![]() As the opening date of the New Mexico State Legislature nears, Governor Michelle Lujan-Grisham has proposed increased funding for a variety of initiatives, including $200 million for road projects across the state. The road initiative is but a small part of an overall spending proposal from the Governor, who is also asking lawmakers to approve $200 million more than the current $446 million for K-12 education; and $76 million to go into the Public Employees Retirement Association state pension plan. The Governor’s proposals come as the Legislative Finance Committee has released a report recommending a $7.5 billion budget for fiscal year 2020-2021, a nearly 6.5 percent increase over the current fiscal year. This year’s recommended spending budget represents “more modest growth compared with last year’s efforts to address court-ordered education reform and restore badly depleted programs,” said Committee Chairman Senator John Arthur Smith in a statement. But despite an improving revenue picture, Smith added, “We still have work to do to help the state recover from a financially stressful decade.” The Committee’s report, Recommendations and Highlights, notes that capital outlay requests for this year from all state agencies as well as higher education institutions, various schools, and local entities, total more than $3.8 billion. “Despite high oil and gas revenues, requests still outpace estimated severance tax bonding capacity of $362.3 million and general obligation bond capacity of $198.9 million.” The committee recommends spending nearly $196 million on nearly forty higher education institution capital projects, including $30 million for the University of New Mexico’s Health Sciences Center for a new College of Nursing and Population Health building. Also recommended: $18 million for phase two construction of the new agricultural center at New Mexico State University. The committee additionally recommends spending up to $33 million in general obligation bonds for senior center construction and upgrade projects across the state, as well as $9.5 million for library facility work statewide. By Garry Boulard
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![]() The third phase of a project seeing the expansion of the Town Park Pavilion in Telluride could begin sometime this winter. The park is located at 500 E Colorado Avenue. Featuring a swimming pool, tennis and basketball courts, and fishing pond, the park is one of the most popular public amenities in the northern Colorado town of roughly 2400 residents. The pavilion itself houses the Hanley Ice Rink. As proposed, the project will see the addition of around 3300 square feet to an existing facility set to include locker rooms, restrooms, a skate sharpening shop, and storage space. The local Telluride News took particular notice of the building's entrance, "constructed with huge timbers and metal fittings to resemble the oversized entrance to a 19th-century mine." As planned, the latest phase work, which will also include site preparation and some demolition, has a completion date of October 1. By Garry Boulard new study: cost pressures expected to challenge engineering and construction companies in 20201/8/2020 ![]() Although signs are pointing to a generally robust 2020 for the nation's engineering and construction companies, the horizon is not entirely cloudless, says a report released by the Deloitte accounting firm, whose US offices are in New York. The industry's traditionally low margins, combined with increasing project complexity, fierce competition from Asian companies and supply chain constraints, will likely continue to put extra pressure on US companies' profitability in 2020," says Deloitte's 2020 Engineering and Construction Industry Outlook. The report also notes that "construction and input costs for key building materials, such as steel, are rising, largely driven by limited supply and tariff uncertainties." Such challenges, the Deloitte publication continues, "make it important for contractors to be proactive in managing processes and operations that contribute to margins and profitability, adding efficiencies and optimization where possible." Among the trends pointed to in the report that could positively impact the bottom line is a move in the industry towards modularization and the prefabrication of components. That trend is becoming so pronounced, notes the report, that many companies have launched their own module assembly yards, described as "strategically located sites for fabrication and assembling building elements that can then be transferred to a building site for rapid assembly." The report also predicts a greater use of the kind of smart project management that will see companies adopting a number of emerging digital technologies. "Digital technology and real-time date enable schedulers to make better informed decisions around scheduling labor and materials for a particular project," notes the report. "Project monitoring is moving beyond documenting cost overruns and construction delays to include more real-time and forward-looking insights." Such technologies, recommends the Deloitee study, will also "eliminate the need for manual data entry and provide the date required to access project status and identify trends and areas that should be addressed." By Garry Boulard ![]() Plans have now been finalized for the construction of a 230-room full service hotel that will go up in Scottsdale at the southwest corner of Legacy Blvd and Hayden Rd. The project is the results of an economic development agreement between the City of Scottsdale and the Columbus, Ohio-based developer Nationwide Realty Investors that will also include around 10,000 square feet of conference space. Called Cavasson, the project, on a total of 134 acres, is being billed as a mixed-use development including bike paths, tree-line sidewalks, community gathering spaces, and green space. The hotel will be part of a larger multi-phase project seeing the creation of a 460,000 square feet, five-story regional headquarters building for the Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company. The second phase of the larger project calls for the building of the hotel, along with some 207,000 square feet of commercial space. A final third phase will be devoted to building another 192,000 square feet of commercial space. Late last year, Nationwide Realty Investors additionally announced the planned construction of two new office buildings on the Cavasson campus. one will measure nearly 322,000 square feet, and the other will come in at 164,000 square feet. Both of these planned structures will be five stories in height. By Garry Boulard ![]() A 48,000 square foot medical education facility focusing on the teaching of orthopedics may see construction later this year in Rio Rancho. Members of the Rio Rancho Governing Body could decide by the end of the month to entire into a formal agreement with the University of New Mexico to build the structure. As envisioned, the two-story structure, which will be an expansion of UNM’s Health Sciences Rio Rancho campus, would include offices, classrooms, clinics, and research space. With an estimated $21 million price tag, the building is expected to go up in the vicinity of the UNM Sandoval Regional Medical Center, which is located at 3001 Broadway Boulevard NE. Funding to build the new facility, which could be up and running by the fall of 2021, will likely come through a higher education gross receipts tax that was approved by Rio Rancho voters more than a decade ago. Revenues from that tax, as stated in the March 2008 ballot language, are to be partially used for “acquisition, construction, renovation or improvement of facilities of a four-year post-secondary public educational institution” located within Rio Rancho. In a statement, Rio Rancho Mayor Gregg Hull said, “The new facility would result in not only a learning space for students, but also an orthopedic center and cutting-edge healthcare technology.” By Garry Boulard ![]() The cost of building a new structure last month increased across the board, according to a new survey released jointly by IHS Markit and the Procurement Executives Group. This marks, according to the survey, the 38th month in a row in which the national construction industry has been hit with increased costs. “Both the materials and equipment, and subcontractor labor indexes indicated continued price increases,” noted the survey, adding that respondents reported increased prices for ten out of twelve components within the materials and equipment sub-index. Only in the carbon steel pipe and fabricated structural steel categories did prices see a decline. The survey additionally notes that electrical equipment, transformers, and turbines were all costing contactors more at the end of 2019 than they were at the beginning. “A majority of respondents reported higher prices for copper-based wire and cable for the first time since August,” the survey continues. In a press release, John Mothersole, director at IHS Markit, noted: “Sentiment has improved in copper markets primarily on hopes that U.S.-China trade negotiations will yield further progress. Higher copper prices are also supported by underlying fundamentals, which remain tight due to sluggish production growth over the past year.” An additional cost increase: ocean freight prices to the U.S. from both Europe and Asia. Respondents also indicated that their companies remained challenged filling all truck driver, pipe fitting, and welder positions. The IHS Markit/Procurement Executives Group survey is based on data gathered from procurement executives in major construction and engineering firms across the country. By Garry Boulard ![]() A grocery store company that already has more than 150 individual outlets in Colorado could be moving towards the construction of two - and possibly three - more. King Soopers, which was launched in 1947 and enjoys annual revenues of more than $1.9 billion, has begun the necessary paperwork to build a new store in the growing northeast Colorado exurb of Falcon. In papers filed with the El Paso County Planning and Community Development department, King Soopers has indicated that it wants to build a new 123,000 square foot outlet in the Falcon Marketplace at Meridian Road and East Woodmen Road. The store would go up on an 11.5-acre site and will also include an island fuel center with nine gas pumps. The chain has additionally announced plans to build a 123,000 square foot store in the 2300 block of S. College Avenue in Fort Collins. That store would be designed to replace a smaller 50,000 square foot King Soopers’ outlet some two blocks away, and would be built at the site of a former Kmart store. There is also speculation that yet another new King Soopers store could be going up in Pueblo at another Kmart property near the intersection of Elizabeth Street and U.S. Highway 50. No specific building plans regarding any of the new Colorado locations have yet been made by King Soopers, which is owned by the Kroger Company. By Garry Boulard ![]() Plans are underway to convert an existing three story industrial building in Denver’s Arapahoe Square neighborhood into a new hostel inn. The Austin-based Native Experiential Hostels has announced its purchase of an 11,000 square foot structure located on a less than one-acre site at 2235 Arapahoe Street. The building is 130 years old. In purchasing the property for $2.6 million, the company also bought an adjacent parking lot. Although the exact repurposing plans for the building have not been revealed, reports indicate that a 10,000 square foot addition to that structure will be built in the existing parking lot. Work on the building is expected to begin later this year, with the hostel opening for business sometime in the first quarter of 2021. Native Experiential Hostels launched its first location in Austin nearly three years ago, offering a boutique-style operation with half a dozen beds per dorm space, as well as a restaurant and bar, at greatly reduced prices for travelers. The new hostel operation in Denver will open in a city that already has at least four such businesses up and running, with prices ranging from $25 to $52 per night. The Arapahoe Street property was built in 1889 and was most recently used as office and warehouse space for a plumbing and heating company. Before that, the building served as the home to the Utility Novelty Manufacturing Company. In opening its first location in downtown Austin, Native Experiential Hostels transformed a more than 100 year-old structure and next-door warehouse space into a hostel with a 4,000 square foot communal space. The company earlier announced plans to also open similar properties in Nashville and New Orleans. By Garry Boulard ![]() Construction outlays increased in late 2019, according to the latest U.S. Census Bureau figures. Altogether, construction spending was up by 0.6 percent in November over the month before, with a total dollar value of $1.3 billion. But despite that strong November performance, construction spending actually posted an overall decline of 0.8 percent for the first eleven months of last year compared to 2018. The largest November segment increase was seen in power industry construction, posting a gain of 4.3 percent, with oil and gas pipelines and field structure construction spending up by a large 12 percent. In the public construction segment, highway and street spending was significantly up by 7.6 percent. Air, transit, rail, and port construction saw a 12 percent jump in November, and education facility construction went up by an even larger 13 percent. At the same time, private residential spending increased 1.9 percent from October to November, with single-family construction showing a 1.2 percent jump in November over the month before. The Census Bureau report, called simply Construction Spending, is a monthly estimate of the total dollar value of all construction work done in the U.S. The report focuses on new public and private sector construction projects, as well as upgrades and renovations to existing structures. The latest numbers for December’s construction outlays are scheduled to be released by the Census Bureau on February 3. By Garry Boulard ![]() Santa Fe officials are hoping to get up to $1.5 million from the short 30-day session of the New Mexico State Legislature to pay for the construction of an upgraded irrigation system. That system will be built at the city’s Municipal Recreation Sports Complex and will be designed to increase both water conservation and reliability. The $1.5 million request is part of a larger more than $23 million in capital outlay funding for a variety of infrastructure projects that the city is hoping will be approved by lawmakers. The 1,200-acre complex is located at 205 Caja Del Rio Road and is made up of two integrated recreational facilities: the complex’s multi-purpose sports fields and the Marty Sanchez Links de Santa Fe. Last summer members of the Santa Fe City Council approved a plan to irrigate the complex’s fields and golf course after it was learned that the wastewater used there was deemed unusable. According to reports, phosphorus levels, including E.coli, exceeded state of New Mexico limits during a three-day period in June. By Garry Boulard |
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