The Laboratory has reached an agreement with the Los Alamos Inn to provide housing for as many as 66 students throughout the summer, said Tom Short of the Los Alamos' Business Operations Division. Under the agreement, two students will share one room at the Los Alamos Inn at a cost to each student of $375 a month. The first 11 rooms became available May 1. The Los Alamos Inn will offer 22 more rooms for student use beginning June 1. Students can remain in the rooms through Aug. 31.
Short said students who use the Inn as their summer home will get free local phone calls, bi-weekly trash pickup, color television, use of data ports in the rooms for Internet access, use of the hotel swimming pool facility and weekly access to clean linen. The rooms do not have kitchen facilities.
As a way to help feed students, the Los Alamos Inn is planning to offer student meal specials at the hotel's restaurant, Short said, and the establishment has plans to offer pool-side social activities with food and beverage specials for students. In addition, the Inn is planning to offer use of conference facilities for student social activities if the facilities are not already booked, he said.
Rooms will be assigned on a first-come-first-served basis, but students should contact the Laboratory Housing Office at (505) 667-1726 to reserve their rooms.
Short said the Laboratory is expecting to hire between 1,700 and 1,800 students. This figure is up from the nearly 1,500 students who come to the Laboratory each summer.
And because housing is at a premium, Short said he has gotten reports that rents in Los Alamos have gone up - substantially in some cases.
"This agreement with the Los Alamos Inn is a way to provide additional housing to students during the summer," Short said. "We want students to know that an affordable option is out there if they need it."
Los Alamos National Laboratory, a multidisciplinary research institution engaged in strategic science on behalf of national security, is operated by Los Alamos National Security, LLC, a team composed of Bechtel National, the University of California, The Babcock & Wilcox Company, and the Washington Division of URS for the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration.
Los Alamos enhances national security by ensuring the safety and reliability of the U.S. nuclear stockpile, developing technologies to reduce threats from weapons of mass destruction, and solving problems related to energy, environment, infrastructure, health, and global security concerns.