ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) – It’s a showpiece complex designed to tackle Albuquerque’s homeless problem. In 2021, City officials bought an old hospital building, renovated it and, $36,000,000 later, the Gateway Center at Gibson Health Hub was born.
Ask anyone around City Hall about the Gateway Center and they’ll talk your ear off. They’ll tell you it’s more than just a homeless shelter. They’ll say it’s a place where Albuquerque’s itinerant population can expect a host of services from overnight beds to medical and behavioral health care. But there’s a dark side to the Gateway Center project and it’s something city officials don’t like to talk about. It’s a secret buried behind the walls of the antiquated structure on Gibson Avenue.
After purchasing the outdated hospital building, Albuquerque’s officials spent $9,500,000 renovating it. But the one thing city renovators didn’t count on was asbestos. Back in the 50s, when the Lovelace Clinic was constructed, asbestos was commonly used in building materials. Today, because exposure to hazardous material can be deadly, stringent federal regulations govern the renovation of old buildings containing asbestos. Only specially trained work crews are allowed to remediate asbestos. Full body suits, respirators, gloves, and boots are required. Asbestos debris must be bagged and disposed of in a designated hazardous waste landfill.
But, rather than comply with federal OSHA asbestos remediation regulations, project managers ignored them. “We had received several complaints that employees were being exposed to asbestos because demolition work was being done without following asbestos remediation practices,” New Mexico Occupational Health and Safety Bureau Chief Kristy Peck says. “It’s a serious allegation. So that’s when we stepped in,” Kristy Peck said.
New Mexico’s OSHA Bureau launched an investigation in 2023. “We determined that the city of Albuquerque had a plain indifference towards the Gateway Center and the fact that it had asbestos-containing material. The city willfully disregarded that and continued on with construction as normal, as if there was no asbestos-containing material in the areas they were working,” OSHA Bureau Chief Peck said.
OSHA investigators discovered Albuquerque’s violations were not merely mistakes or lapses in judgment. OSHA found city project managers intentionally disregarded the health and safety of employees and the public. When Albuquerque’s Rick Management Division learned there were reckless construction practices on the Gateway Center’s second floor, Risk Managers directed construction crews to stop work immediately. However, OSHA said, rather than comply with the directive, the Gateway Center’s project managers ignored it. In its complaint, OSHA stated that was an egregious violation. “That’s why we issued the two ‘willful’ serious violations,” Peck said.
OSHA cited the City of Albuquerque for six federal safety violations including a failure to protect employees from exposure to hazardous materials and improper disposal of asbestos waste. “Those construction workers didn’t know that they were being exposed to asbestos because the city failed to identify that as an asbestos-containing regulated area,” Kristy Peck said.
In a settlement agreement with New Mexico’s OSHA Bureau, Albuquerque must pay a $219,552 penalty for the asbestos-related violations. In addition, the city agrees to spend $94,000 for asbestos testing and training experts. City officials also are required to dole out another $180,448 over three years to provide medical monitoring for potentially exposed city workers and contractors. “We will hold every employer accountable for failing to protect their employees from any hazards, and specifically, for asbestos exposure in the workplace,” OSHA Bureau Chief Peck says.
“There was never an intention or a willfulness on our part to put anybody’s safety in danger,” says Albuquerque’s Chief Financial Officer, Kevin Sourisseau. “Lessons learned, all of us have a heightened awareness of asbestos. We’ve trained our staff. We have a more robust system for bringing complaints forward. Folks know and understand the importance of these complaints and to take them very seriously. Those are some of the changes that we’ve made to make sure that this doesn’t happen again,” Kevin Sourisseau says.
In addition to the City of Albuquerque penalties, OSHA’s New Mexico Bureau fined the Gateway Center’s General Contractor, Consolidated Builders of New Mexico, $331,475 for its role in the asbestos violations. An out-of-court settlement with Consolidated Builders of New Mexico has not been finalized.
From the highest level of city government, Albuquerque’s Chief Financial Officer Kevin Sourisseau pledged, safety first. “I am the CFO talking to you about asbestos, and I am well aware of the challenges, the dangers with older buildings in asbestos. And I will assure you our staff have been trained. They know what to look for. This should not happen again. I’m confident that we have taken steps necessary to mitigate risk going forward.”
“We’re doing inspections and we’re going to cite employers, as applicable, for the hazards that we find. We’re going to hold every single one of those employers accountable, no matter who they are, even a big city like the City of Albuquerque or a small municipality. We’re looking at everybody and we want to make sure that all employers are providing a safe working environment for their employees,” OSHA’s Kristy Peck says.