The Santa Fe New Mexican building at 202 E. Marcy St. was old, dirty, dusty and smelled like oily ink when Sallie Urban went to work there in 1972 as a page designer. The recently renovated building is like "going from a barn to Caesar's Palace," said Urban, who still works in the newspaper's advertising design department.

What used to be an almost dungeonlike newsroom is now a 29,000-square-foot structure flooded with natural light. The light is one of many changes the newspaper's owner, Robin Martin, and Santa Fe architect Eric P. Enfield wanted to make the building both more energy efficient and more pleasant to work in.

Insulated dual-pane windows surround the east and west sides of the bi-level building. The windows are operable, aiding cross ventilation. Skylights brighten the interior hallways. The work areas are open, with few walls preventing the natural light from reaching most desks. The roof is highly insulated and light colored to reflect solar heat. The building is heated and cooled with an automated system mixing fresh and interior air, Enfield said. Energy-efficient compact fluorescent lights are used throughout the building, though Martin hopes one day to switch all of them to more efficient LED lights.

The new design included a mezzanine, which increases the useable working space by 8,000 square feet without increasing the building's footprint.

A 10,000-gallon cistern is buried in the staff parking lot, capturing water runoff from the roof. The water is pumped to the building's landscaping through a drip irrigation system. Half-full from this winter's moisture, the water will last about three months, according to facilities manager Ernie Casados.

Perhaps the most green thing Martin did was deciding not to knock down the 60-plus-year-old building, Enfield said. The contractor, John Rehders, was able to keep most of the historic building's original walls and the roof. The wood beams, corbels and concrete window sills, designs inspired by John Gaw Meem, were all preserved on the front of the building. "We kept as much of the building's character as we could," Enfield said.

Reusing existing material reduces energy required to make and transport new materials, he said. Most of the recovered building materials — copper, plastic, steel, insulation, even the asphalt — were taken away by salvage companies for resale. "Recycling the building was a critical decision in making it green," Enfield said. He said he and Martin discussed trying for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification, but chose to put the money into a better building design instead. Enfield believes the building would have met the requirements for LEED silver certification.

Some green features they wanted to add to the building — such as rooftop solar panels and more passive solar on the south side — were dropped because they wouldn't be accepted by the city's Historic Design Review Board. "I wish we could get the (board) to really think about design practices and how they might be stumbling blocks for green buildings," Martin said.

The renovated building still has a few kinks, primarily in the bathrooms. Waterless urinals in the men's bathroom didn't operate properly and had to be reinstalled. Some The New Mexican employees complain the energy-efficient, low-wattage bulbs in the women's bathroom leave it a little too dark. Still, overall everyone seems pleased with their new digs, especially longtime employees like Urban. "It's not so gloomy," she said.

The New Mexican made similar design decisions at its south Santa Fe building, which houses its state-of-the-art printing press. The building includes many of the same natural light and energy-efficient measures as the downtown office, plus it has a 25,000-gallon underground cistern to catch rooftop water runoff, Casados said. The water is pumped to extensive xeriscape landscaping around the building.

By their nature, newspapers, which use a lot of paper and ink, aren't very green endeavors. The people who put them together — reporters, photographers and the advertising sales team — drive a lot. They pull a lot of late nights with a lot of lights on to get the newspaper out 365 days a year.

Still, Martin has tried to get The New Mexican to "go green," in more ways than just energy-efficient buildings. She was in high school when the first Earth Day was celebrated April 22, 1970, and she said the event made an impression on her.

Employees are encouraged to recycle all their white office paper and newspapers in blue bins scattered around the buildings. Readers can recycle their newspapers at large bins placed outside both buildings, according to operations director Al Waldron. The bins are collected by Colorado-based Centennial Recycling of Aurora, Colo., and taken to a Snowflake, Ariz., mill owned by Catalyst Paper Corp., that recycles newsprint. The New Mexican then buys the 100 percent post-consumer newsprint paper from the mill. The newspaper also buys 40 percent recycled content newsprint from Inland Empire Paper Co. in Millwood, Wash.

All the inks, black and color, are 100 percent soy-based, Waldron said. It costs twice as much as oil-based ink, but actually stretches twice as far, he said. In addition, the ink rubs off less on readers' hands. The waste ink is filtered and reused by The New Mexican. Eventually, any unusable ink is shipped back to the original ink company, US Ink, for further recycling.

The company also pays a local recycling firm to pick up cardboard and the 7,000 or more aluminum plates used for printing the newspaper each month.

"The only thing that goes out of the manufacturing plant is food waste," Waldron said. "We're a model company as far as recycling."

So where could The New Mexican and its employees improve?

The New Mexican doesn't buy wind energy yet, though Martin said if the city of Santa Fe builds a local biomass or renewable-energy power plant, she would be interested in supporting it.

The office paper doesn't have recycled content, something Waldron would like to change as price allows.

The parking lot is still full of cars, and few of them are hybrid, though many are fairly gas-efficient models. A few staff have bought motor scooters or motorcycles. Some staff use the city bus system or bike to work. One reporter, Tom Sharpe, bicycles to work regularly. Photographer Jane Phillips won a green star for the day she bicycled to three different assignments, heavy photo gear in tow.

A visit to The New Mexican's lunch room on any given weekday, however, indicates that's one big place staff could improve. The trash cans every day are full of discarded carry-out containers, plastic bags and Styrofoam cups.

Contact Staci Matlock at 470-9843 or smatlock@sfnewmexican.com.

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