UNM-Los Alamos to cut ribbon on new front entrance April 29

The front entrance at UNM-Los Alamos is finished, and the campus will mark that milestone with a noon ribbon cutting on April 29 as part of a $12 million modernization push aimed at strengthening the county’s college-to-workforce pipeline.

The public ceremony is set for 4000 University Drive in Los Alamos, where the entrance project has become the most visible sign of a broader campus overhaul funded by local voters, state matching dollars and additional appropriations. UNM-LA officials have tied the work to programs that feed Los Alamos National Laboratory and local employers, including information technology, trades, nursing and transfer degrees.

The financing package grew out of the November 2024 election, when 73% of Los Alamos County voters approved a $3 million local general obligation bond for UNM-LA. That local share unlocked about $9 million in state matching funds, and county voters also approved a statewide bond that sent another $1 million to the campus for facilities and infrastructure planning, construction, renovation and equipping. The local bond added a 0.501 mill levy, which was estimated at about $98 a year for a typical Los Alamos County home valued at roughly $590,000.

By Feb. 26, about $8.8 million had already been spent on the braided funding effort. Earlier phases included a $2.5 million overhaul of the main classroom building finished in fall 2024, when crews addressed roof leaks and modernized offices. In 2025, the campus added a new roof, stucco repairs, exterior paint, LED lighting and new windows and doors for lecture hall and conference room areas, while bathroom upgrades and some basement-level replacements remained in the capital cycle.

UNM Facilities Design & Construction lists additional work that shows how far the modernization goes beyond the front door. The active project includes turning two Building 6 restrooms into classrooms, adding a gender-neutral restroom, ADA corrections, IT and audiovisual upgrades, 25 exterior window replacements in Building 1, six rooftop HVAC replacements in Building 2, stucco and restroom work in Building 7, and a campus-wide Class A fire system.

The ribbon cutting also follows an earlier Building 6 celebration in October 2024, when Chancellor Mike Holtzclaw told supporters, “We can’t do this without the support of the community,” while thanking Los Alamos County Council and state legislators Leo Jaramillo, Bobby Gonzales and Christine Chandler. That same local coalition is now seeing the front entrance project come to completion, with more campus improvements still to come.

For students, the day-one change is simple and visible: a finished, more accessible front entrance at the county’s community college campus. The larger payoff is longer term, as UNM-LA continues aligning its buildings and programs with the technical training and transfer routes Los Alamos County depends on.