Design firm outlines options for new Eddy County administrative facility; favors new build over costly renovations

Park Hill's design team presented findings and next steps for a potential new Eddy County administrative facility, recommending site selection and conceptual design after department interviews and a cross-department design workshop.

Craig Robertson, Park Hill partner in charge, and project manager Luke Quaby summarized two rounds of stakeholder work: department interviews to document space needs and a workshop to set mission, vision and priorities. The team reported that the existing facility has structural and layout constraints (floor-to-floor heights, single-pane windows, limited commissioners' court space), lacks fire suppression and modern HVAC, and would require significant work to meet long-term goals. Park Hill noted that repurposing the existing building could still leave important limitations and that a new build would likely better meet programmatic and security needs.

Program-level estimates suggested a 46,000—0,000 square-foot facility, an anticipated parking demand of about 231 spaces if built on a single floor, and a likely need to stack functions into two or three stories. Designers said the project should consider downtown siting to preserve public access and noted the need to account for technology infrastructure and security layering. The team proposed a site analytics workshop with the executive committee as the next step before moving into conceptual design.

Commissioners did not vote on a project appropriation at the meeting; staff said they will schedule the site-selection workshop and continue stakeholder engagement. Park Hill emphasized the process is still at a high-level programming stage and that future design and engineering steps will follow.