By KRWG News
Las Cruces – The City of Las Cruces and the Las Cruces Convention Center will be hosting a series of grand opening events to commemorate the opening of the city's first convention center.
The events will include a ribbon cutting, speeches from community leaders, an open house and a Touch-A-Truck Event.
Thursday, January 13, 2011 - Ribbon Cutting Ceremony and Open House
3:30 pm - Singing of National Anthem, Color Guard, Speeches from community leaders
4:30 pm - Ribbon cutting and proclamations by the Greater Las Cruces Chamber and Hispano Chamber of Commerce.
4:30 - 7:30 pm - Open House with live entertainment by Daniel Park and Vince Alton
Saturday, January 15, 2011 - Community Open House and Touch-A-Truck Event
10:00 am - 4:00 pm - Community Open House and Touch-A-Truck Event
The community open house will give the citizens an opportunity to tour the facility and its amenities. Additionally, the Touch-A-Truck Event will feature exhibits from non-profit/volunteer groups, and a variety of vehicles on display for children to see and touch.
The center is 55,000 square feet with just over 30,000 square feet of meeting space. The facility features a 15,000 square foot exhibition hall as well as a 9,360 square foot ballroom. There are 6 break-out rooms totaling over 3,000 square feet. Additionally, there are over 5,000 square feet of outdoor space and 2,000 square feet of indoor pre-function space.
"The building of the Las Cruces Convention Center has taken numerous years and numbers of supporters to get to this point," said Las Cruces Convention Center General Manager David Hicks. "The Ribbon Cutting and Community Open House are a tribute to all of those who spent countless hours supporting the vision and future of tourism in Las Cruces. We are thrilled to open the building up to the community to see the facility."
Although the level has yet to be determined, the facility will be Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certified and features a variety of renewable energy efforts including low water usage landscaping materials that were used to landscape the facility, the reserved parking spaces for alternative energy vehicles and rows of bicycle racks to encourage alternative forms of transportation. The roof was painted a light color to reflect heat and photovoltaic cells are used to convert sun energy to electricity to further reduce energy costs for the facility. Inside, energy-efficient lighting was used throughout as well as low-flow plumbing to reduce water consumption.