch, president of the Board of Regents, said the campus is necessary for the University's success.
"There's only so much we can expand on this (main) campus," he said. "The University should have gone out to the West Side a long time ago."
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UNM President David Harris, three regents and Patrick Lyons, commissioner of public lands, met Monday in the SUB to sign documents for the trade.
UNM received 222 acres in Rio Rancho from the New Mexico State Land Office.
In exchange, the University gave the office 809 acres in the East Mountains and Tijeras Arroyo, between Albuquerque International Sunport and Mesa Del Sol.
The Rio Rancho land is valued at $7.6 million. The land UNM is giving up is valued at $6 million.
UNM received a discount because it is a beneficiary of the land office.
Harris announced plans for the deal on Aug. 17.
The land in Rio Rancho is about the same size as UNM's main campus.
Koch said the campus will be able to accommodate 15,000 students when it is completed.
However, that could be a long time off, he said.
"I don't think we're going to move as fast as everyone seems to think we are," he said. "You're not going to be able to just open up a building in the next few months."
The campus should have 2,000 to 3,000 students within five years, he said.
Koch said the campus will not take away resources from the rest of UNM.
"That's something that a lot of people have been worried about," he said. "But the money we'll be getting from the city (of Rio Rancho) we wouldn't be getting here anyway. Many of the students we'll be getting from Rio Rancho wouldn't have been able to come to main campus."
He said main campus would not be able to accommodate the extra 15,000 students that will be able to go to the Rio Rancho campus.
The next steps in creating the campus are to plan the construction, curriculum and funding, he said.
State Rep. Thomas Swisstack announced at the signing that he is working on a request to the New Mexico State Legislature for funding for the first building.
The funding will be a combination of private and public money, he said.
He plans to announce more details in November.
Roger Schluntz, dean of the School of Architecture and Planning, will host discussions from Nov. 12 to Nov. 15 to come up with recommendations for planning and developing the campus.
The discussions will be open to the public.
Provost Reed Dasenbrock said he is beginning to plan the academic offerings at the campus.
"This is all just getting started," he said. "On the academic side, no real decisions have been made yet."
The campus will offer classes from New Mexico State University and Central New Mexico Community College.
Koch said planning those collaborations will be the biggest challenge.
"Everybody now has to decide exactly what they want and communicate that to everyone else," he said. "It's just a matter of figuring out how to please everyone."
