‘Santa Fe Loo’ may be coming to provide relief to those in need

Public facility would take the load off museums and stores

SANTA FE — Relief may be on the way for visitors to Santa Fe’s downtown Plaza and businesses that allow people to use their rest room facilities regardless of whether they’re customers.

City councilors are considering an idea to place a “Santa Fe Loo” a block from the Plaza at the northeast corner of Sheridan Street and West Palace Avenue, next to the New Mexico Museum of Art. The plan calls for what would be a 51-square-foot facility estimated to cost the city $130,000.

For years, residents as well as tour-

ists have complained that the city’s historic Plaza, which draws hundreds of thousands of visitors per year, has no public rest rooms. People often look to use rest facilities at the art museum or downtown businesses like the La Fonda hotel and the Five & Dime General Store.

“And it’s not easy. Some people take advantage of that,” said Earl Potter, part-owner of the Five & Dime, adding that toilet paper occasionally turns up missing. It’s kind of a trade-off, he said, because the rest room does bring people into the store.

But Potter said he feels his business has a duty to open rest rooms to the public.

“When Deborah (his wife) and I and our partners opened the Five & Dime, we felt that along with serving Frito pie we had an obligation to do that,” he said. (Potter’s store sells Frito pie as it was concocted and made famous locally by the Woolworth store that formerly operated in the same Plaza location).

The Santa Fe Loo would be patterned after the Portland Loo in Oregon’s capital city, the first of its kind and described as a “simple, sturdy flush toilet kiosk.”

The loo, 5.5 feet in width and 9 feet long, would take up about the same amount of space as a parking spot and could be located on the south end of Sheridan Street right next to a pedestrian cross walk.

At a council Public Works Committee meeting Monday, Curt Temple, project administrator for the Public Works Department, said other locations were considered but that the spot near the museum was determined to be best. Councilor Joseph Maestas said he thought it would be a better idea to put the loo into the design of the yet-to-be built transit center, also on Sheridan Street.

Councilor Chris Rivera asked if the loo would be permanent facility.“It can be moved, but there would be a pretty significant cost to it,” Temple said.

The loo would be made with stainless steel walls with louvers at the top and bottom for ventilation. In addition to a commode hooked up to a sewer line, the facility would include a hand sanitizer station and would be ADA accessible. It would have a skylight and small solar panels to power LED fixtures and could come in a custom color matching the brown stucco on the Museum of Art.

Because of its location, the project would have to earn the approval of the Historic Districts Review Board. Temple said the current design does not meet historic standards.