![]() An effort to restore a resplendent nearly 120-year-old railroad depot in downtown Grand Junction is taking a significant step forward with new state grant funding. Located at 119 Pitkin Avenue, the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad Depot was designed in the Italian Renaissance style by well-known Chicago architect Henry John Schlacks and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Active train service at the depot was discontinued in 1992 when Amtrak moved its operations to the adjacent Grand Junction Station. Since then, city officials and preservationists have been trying to find a new use for the depot. Some seven years ago private investors Veronica Sanchez and Dustin Anzures purchased the property with the idea of rehabilitating a structure that has long been neglected. To that end, the State Historical Fund, which is a part of the organization History Colorado, has just announced that it is awarding a $50,000 grant to fund the creation of the depot’s rehabilitation construction documents. The grant award has been sent to the Grand Junction Downtown Development Authority, which has been spearheading the rehabilitation project. Creation of those construction documents are needed in order to apply for future project funding and preservation tax credits. In a statement, Brandon Stam, executive director of the Downtown Grand Junction Partnership, remarked: “We’ve seen historic rail buildings like this given a second life as re-imagined community gathering spaces such as museums, event halls, restaurants, and bars.” As it neared its unveiling in 1906, the depot was lauded for its design by the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel, which called it “one of the prettiest in the West,” adding: “Inside and outside, the big structure is a thing of beauty.” By Garry Boulard
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![]() A bill that will mandate new rail safety technology while also increasing regulations for the hauling of toxic materials has been approved by a U.S. Senate committee. The Rail Safety Act has passed in the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation and is now on its way to the full Senate for a vote. As proposed, the legislation will also outlaw one-person train crews, limit the size of hazardous material shipments, and expand grants for firefighters to purchase hazardous materials gear. The measure, as proposed by Democrat Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown, is spirited by the derailment of a 50-car train in February in East Palestine, Ohio. Several cars were transporting up to 500,000 pounds of the chemical vinyl chloride. The derailment caused fires in the cars as well as a controlled burn. In response, several hundred residents living within a mile of the accident were evacuated. The measure has received some bipartisan support. Former President Donald Trump remarked that the bill has his “complete and total endorsement.” While acknowledging that Republicans are generally opposed to increased regulations, Florida Republican Marco Rubio expressed his support for the legislation, telling The Hill newspaper that “given the derailment and some of the evidence, I think this is a pretty narrowly tailored bill.” In a published statement, the Association of American Railroads said that while it had problems with what it called mandated “crew staffing models,” as well as the expansion of hazmat transportation operating requirements, it was nevertheless supportive overall of the legislation. By Garry Boulard ![]() Construction could begin later this summer on a roughly 38,000 square foot building that will serve as the new offices to the Farmington-based Citizens Bank. One of the oldest banking institutions in New Mexico, the Citizens Bank was founded in nearby Aztec, the San Juan County seat, in 1905 and today has half a dozen locations throughout the county. The new structure will go up off Auburn Avenue near the intersection with W. Main Street, across the way from a Four Corners Community Bank location. The property is already the home to the Citizens Bank’s long-standing Farmington headquarters. According to reports, the new building will be two stories in height and will feature a sleek, modern design. If all goes as expected work on the new structure will be completed by either late 2024 or early 2025. The bank opened its first Farmington location at 200 W. Main Street in 1950. By Garry Boulard ![]() A small city in southern Colorado is making plans for the upgrading of a modern wastewater system, a project greatly accelerated by funding from Washington. With a population of around 2,200 people, the City of Monte Vista has not had the resources to pay for the project on its own, but now the U.S Department of Agriculture’s Rural Development department has announced that it is committing nearly $29.3 million to that purpose. The funding, via a combination of grants and loans, will overhaul the system connected to the Henderson Wastewater Treatment Plant on the north side of the city. In the process, the facility will be transformed into an activating sludge plant. The upgrade work will also, according to local officials, improve the system’s overall collection process, a particularly important facet given that Monte Vista has long been challenged by the presence of metals discharged into its lagoon system by the existing wastewater plant. In early 2021, members of the Monte Vista City Council voted to approve a wastewater master plan that very much included the construction of new infrastructure. The federal funding is being buttressed by a $538,000 grant earlier received from the Colorado Department of Local Affairs to help defray the costs of a designing the project. In announcing the funding for Monte Vista, Armando Valdez, state director of the USDA’s Rural Development department, said the project will “help mitigate health risks and increase access to safe, reliable drinking water, and sanitary waste disposal services.” An exact timeline for when work on the Monte Vista project will begin has not yet been announced, but a city official said expectations are that the work will be done by 2028. By Garry Boulard ![]() The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration has introduced a new rule proposal that it says is designed to improve detection procedures for leaky gas pipelines. In what is officially called a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, the agency says it wants to increase the frequency of surveys in an effort to pinpoint leaks, while also requiring the use of modern aerial and vehicle surveys, along with handheld detection devices. In essence, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration hopes to promulgate a system of continuous pipeline monitoring. Submitted to the Federal Register for review, the proposed rule is seen as an offshoot of the Methane Reduction Action Plan, which was introduced last year, and is designed to substantially reduce methane emissions nationally. If finally made official, the new rule, said Tristan Brown, deputy administrator of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, will “deploy pipeline workers across the country to find and repair leaks.” Brown added that the proposed rule will also “help ensure that America continues to be the global leader in methane mitigation, which is one of the most potent greenhouse gases threatening the economy and our planet today.” The agency has noted that there are currently nearly 3 million miles of gas pipelines in the country, along with more than four hundred natural gas storage facilities, and 165 liquefied gas facilities. By Garry Boulard ![]() One of the largest creators of data centers in the country is planning to enter the growing and competitive southern Arizona market with a campus some 20 miles to the west of downtown Phoenix in Avondale. The San Francisco-based Prime Data Centers says it hopes to build a 66.5-acre campus that will encompass five separate buildings and around 1.3 million square feet of facility space. The Phoenix facilities will emphasize energy efficiency with the creation of a closed-loop cooling, rather than traditional evaporative system. According to a press release issued by Prime, the closed-loop system has the potential of consuming 97% less water “than an equally sized residential neighborhood.” The data center industry, always in need of wide-open spaces, has proven particularly active in a state known for its vast deserts. To date, there are more than 90 data centers of varying sizes in the metro Phoenix market. According to the publication Dgtl Infra, the industry has done particularly well due to a confluence of “Phoenix’s lower power costs relative to West coast markets, abundant and affordable real estate, and tax incentives.” With more than $6 billion in assets, Prime has similar data center facilities up and running in Chicago, Dallas, and Los Angeles, among other locations. By Garry Boulard ![]() One of the tallest office buildings in metro Albuquerque is set to go to auction with a starting bid of $500,000. Located near the intersection of San Mateo Boulevard NE and Copper Avenue NE, what is officially called the Two Park Central Tower was built in 1975 and measures around 101,000 square feet. The sleek, modern-designed structure has housed any number of private and government offices through the years, including the New Mexico Employment Bureau and Department of Veterans Services. It also served as the location, on the 8th floor, of Bill Gates’ then-fledgling Microsoft company in the fall of 1976. Roughly three years later Gates and his partner Paul Allen moved out of Albuquerque and went onto other things. Copies of Gates’ business card from his time at the Two Park Central Tower are today valued by collectors. The Two Central Park Tower, which was substantially upgraded in the 1990s, has been largely vacant for the last two years. Sitting on a nearly 5-acre site in a busy part of the Duke City, the building has nearly 120 units, ranging in size from just under 500 square feet to more than 1,500 square feet. The two-day auction for the property, as listed by New Mexico Apartment Advisers, is set to begin on May 15. By Garry Boulard ![]() Pending home sales in the West, one of the healthiest regions for new home sales in recent years, were off by 8% this spring, according to a new survey published by the National Association of Realtors. That decline was nearly equal in size to the 8.1% drop recorded in the Northeast during March but substantially less than activity in the Midwest, which saw a 10.7% decline from February to March. Only in the South were the numbers on the upside, with pending home sales seeing a 0.2% increase. A lack of housing inventory, said Lawrence Yun, chief economist with the NAR, is the prime constraining factor holding down sales nationally. “Multiple offers are still offering on about a third of all listings, and 28% of homes are selling above list price,” continued Yun in a statement. Even so, a “limited housing supply is simply not meeting demand nationally,” said Yun. Because of the current pace of sales and overall home supply, the NAR is predicting that existing home sales will likely decrease by the end of this year by some 9.3% over where things stood in 2002. But that downturn may well precede a significant increase of some 15.4% next year, says the NAR. The industry group is additionally predicting that the median existing home sale price will drop to $379,600 this year, before a nice market comeback of 2.8% for an average price of $390,000 next year. The median price for new homes meanwhile is expected to ultimately shake out to $449,100 for all of 2023. That same market, says the NAR, will likely increase to $468,000 per home in 2024. By Garry Boulard ![]() Work is expected to begin later this summer on construction of a new transitional homeless shelter that will go up near downtown Phoenix. The project belongs to the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, with the shelter specially hoping to help individuals with disabilities, seniors, and veterans. As planned, the new facility, officially called Ozanam Manor II, will house up to 100 beds. The Ozanam Manor I was earlier completed by the organization and includes some 60 beds. A unique feature of the new project will see the creation of a veterinary clinic for individuals who arrive at the shelter with animals. Ozanam Manor II is expected to cost around $20 million to build, with funding coming from the City of Arizona, Maricopa County, and the State of Arizona. Phoenix has been experiencing a homeless crisis with at least 9,000 people on the streets, according to a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development report. At the same time, the City is currently in the process of dismantling a downtown site known as The Zone, which is home to around 900 people living in a makeshift camp. In its stead, Phoenix has launched a program of converting vacant buildings into shelters and leasing motel and hotel rooms for those who are homeless. In announcing construction of the Ozanam Manor II, Shannon Clancy, chief executive officer with the St. Vincent de Paul Phoenix, remarked: “This is our moment to do our part to help some of our most vulnerable neighbors during a critical time by expanding on a model of transitional housing with proven success.” By Garry Boulard ![]() Up to $900,000 in capital outlay funding has been approved by New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham for the construction of a new fire training facility in Deming. The facility will belong to the Deming Fire Department, which is part of the larger John Strand Municipal Building at 309 S. Gold Avenue and will be used for firefighting and emergency medical technician training. Additional funding for projects specific to Deming, which were earlier passed by members of the New Mexico State Legislature, is seeing $300,000 going to the planning, design, and construction of a training facility that will belong to the Deming Police Station. Located at 700 E. Pine Street, the Deming Police Department has a force of around 35 officers, serving a population of just under 15,000 residents. The capital outlay for the Deming fire and police department projects is part of an overall $3.9 million in funding approved for a variety of infrastructure projects in surrounding Luna County. By Garry Boulard |
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