A bill is currently being considered by members of the New Mexico State Legislature calling for the multi-million dollar repurposing of a building at 701 Camino De Los Marquez, roughly two miles to the southwest of downtown Santa Fe. Senator George Munez is asking his fellow lawmakers to appropriate up to $2.5 million in state funding to upgrade the 14,445 square foot structure for use as a new home for the state’s Public Regulation Commission. Under Senate Bill 144, that funding would go to the General Services Department to purchase the structure from its current owner, the Educational Retirement Board, which is moving to a new location. According to an analysis of Munez’s bill compiled by the Legislative Finance Committee, an exact price tag for how much it would cost to entirely renovate the existing ERB building is not known. For that reason, the total cost of purchasing and renovating the structure could be as high as $7.2 million. Munez has suggested that his legislation could ultimately save the state money for the simple reason that the current home of the Public Regulation Commission at 142 W. Palace Avenue is not owned by the state. That means that the PRC leases out its current headquarters at the rate of $25,000 a month. In recent years lawmakers have been trying to find alternatives to renting out space for various state offices, noting that such rents cost up to $11.2 million yearly. Munoz’s bill is moving its way through the legislature, having won the approval last week of the Senate Health and Public Affairs Committee. By Garry Boulard
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A wide variety of construction materials may soon be subject to federal laws governing their use on infrastructure building projects. The Office of Management and Budget has just released new proposed standards, in the form of a guidance, laying out a new federal requirement stating that “all manufacturing processes for construction material must occur in the United States.” The projects not only include those funded under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, but also housing developments receiving support through such initiatives as the Community Development Block Grant and Homes Investment Partnerships programs. The guidance is specific as to when a given building material may be subject to the new federal rules, with most materials impacted at the time of their manufacture. OMB’s announcement comes as President Biden in his State of the Union address remarked of upcoming federal infrastructure projects: “We’re going to buy American.” As reported in the Federal Register, public input on the proposed guidance will be accepted until March 13. By Garry Boulard Design work on a new combined housing and childcare facility in Steamboat Springs, Colorado could be underway early next month. In an unusual partnership between Steamboat Springs and the Colorado Department of Transportation, the project may be built on the west side of the city, although a specific site has not yet been decided upon. The goal of the project is to provide apartment units and childcare space for snowplow drivers who are employed by the state. With an average annual snowfall of about 368 inches, the ski resort destination Steamboat Springs is always in need of snow removal support for its roads and streets. Both city and CDOT officials have been looking at ways to attract more snowplow drivers to northern Colorado and see the prospect of affordable housing on state-owned sites as an important incentive. Notes the Steamboat Springs Pilot newspaper: combined housing and childcare facilities might well “lure plow drivers with families to CDOT’s vacant jobs,” while the agency sees “drivers with families as more stable candidates.” The exact size of the new housing project has yet to be determined, although it is expected that more specific details will be revealed during an upcoming conceptual design process. By Garry Boulard Department store giant Walmart has announced the upcoming closing of several stores nationally due to a number of issues, including weak financial performances. Six stores, four based in the Midwest and one each in the South and Southwest, are scheduled to close within the next month. The Southwest store is located in Albuquerque at 301 San Mateo Boulevard. The closures come two months after Doug McMillon, chief executive officer of Walmart, remarked on the TV show Squawk Box that stores thefts in 2022 had reached a historic high. “If that’s not corrected over time, prices will be higher, and/or stores will close,” McMillon remarked. Despite reports to the contrary, the company has not yet officially said whether more stores are scheduled for closure in the near future. City officials in Milwaukee, where a long-standing Walmart is set to shut its doors during the first two weeks of March, have announced that an effort is already underway exploring “possible replacement options” for the store. Stores earlier closed by the chain have been repurposed into community centers, libraries, and storage facilities, among other uses. Notes the publication CCIM: “Since these properties are never designated as historic buildings, no special restrictions apply to modifications, and they don’t have to preserve facades.” Based in Bentonville, Arkansas, Walmart currently operates in excess of 10,500 stores internationally—up from 8,500 a decade ago. Despite the closing of the six Walmart stores, the company continues to embrace an aggressive growth strategy. Earlier this year it announced plans to open just over 30 of its Sam’s Club locations over the next several years. Walmart locations greatly vary in size, but on average come in at about 180,000 square feet. By Garry Boulard Union craft workers in 2022 enjoyed an average 3.8% increase in wages, fringe benefits, and other employer payments, a new survey is reporting. That figure is up from the 2.8% recorded in 2020, but still significantly lower than a 4.6% highpoint reached just at the edge of the Great Recession in 2008. The Washington-based Construction Labor Research Council report says that of the nine regions it surveyed, wages last year showed the greatest gains in the Northwest with an increase of 5.2%. Gains were smaller in the West North Central region, which logged a 3.2% jump. Other sections of the country, including the Mountain Northern Plains, Southwest Pacific, and Southeast, all saw increases in excess of 3%. The most modest gains were recorded in the glazier category at 2.5%, while teamsters saw the biggest increase at 4.4%. Further down the list: operating engineers, cement masons, millwrights, and carpenters, all with increases at or above the 4% level. According to Construction Labor Research Council figures, the actual monetary gain has improved from well under $1 in 2011 to $2.33 last year. By Garry Boulard Plans are now underway for the renovation of a much-used Pueblo, Colorado high school stadium. Located at 1001 West Abriendo Avenue, the 12,500-seat Dutch Clark Stadium was completed in 1950 and has seen some incremental upgrades over the decades. Now officials with the Pueblo School District 60 hope to see the launching of a $5.2 million renovation to be done in two phases. The project, taken on in a partnership with the Pueblo Urban Renewal Authority, will see the first phase construction of a retaining wall, rebuilding of the stadium’s stairs, entryway improvements, and installation of sidewalks around the facility’s parking lots, among other endeavors. It is expected that all of the projects related to phase one will cost around $3.4 million. Second phase work, estimated at $1.8 million, is expected to include upgrades to the facility’s locker rooms, press box, and restrooms. Funding for the project will come in part from the Pueblo Urban Renewal Authority. If all goes well, work on the stadium may be completed by the fall 2024 semester. Formerly called the Pueblo Public School Stadium, the facility in 1980 was named in honor of Pueblo native, coach, and National Football League Hall of Fame player Earl “Dutch” Clark. By Garry Boulard Spaceport America’s complex is envisioning an addition to its existing facilities.
A request for design services proposal was released Thursday from the New Mexico Spaceport Authority for a 30,000 square foot multi-purpose building. According to the proposal, the three-story addition will house the Spaceport’s core IT server center, staff offices, conference rooms, a virtual experience center, an auditorium and viewing areas. “The new building will provide modern, comfortable work and meeting spaces for NMSA staff and a means to receive, entertain and educate groups of visitors and/or potential customers,” states the proposal. Completion of the project is scheduled for November of 2024, based on the proposed schedule for what is being named the Spaceport Technology and Reception Center. NMSA will also be preferentially seeking out a New Mexico/Native American and or a resident veteran team through a design-build method of construction. Proposals for the project will be due by March 16th, 2023. The new building will be located west of the currently existing, one-eye shaped, structure which sits on 110,147 square feet of land. Situated in the desert basin east of Truth or Consequences, the original facility’s entrance resembles a pupil receiving an eastbound beam of light funneling into an optic nerve. A façade on the terminal building’s west end captures the arriving and departing spacecraft as if being processed in the occipital lobe of the design’s brain. In 2014 the completed building was engineered by Foster + Partners, in collaboration with URS Corporation and SMPC Architects. The Spaceport’s design was awarded for excellence by both the American Institute of Architects and the National Association of Industrial and Office Properties. Norman Foster, founder of the global architectural firm Foster + Partners, was appointed to Advocate of the Forum to the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe’s Forum of Mayors in January, according to the UNECE's website. A decade ago, the global firm announced in a press release that it was consulting with the European Space Agency to explore constructing lunar housing with 3D printers. According to the agency’s website,” Foster + Partners devised a weight-bearing ‘catenary’ dome design with a cellular structured wall to shield against micrometeoroids and space radiation, incorporating a pressurized inflatable to shelter astronauts.” Back on earth the Houston Spaceport is seeking a contractor to complete a $150 million project focused on consumer retention by 2024 and includes: “the development of the entire site, introducing retail, hotels, education expansion, and infrastructure such as roads,” reported ABC News on January 31st. By Dane Vaughn A large industrial building site bordering downtown Albuquerque is on the market for $3.8 million. The site, which includes 56,000 square feet of building space, is the former home to Creamland Dairies Incorporated. The company was founded in 1938, producing, by the late 1980s, up to 1.4 million gallons of milk monthly, and 2.5 million gallons of ice cream annually. The company ceased its operations at the Broadway site in 2005, and now has production facilities at 10 Indian School Road NW. The property is a visible landmark to tens of thousands of passing drivers with its exterior facing Broadway and Coal painted to look like a 19th century warehouse, while a corner of the property at Coal and Arno Street SE resembles an ice cream store. The property, which includes some 20,000 square feet of subzero freezer space, and 12,000 square feet of dry storage space, among other features, is being listed by Commercial First Realty of Albuquerque. By Garry Boulard Even as fewer homes are being sold due to a rise in interest rates, the availability of new homes remains at a historic low. So said Christopher Hebert, the managing director of the Harvard Center for Housing Studies, in an appearance before the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. Noting that home prices substantially increased in 2021, Hebert said everything changed last year when the Federal Reserve upped interest rates. Result: “By the end of 2022 home price gains year-over-year were down to 8%, with monthly trends showing prices actually following.” Housing starts also took a dive, primarily in the single-family segment, plunging by around 30%, “ending the year at a pace close to the pre-pandemic level of around 900,000 new homes, once again below the long-term average.” And even though home buying greatly declined last year, “the number of homes on the market has stayed near historic lows,” said Hebert. In responding to these trends, Hebert told lawmakers that there is a “clear need for concerted efforts by the public, private, and non-profit sectors to pursue both regulatory reform and more efficient means of production to increase the supply of housing, and particularly of modest cost homes.” More specifically, Hebert attacked what he called the “multiple barriers to added supply” mentioning in particular the need to move away from “restrictive zoning codes and approval processes.” He pointed to the “efficient means of building homes through off-site production, and growth of the labor force” as two other tools that should be used to address the crunch. By Garry Boulard An important step forward has been taken with a project that is expected to see the construction of a 500,000 square foot microelectronic manufacturing campus on the northwest side of Colorado Springs. The Billerica, Massachusetts-based Entegris announced several months ago that it wants to build its facilities on just under 90 acres of land at 301 S. Rockrimmon Boulevard. The project will expand a presence that Entegris already has in the city: the company was founded more than two decades ago via the merger of the manufacturing companies Flouroware and Empak, which operated a 70,000 square foot facility in Colorado Springs. It is thought that it may cost as much as $631 million to build the new Entegris campus. Members of the El Paso County Board of County Commissioners have given their unanimous approval to providing some $9.2 million in incremental tax revenue for the project. That revenue will be spread out over a 25-year period. Various public officials, including Colorado Governor Jared Polis, have also expressed support for the project. As earlier announced, the project is also receiving around $115 million in various incentives from the Colorado Springs Chamber of Commerce and Economic Development Corporation, Colorado Springs Utilities, and several other entities. The proposed facility upon completion would, according to Entegris, be known as a “manufacturing center of excellence.” According to a company press release, the new facility will support Entegis’ advanced materials handling and microcontamination control divisions. Both of those divisions are tasked with developing products used to manufacture semiconductors. Company officials have said that the campus will most likely be built in phases, with the first phase seeing the construction of some 100,000 square feet. Work is expected to begin later this year, with an anticipated first phase completion date of summer 2024. By Garry Boulard |
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