ALBUQUERQUE JOURNAL
By Journal North Staff
PUBLISHED: Tuesday, March 17, 2015 at 7:20 pm
SANTA FE – With a positive House vote Tuesday, the Legislature has approved a resolution authorizing the sale of 11 acres of vacant state property on Siringo Road in Santa Fe to the New Mexico School for the Arts, as a permanent campus for the arts school. The measure had previously been approved by the Senate.
A 2014 appraisal of the site included a “market value opinion” of $1.4 million for the property, near the new Santa Fe Community College Higher Education Center. It’s on the north side of Siringo at the south entrance of the Santa Fe University of Art and Design, at Yucca and Siringo.
The School for the Arts, a state charter school that opened in 2010, is now housed in the former St. Francis Cathedral School in downtown Santa Fe. It has about 200 students in grades 9-12 but has plans to expand to 400 students from across the state.
In October, the school’s private fundraising foundation said it had raised $7 million for purchase of the site and for construction of classrooms, studios, dormitories and other facilities, expected to cost up to $30 million.
The current operating expenses for the school — which requires student auditions for entry — are about $3.3 million annually and are split between state education and private funds.