![]() A bill is winding its way through the Arizona State Legislature that would provide funding for the building of a water infrastructure project in the upper northern part of the state. As proposed by Senator Theresa Hatathlie, Senate Bill 1469 would provide just over $5.4 million for the expansion of a water treatment plant in the small town of Page; with another $13.5 million going for the design and construction of a pipeline connected to the project. A final $23 million is slated for the design and construction of an intake pump station. The funding would come out of the state’s General Fund. The project has long been in the talking stage and would provide, if built, needed water infrastructure for the city of Page, which has a population of around 7,200 people, as well as nearby LeChee, four miles to the south, with a population of some 1,400 people. According to sources, the new water infrastructure would replace existing infrastructure that dates to the 1950s. The bill is now in the House Rules Committee, with the larger legislature scheduled to conclude its spring session on April 22. By Garry Boulard
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![]() Plans have been announced for the construction of a new Veterans Affairs care facility in El Paso. The El Paso VA Medical Center will go up on the east side of the city within the borders of the William Beaumont Medical Center campus at Fort Bliss and will be designed to respond to the healthcare needs of the roughly 46,000 veterans who live in surrounding El Paso County and beyond. Funding for VA care facility projects in El Paso has been secured by Congress in two phases. Last year, $150 million was approved for work on the existing nearly 30-year-old VA care center at 5001 N. Piedras Street, which opened in the fall of 1995. The latest round of funding is dedicated to the construction of the new center. As planned, the new facility will be built adjacent to the William Beaumont Army Medical Center at 18511 Highlander Medics Street. It is thought that it will take at least 4 years to complete the new center. By Garry Boulard ![]() Despite forecasts issued late last year that student housing construction is slowing down, the demand for such housing remains as great as ever, says a new report. The commercial real estate data and research firm Yardi Matrix is recording that both student housing rent growth as well as preleasing activity has shown record growth during the first quarter of this year, with the “momentum expected to continue for the remaining six months of the leasing season” until mid-summer. The demand appears to be the most acute in “larger, more competitive universities where enrollment is increasingly concentrated.” The demand, additionally, is seen for housing both on and near campuses. University markets located in urban or downtown areas seem to be seeing the greatest demand for student housing, a decided improvement over where things stood in late 2020 during the pandemic when such demand was significantly off. Of the 200 universities surveyed by Yardi Matrix, just under 70% of beds were already leased for the fall 2023 semester. That number marks a 7.8% increase compared with the first quarter of 2022. At the same time rents have increased by some 7% during the first quarter of this year, compared with January to March of last year, for an average of $829 per bedroom. That $829 marks the highest rent ever recorded for this particular market segment. The pipeline also looks promising, with around 70,000 student housing bedrooms currently under construction, a jump of 20,000 beds over the last four months of last year. Despite all the good news, the Yardi Matrix report warns that “high interest rates, reduced debt-market liquidity and weakening investor sentiment” are combining to put a damper on long-term student housing construction prospects. By Garry Boulard ![]() Up to $13 million in new funding may soon be available for the construction of affordable housing in Colorado if a bill in the state legislature becomes law. The measure will place the $13 million in what is called the Unused State-Owned Real Property Fund, thus supporting the state’s existing Public-Private Collaboration Unit, which is tasked with spurring housing on publicly owned land. The collaboration unit was created last year as the result of a vote by the legislature. It specifically called for the state’s Department of Personal & Administration to plan and design public-private partnership projects with the goal of increasing affordable housing. An important part of the legislation is the real estate component: by spurring affordable housing construction on land owned by the state, the cost of any such development is substantially reduced. Now Senator Dylan Robert, in proposing Senate Bill 23-001, hopes to build on last year’s creation of the collaboration unit by exactly spelling out how local public private partnerships can spur affordable home construction. The legislature further outlines policies for donations and the use of proceeds from real estate transactions, while also establishing, according to the language of the bill, a process for “using requests for information to solicit public projects.” A recent analysis compiled by the Washington-based group Up for Growth, which is dedicated to housing solutions, said that the Centennial State is currently in need of at least 127,000 new affordable housing units in order to keep up with demand. Senator Roberts’ bill is now under consideration in the Colorado House of Representatives. By Garry Boulard ![]() Funding for a series of senior citizen center construction and upgrade projects has won the approval of New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham. As proposed by the state’s Aging and Long-Term Services Department, more than 70 such projects were initially approved earlier this spring by members of the New Mexico State Legislature. The largest such project on the list: the construction of a senior center in Gallup, which received $7.4 million in funding. That $7.4 million is specifically designated not just for construction work, but also the planning and design of the center, as well as its furnishing. What is being called the Gallup Regional Senior Center previously secured $5.5 million in funding as a result of the successful passage last November of the state’s General Obligation Bond 1. The new Gallup facility is designed to replace a current senior center at 607 N. 4th Street, which, according to state documents, is “limited in its ability to expand and meet the growing and changing needs” of the city’s seniors. By Garry Boulard ![]() Accelerating an already existing pattern, more than 2 million people moved out of the largest urban counties in the United States in the last two years, primarily as a result of the Covid 19 pandemic, according to a new report. That report, As Major Cities Struggle to Rebound, Remote Work Continues to Shift Population Growth, published by the Washington-based Economic Innovation Group, charts an exit of some 1.2 million people between the covid summer of 2020 and the following summer. Another 860,000 people headed for the suburbs or countryside between July of 2021 and last July. While smaller urban counties have somewhat bounced back since the worst of the exit in 2020, the report records that exurban and suburban counties saw the greatest growth in the last two years, adding 931,000 people in 2021 and 832,000 last year. The urban exit is most dramatic when compared with trends over the last decade: in 2013 only 100,000 people had left the nation’s most urban counties, a pattern that gradually climbed to just over 450,000 the year before the Covid 19 outbreak. A parallel trend supporting urban exit has been the emergence of remote work. In an earlier published report by the Economic Innovation Group, it was noted that the availability of remote work has been “an important driver of population loss in dense urban counties.” Although the remote work effect has diminished somewhat in recent months, says the report, the fact that in the fall of 2021 “nearly four times as many people planned to move because of remote work as had moved already,” suggests that “the long-run impact is still unfolding.” By Garry Boulard ![]() Up to $15 million in federal funding is being made available for an effort in El Paso that could lead to the construction of more affordable housing in the city. The funding is coming through the Home Investment Partnership Program, which is run by the Department of Housing and Urban Development and will underwrite the building and/or rehabilitation of structures that can be used for affordable housing. The program also provides funding for demolition projects that may lead to new construction. El Paso has announced the program’s offerings via a Notice of Availability, encouraging private investors and developers, as well as public agencies and community housing development organizations, to apply. In the formal announcement of the Notice of Availability, it is noted that “housing affordability is an increasing burden on residents as they struggle to afford rent or access homeownership. At the same time, the development along the edges of the region, coupled with disinvestment in existing neighborhoods, is undermining the economic strength of the region.” According to the site RentCafe, the average apartment rent in El Paso is now at just over $1,000. While that figure is considerably lower than the national average of $1,937, it still represents a jump from where things stood in 2019 when the average stood at $850. The challenge is made even more real in El Paso due to the pattern of recent housing construction. According to the Notice of Availability, new housing development in El Paso in recent years has mostly taken place in the outer suburbs of the city. This pattern, says the Availability Notice, has led to “disinvestment in housing in existing neighborhoods, thereby contributing to blight and lower property values.” The Home Investment Partnership Program for El Paso has an application deadline of July 31. By Garry Boulard ![]() A proposal to build a new arena for the Arizona Coyotes hockey team, which will also see the construction of a surrounding 46-acre entertainment district, is set to go before voters in Tempe next month. The team, which is currently playing at Arizona State University’s Mullett Arena, has been in talks with the City of Tempe for some months now to build a facility that would go up just to the west of the city’s downtown core at Rio Salado Parkway and Priest Drive. Late last year members of the Tempe City Council unanimously voted to present the project as a referendum to be decided by Tempe voters. As proposed, the arena and entertainment district project is expected to cost around $2.1 billion and will see the building of an arena with a seating capacity of some 16,000. The entertainment district would feature at least two hotels, as well as a retail center, space for a series of restaurants, and a private medical office campus. The district will also include a practice rink for the Coyotes. Additional features: 350,000 square feet of Class A office space, and just over 1,600 residential units. In recent weeks, the team has been pushing for passage of the referendum via a campaign effort officially called Tempe Wins. That effort has noted that what was once a former landfill site will be transformed, if the election proves successful, into a “vibrant 365-day-a-year mixed use entertainment district.” The Coyotes project has sparked the opposition of several community groups, including the recently-formed Tempe 1st, which is arguing that the project is nothing more than a tax handout for billionaire Alex Meruelo, the owner of the Meruelo Group which, in turn, is the majority owner of the Arizona Coyotes. The campaign slogan for Tempe 1st: “No New Handouts for Billionaires.” The election is scheduled for May 16. By Garry Boulard Life Sciences Lab Construction On a Ride During the Pandemic, Still Seeing Growth, Says Report4/12/2023 ![]() Continuing to expand in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, the nation’s life science lab space is expected to grow by around 20% between now and 2025, according to a new report. The commercial real estate services company CRBE Group thinks that 20% growth will be seen in the construction of both life sciences laboratory space, as well as space for research and development. The report indicates that laboratory space construction reached record proportions in both 2020 and 2021, returning to a “more normal space in 2023, although demand for lab/R&D space remains well above pre-pandemic levels.” On a parallel line, life sciences employment also reached record highs at the start of this year, with particular job hot spots in the Boston/Cambridge area, as well as metro San Francisco and Seattle. According to a recent Bureau of Labor Statistics report, overall employment in the nation’s life sciences industry is expected to grow by about 7% annually through the duration of the decade. The only potential trouble spot for continued life science lab construction, says the CRBE report: “Recent turmoil in the banking system which may cause further reductions in venture capital funding to the industry this year.” Even so, venture capital funding is expected to increase through the year, with public funding particularly through the National Institutes of Health adding to current and foreseeable growth. By Garry Boulard ![]() City officials and other interested parties in Denver are trying to find a way forward in the aftermath of a vote solidly rejecting a proposal to transform a 155-acre golf course partly into a residential development. For well over two years what to do with the historic Park Hill Golf Course, located on the northeast side of the city, has animated debates and spirited community meetings in the city. Opened in 1931, the course was a permanent recreation feature in Denver for nearly nine decades, until its closing in 2018. An effort called “Park Hill Golf Course Reimagined” won the approval late last year of the Denver City Council, calling for the preservation of some 100 acres of the site to be used as park, trail and open spaces. The remaining 55 acres, under the plan, would see the construction of affordable income housing. Owned by the company Westside Investment Partners, the golf course could have eventually seen the construction of up to 3,200 new homes. Now, in the wake of the election results, which saw nearly 59% of voters rejecting the Park Hill Golf Course Reimagined proposal, there is new talk of finding a different use for the vast acreage. In a statement after the election, Westside Investment said that for now the golf course will remain a golf course and adding: “Denver has rejected its single best opportunity to build new affordable housing and create new public parks.” By Garry Boulard |
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