New Mexico State University is making way for new and exciting developments with the construction of a couple new buildings. New buildings are coming in with the Agriculture Modernization Project as well as a continuation of construction at Arrowhead Park and a Creative Media Technology building at Doña Ana Community College. The university is hoping to keep up with the growing competitiveness that is amongst them and other universities regarding technology advances. The construction comes with many benefits for students already at NMSU and for those looking to go to school at the university. 

 The Assistant Director of Project Development and Engineering, Robert Estrada, explains the benefits of the new add-ons. “Part of our mission at Project Development and Engineering is to help the student programs grow and succeed by making these buildings a reality,” Estrada  said. “Renovating existing and constructing new facilities is crucial to keep our campus running and relevant.” 

The assembly of the new buildings brings new technologies for many departments including the college of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences. Dean of ACES Flores Galarza describes what the Agriculture Modernization Project looks to accomplish for the future. “It will create outstanding educational and research facilities for the students and for the faculty to do research, and to serve New Mexico,” Galarza said.  

The project will be adding a Food Safety, Security facility, Feed Mill and a Bio-Medical facility. Galarza states the importance of these buildings. “In the food safety building there will be meat processing,” he said. “There will be the capacity to process things like cattle, goats, sheep, etc. The feed mill is to obviously produce feeds for animals, but the idea is to also test new and different raw materials.”

 

“The bio-medical is going to be very critical for the future of NMSU,” Galarza said. “We are not only going to have special conditions to do studies that will impact the human body, impact health, do studies on mosquitos or all these types of things that are related to health. It will be a great improvement for NMSU.”  

The modernization project wants to bring in new students with its  advances. “Students like to go to places where you have modern facilities,” he said. “We will now have these modern facilities. There will be a lot of opportunities for more students to come, not only undergraduate students but graduate students and faculty as well.”  

Galarza says the new facilities are looking to expand the farming and ranching in the region and plan to help the agriculture all over southern New Mexico.“The cattle producers will have the opportunity to even process some of the equipment with some of their animals here,” he said. “Students will have hands-on experience so they will be very well trained. Also, it will be an attractive opportunity because if you look around the border area, we don’t have anything like that.” 

Galarza gives thanks to the faculty and students who have been patiently waiting for these facilities for the last 25 years. The latest construction is expected to be completed by the Fall of 2024.

“We always have projects in the pipeline, some are in the design phase, so keep a lookout for the next round of projects that will break ground soon,” Estrada said.