Santa Fe County Regional Emergency Communications

The 7,200 square foot Santa Fe County Regional Emergency Communications Center (RECC), which opened in July 2024, represents the continued successful Design-Build relationship between Jaynes, Studio Southwest Architects, and Santa Fe County. RECC is the professional home to the frontline personnel responsible for dispatching multiple first responders and public safety agencies across a wide geographical area — six counties and municipalities in northern New Mexico, including the Santa Fe Police Department, Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office, Santa Fe Fire Department, Santa Fe County Fire Department, Town of Edgewood Police Department, San Miguel County Fire, and Village of Pecos Fire Department, and the Animal Control department in the City, County, and Town of Edgewood. 

The RECC project was awarded the 2024 Eagle Award of Excellence in the Civic Project category by NAIOP, the Commercial Real Estate Development Association.

Jaynes collaborated with Studio Southwest Architects to ensure effective and award-winning project delivery. Key project goals were to maximize employee well-being and decrease workplace stress. The RECC team handles approximately 30,000 incoming calls and dispatches about 6,000 – 8,000 outbound monthly responses. To help counter this stress, the facility features natural light, a decompression room, and modern kitchen and dining spaces to facilitate healthier meals for first responders dealing with long shifts.

From experience with previous Design-Build projects, Jaynes routinely delivers projects faster due to the overlap of design and construction phases. This approach also fosters better collaboration between architects, engineers, and contractors. The project team and Owner alignment ensures that design and construction quality are more aligned, reducing the risk of rework or miscommunication between the design and construction phases. With the Design-Build team working together from the project start, there is more focus on achieving the desired quality standards from the start.

The Design-Build process also requires more Owner involvement throughout the project lifecycle, with scheduled updates and collaborative decision-making more common than in other project delivery models. This more intensive collaboration helped reduce project costs and accelerate project completion for the SFC RECC project.

Additionally, since the County of Santa Fe had to manage a single contract from Jaynes, less staff time and effort from the Owner on administrative oversight was required. Less paperwork, fewer legal reviews, and leaner project management tasks are also hallmarks of the Design-Build model and were the norm in this project.

Using the Design-Build model on this project, Jaynes assumed more responsibility for managing risks, including budget overruns, construction phase errors, and schedule delays. Santa Fe County minimized risk exposure like design errors, project partner miscommunication, or unexpected construction phase challenges. Ultimately, the Design-Build approach ensured that Santa Fe County realized its vision for the Santa Fe County Regional Emergency Communications Center.

Jaynes helped advance northern New Mexico’s first responder infrastructure and emergency response capabilities by building a state-of-the-art facility that enhances public safety and communication systems. 

An interesting aspect of the project was the installation of a pneumatic tube system (PTS) to facilitate communication within the building. Pneumatic tube systems date back to 1890 and are seeing a surprising resurgence in organizations that require near-instant collaboration on paperwork and workflows that can’t rely on email or delivery services. 

Today, PTS are common in bank drive-throughs. Everybody enjoys that wooooosh! as your documents jet over to your teller, but in an emergency center like RECC, these systems rapidly transport essential documents to emergency responders. The Jaynes team integrated the PTS with the facility’s emergency dispatch system to enable rapid coordination between dispatchers, emergency services personnel, and first responders. The PTS also delivers documents and other necessary items between dispatch teams in different rooms without dispatchers leaving their call stations.

In this project, our BIM team used terrestrial laser scanners to measure our concrete work and create an ASTM E1155 report to ensure it met the required specifications. Jaynes applied the process of measuring and documenting the floor flatness (FF) and floor levelness (FL) of concrete slabs. These measurements were critical to ensuring that the finished floors met industry standards and project requirements, essential for aesthetics and the long-term functioning of this first responder facility.

Another interesting aspect of this project was the drastic leap in the facility infrastructure design and requirements to house new state-of-the-art technology, such as Next Generation 911 (NG911), GPS tracking, secure cloud-based systems, and Internet of Things (IoT) devices carried by first responders. Climate control, disaster recovery resilience of the facility, backup battery and generator systems, and stress-reducing design and materials affecting employee well-being were important project elements.