County opts against lease of former club.
The interior of the old Paramount Lounge and Nightclub looks more like a setting from
This Old House
than the vibrant Santa Fe hot spot it once was.
The club's main foyer is nearly abandoned, save a smattering of blueprints and easels. The once-gaudy Bar B has been transformed into a makeshift office, with a few desks and computers but not much more.
Ana Maria Gallegos y Reinhardt, executive director of Warehouse 21, thought the Paramount an ideal venue for the local nonprofit's upcoming shows. Warehouse 21 is leaving its own building on Paseo de Peralta in January.
But Gallegos y Reinhardt's
request to Santa Fe County, which owns the Paramount building, was denied.
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"The county was very amiable, but told us that it wasn't going to happen," she says. "We thought that it might work for us for a while, but the county has a greater need."
Santa Fe County bought the Paramount building, at 331 Sandoval St., in the summer of 2005 for approximately $2 million to expand office space and build a new courthouse. Much of the facility has since remained vacant, making it a tantalizing prospect in a city with limited options for live music and performance.
According to Joseph Gutierrez, director of the county's Project and Facilities Management Department, officials initially considered leasing out the property.
"From the time we purchased it, we've had groups interested in renting it-commercial businesses, people who wanted to throw parties, groups that wanted to hold functions," he says. "With a building like this, though, you have to look at liabilities."
The county has thus decided the property is better suited for its own staff, like the Information Technology Department, which is already moving into the building. The area around the Paramount is being used as a parking depot for government cars. All signs indicate the building will eventually be razed to make way for the courthouse. Except one: a "for lease" posting on the club's front doors, which needs to be taken down, Gutierrez says.
In November, voters approved a ballot measure that will provide $25 million in general obligation bonds to help pay for the judicial complex. That decision, Gutierrez says, solidified the county's decision not to lease the Paramount space at all.
Another nearby business, Blue Monkey Salon, at 225 Montezuma Ave., is still waiting to hear whether it will have to move to make way for the courthouse [Outtakes, March 22: "
"].
"We haven't heard anything yet, but we're guessing something will happen toward the beginning of the year," Blue Monkey co-owner Joel Hobbie says.
Meanwhile, the Paramount-overgrown with vines, its glass windows flecked with graffiti-looks dead. Unless you're a county car, that is.
