Thanks to a new $15,000 grant from PNM, the Belen MainStreet Partnership and City of Belen will begin restoration of the leaky roof at old city hall.

“Belen was recently recognized as an emerging MainStreet community,” Gov. Susana Martinez said during the announcement on December 18, “And is working to develop its distinctive characteristics, like restoring the roof on old city hall and the police station, an historic building which dates back to the New Deal era.”

The old city hall is a Works Progress Administration project, originally constructed during the Great Depression. Over the years, the building housed city hall, the fire department, police department and the municipal court.

The building has been closed for more than a decade when the City of Belen purchased the bank that is the current city hall at Main Street and Becker Avenue.

The Belen MainStreet Partnership is first working to make the building visually presentable from the street, painting the building and providing new window coverings that will remove most of the plywood and other boards on the windows.

The group hopes to find funding sources in the near future to secure the building with new doors and locks and begin repair work inside.