Just weeks after a Texas-based development firm pulled out of an effort to redevelop a 63-acre campus in Santa Fe, city officials are weighing new ideas to keep the project intact. With the city, which owns the land, burdened with an annual debt load of $1.7 million for the property, a proposal to simply sell the land outright is now receiving serious consideration. In a presentation to members of the Santa Fe City Council, the Berkeley-based Strategic Economics consulting firm described the former site of the Santa Fe University of Art and Design as a “distressed asset” for the city, and one that might be enhanced by demolishing several declining structures on the campus. In late January KDC/Cienda Partners, the master developer earlier chosen by the city to reimagine the property, exercised an option to not proceed with the project. In announcing that decision, KDC/Cienda described the infrastructure of the campus as “incomplete and obsolete,” adding that it would require at least $30 million to both demolish the structures and develop anything new. City officials say the idea of selling the campus is now one of several options under current consideration. Another option would see a return to a Request for Expressions of Interest process that could produce new development ideas for the property. The city, which has announced its intention to conduct bi-weekly updates on plans for the project, originally received seven responses from master developers submitting ideas for the property. By Garry Boulard
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State capitals across the country have been grappling for months with the economic consequences of the Covid-19 outbreak last spring. Now, a new report issued by the Washington-based National Association of State Budget Officers is predicting that overall state revenues are expected to drop by 4.4% for fiscal 2021, with rainy day funds forecast to be off by $33 billion because of the pandemic. The association’s Fiscal Survey of States notes that the pandemic has made itself felt in all 50 states, as well as the District of Columbia. But the report adds that the impact has varied depending upon the states’ “economics, tax structures, virus transmission levels, and other areas that have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic.” In general, states “facing higher unemployment rates, are generally seeing larger impacts on their economies and tax revenues.” In response, notes the report, states as early as last summer began to reduce their budgets through spending cuts, hiring freezes, and salary reductions. Some states, in desperation, have increasingly turned to “federal assistance to offset some eligible general fund costs related to pandemic response and relief.” At the same time, 35 states have experienced lower revenue growth from sales, personal income, corporate income, and gaming taxes. The report is predicting continued revenue declines for the new fiscal year, forcing many states in the months ahead to revise their overall revenue forecasts. Such changes in revenue are only naturally expected to impact state expenditures pertaining to transportation and infrastructure projects, as well as public building construction. The report adds that while current state revenue projections are in some ways dire, the report itself “represents a point in time, as spending and revenue projections continue to be moving targets.” By Garry Boulard A large studio and location filming space in Tucson that has been closed for most of the last year could be reopened for business as a tourist attraction in late 2021. And plans may also be in the works for the eventual construction of a new sound stage at the site. The Old Tucson Studios closed its doors last summer after Payroll Protection Program funding it was receiving had expired. The facility was originally opened in 1939, subsequently serving as the site for hundreds of Western movies starring the likes of John Wayne, Ronald Reagan, Paul Newman, and Kurt Russell, among other well-known performers. Made up of a larger 360-acre tourist park with dozens of structures replicating a typical 19th century Western town, Old Tucson Studios was also a tourist attraction bringing in visitors from around the world who wanted to see where such iconic TV series as Bonanza, Gunsmoke, and Little House on the Prairie were produced. With the property for the studios owned by Pima County, public officials in recent months have been trying to find a new purpose for what for years has been one of Arizona’s most durable attractions. The county has additionally taken on the management of the facility, while also paying for its upkeep and insurance. Ultimately, county officials say they want to see the site restored as a tourist attraction, with the construction of a large sound stage sparking new movie and television production work. What is called the Pima County Old Tucson Task Force is currently tasked with sifting through proposals for the site, with the hope of awarding a lease by summer. By Garry Boulard Work is now in the planning stage for the much-anticipated remodeling of a historic two-story library in Manitou Springs in central Colorado. Members of the Manitou Springs City Council have approved issuing a Request for Proposals for engineering and design work on the 110 year-old structure. One of more than two dozen Colorado libraries built with funding from the legendary industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, the downtown Manitou Springs Carnegie Library was opened in early 1911. Officials with the larger Pikes Peak Library District have said that the library, located at 701 Manitou Avenue, has long been in need of an upgrade that will also make the structure compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act. The city has secured around $300,000 for a project that is expected to take around three years to complete, but will in the months to come be seeking additional funding from other sources. A pathfinder in the development of the country’s steel industry, Carnegie donated at least $350 million in his lifetime to various civic endeavors, including the construction of some 3,000 public libraries. Upon Carnegie’s instructions, those libraries were designed to be free and open to the public. Regarded as architectural wonders, more than 1,700 Carnegie libraries are still in existence, including four in Arizona, twenty-five in Colorado, and three in New Mexico. By Garry Boulard A construction confidence index compiled by the Washington-based Associated Builders and Contractors is showing an uptick in both construction sales and staffing levels indicating “expectations of growth over the next six months.” The sales confidence index response, according to the ABC survey, is now at 58.4, up from a December response of 56.6. The index for staffing levels now stands at 48.6; compared with 42.4 two months ago. Forecasting contractors’ likely profit margins for the next half year, the index also shows a smaller 31.0 result, but even that is up from where it was in late December when the index recorded a 29.8 response. Although all of the index results are substantially lower from where they were in the pre-pandemic month of January 2020, the numbers still show an increasing early 2021 optimism. “The anticipation is that the second half of the year will be spectacular from a growth perspective, which will help lift industry fortunes as 2022 approaches,” said Anirban Basu, ABC chief economist, in a statement. Basu added that although contractors have been plagued with public health and supply chain challenges in the last year, a wider use of vaccinations will allow those same contractors to benefit from “fewer interruptions going forward and the restart of postponed projects.” The ABC survey also indicates that the backlog for commercial and heavy industrial projects has increased by a combined average of just over 7 months. At the same time, the backlog for infrastructure projects has decreased from nearly 9 months to 7 months. The survey additionally shows that the backlog timeframe is currently the longest for construction companies with annual revenues in excess of $100 million at more than 12 months, while the time frame is the shortest, at 6.6 months, for companies with revenues at or below the $30 million level. By Garry Boulard One of the largest real estate development companies in the country is laying the groundwork to build a series of new residential communities in the next two years. The Scottsdale-based Meritage Homes Corporation has spent nearly $130 million in the last year purchasing land in both metro Phoenix and Tucson for future development. With projects based primarily in states of the south and west, Meritage Homes, founded in 1985, according to the Phoenix Business Journal, is the “seventh largest publicly traded homebuilder in the nation.” In just the final quarter of last year, the company secured orders for nearly 3,200 new homes. In the next year, Meritage hopes to build upwards of 245 new residential communities, with a larger goal of 300 by summer 2022. Last month the company additionally announced plans to build 169 new homes in Texas City in southeastern Texas. Meritage’s business model for southern Arizona tracks the region’s unprecedented growth, which has seen the population of metro Phoenix and Tucson increase by half a million people in the last decade. By Garry Boulard Work could begin later this spring on a 43,000 square foot hospital on the northeast side of Avondale, Arizona. The Austin, Texas-based ClearSky Health says it wants to build what will be an inpatient rehabilitation facility at the intersection of West McDowell Road and 109th Avenue. The new hospital, which is expected to cost $25 million to build, will have enough space to house 30 beds, as well as an activity space, dining room, and rehabilitative gymnasium. The new hospital will particularly focus on rehabilitative treatment for patients with brain and spinal injuries, not to mention multiple sclerosis and Parkinson’s disease. Founded in 2019, ClearSky is regarded as a premiere rehabilitative healthcare provider and currently has nearly half a dozen hospitals up and running in Louisiana, New Mexico, and Texas. In a statement, Darby Brockette, chief executive officer of ClearSky, noted the Avondale area’s “unmet need for inpatient rehabilitative services,” and said the new hospital would provide services that “individuals would otherwise have to leave the area to receive.” Construction of the new hospital is expected to take around 13 months, which would give it an early summer 2022 completion date. ClearSky opened a 33,000 square foot, 25-bed facility in Rio Rancho, New Mexico last fall, as well as a 56,300 square foot facility housing 29 beds in the town of Flower Mound in northern Texas. By Garry Boulard Noting a gain of 160,000 new jobs nationally since November, a new White House release contends that the current pace of recovery is “far below the rate necessary to pull us out of the pandemic jobs deficit.” Noting that the latest job numbers for January verify that there are roughly 10 million fewer jobs in early 2021 compared to where those numbers stood in February of last year, the White House additionally says that although the national unemployment rate is now down to 6.5%, that is still nearly 3% higher than the rate last February. The White House statement contends that the most recent job numbers are “yet another reminder that our economy remains in a hole worse than the depths of the Great Depression.” The statement, issued by Jared Bernstein and Heather Boushey, both members of the president’s Council of Economic Advisers, contends that job gains in the last three months “mask very different trends across industries.” The two economists particularly note that “some industries, including leisure and hospitality, education and health services, retail trade, transportation, and warehousing, manufacturing, and construction, saw job losses,” even as other industries, such as professional and business services, recorded increases. Because of the uneven and sometimes up and down nature of the jobs recovery, the White House statement is urging Congressional passage of additional relief until the pandemic is brought under control, so that “families and businesses can stay solvent, and that workers can feed their families and keep a roof over their heads.” In an interview with the Reuters news service, Boushey emphasized the need for extended unemployment benefits as a part of any economic recovery package, remarking: “Unemployment benefits are one of the first lines of defense in any recession.” By Garry Boulard A project that could see the construction of a new senior citizen center in the northwestern New Mexico town of Prewitt may soon secure crucial state funding. The state’s Aging and Long-Term Services Department has submitted a request to the New Mexico State Legislature asking for up to $2 million in capital outlay funding to build the facility. As proposed, funding for the Casamero Lake Chapter Senior Center, which would be a part of the Casamero Lake chapter of the Navajo Nation, will pay for the planning, design, and building of the new structure. The Casamero Lake project is one of just over a dozen items presented by the Aging and Long-Term Services Department to lawmakers asking for around $3 million in capital outlay support. Other requests include $195,000 for the design and building of an addition to the Ojo Encino Chapter senior center, also a part of the Navajo Nation; and $100,000 for the planning and building of improvements to the Hidalgo County Ena Mitchell Senior Center in the southwestern town of Lordsburg. An additional request is asking for $125,000 for the planning, designing, and upgrading of kitchen space at the Beatrice Martinez Senior Center in Espanola in northern New Mexico. Tasked with providing long-term care options, transportation, and prescription drug assistance, the New Mexico Aging and Long-Term Services Department late last year submitted a $52.5 million budget for fiscal year 2022 to the state. That figure, $4,000 more than the department’s 2021 budget, partly reflects increased services the agency has been providing during the pandemic. By Garry Boulard Requests for family service and substance abuse treatment facility work, along with a Little League playing field upgrade, are among the projects Bernalillo County officials are hoping to secure funding for in the current session of the New Mexico State Legislature. Altogether, the county is asking for a total of around $10 million in capital outlay funding for nine non-profit facility projects. The largest item on the list is a request for $5 million to pay for both the demolition of an existing structure belonging to the long-standing PB&J Family Services group in the South Valley as well as the planning and building of a replacement structure. The county also hopes to secure $3.3 million in funds to design and build an educational center and agricultural food hub that will belong to the Albuquerque-based First Choice Community Health. Exactly $500,000 is being asked for both demolition as well as construction work for the Serenity Mesa Adolescence Substance Abuse Transitional Living Facility, located at 3701 Condershire Drive in Albuquerque. The funding would additionally be used for landscaping, fencing, and parking work. A smaller item is asking for $300,000 for the designing, building, and improvement of common field areas belonging to the Paradise Hills Little League on the northwest side of the city. Altogether this year, Bernalillo County is asking for a total of more than $39 million in capital outlay funding for public safety, public works, and non-profit facility work. By Garry Boulard |
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