![]() Work is expected to begin early next summer on the building of new Class A office space in the 46-acre Avanyu Plaza, located at the corner of 12th Street and Menaul Boulevard NW. That plaza is undergoing a historic transformation spearheaded by Indian Pueblos Marketing Incorporated, which is turning the site of the former historic Albuquerque Indian School into a community of restaurants and both commercial and office structures. The plaza site, which includes the popular Indian Pueblo Cultural Center, has also seen the construction of the first Native American-licensed Starbucks in the country, and two new restaurants. The new office space, near Menaul Boulevard, will measure around 130,000 square feet. Late last year, it was additionally announced that work would also begin at the plaza on a 92-room Towne Place Suites by Marriott. That $90 million project is scheduled for completion later this year. From the start, the idea animating the Avanyu Plaza project has been to provide employment opportunities for Native Americans. The former Albuquerque Indian School was opened in the late 19th century as a boarding school for Native Americans, closing in 1982 with the surrounding site transferred from the Bureau of Indian Affairs to the 19 Indian Pueblos of New Mexico. The Pueblos, in turn, assigned the development of the site to Indian Pueblos Marketing, which is the for-profit arm of the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center. By Garry Boulard
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![]() Legislation substantially increasing the federal budget has been approved on a 67 to 28 vote in the U.S. Senate and is now on its way to the White House for President Trump’s signature. The bill, which won approval last week in the House, means a $1.3 trillion budget for the 2020 fiscal year, with $738 billion going for defense spending, and another $632 billion in non-defense spending. Overall, the military budget was increased by about 3 percent over the last fiscal year. Both Senators Martin Heinrich and Tom Udall of New Mexico voted in favor of the bill, as did Arizona Senators Krysten Sinema and Martha McSally. Colorado Senators Michael Bennet and Cory Gardner voted in opposition. Spending in the budget for military site construction and infrastructure projects is up by more than 5 percent over fiscal year 2019. The budget deal, designed to prevent a partial government shutdown later this year, will also suspend the federal debt limit until July 31, 2021. Heinrich said he voted for the legislation because of his opposition to tax cuts enacted last year by Trump and more than a decade ago by President George W. Bush. “If you take those away, we go back to a sustainable level,” he said. But Colorado’s Gardner said of the proposed budget: “It’s just a lot of money and at some point, things become so free we can’t afford it.” The legislation is expected to be signed into law by the President, who earlier praised the bill in a Twitter message. By Garry Boulard ![]() Colorado Governor Jared Polis is asking the State Land Board to help provide more housing space for the state’s public teachers. That effort has seen the State Land Board leasing out property owned by the state at 1275 Sherman Street in the Capital Hill area of Denver to a private developer. In turn, the developer, Denver-based Mile High Development, has agreed to tear down two abandoned warehouses in order to make way for the construction of a $31 million six-story affordable housing project that will include 103 housing units. As part of the multi-layered deal, Mile High Development is receiving up to $2.2 million in tax credits and has agreed to return some $200,000 for use by the state’s public schools. The State Land Board oversees around 2.8 million acres in trust lands, as well as up to 650,000 square feet of commercial real estate. The trust lands are usually leased out for such enterprises as energy exploration and farming. Revenue earned from leases is then sent back to Colorado’s public schools. In the last decade such revenue has equaled more than $1.4 billion. Polis, in a public letter to State Land Board President Gary Butterworth, has proposed that the trust lands “could be utilized to create affordable housing solutions for teachers in Colorado.” Exactly how much of those lands could be turned over to affordable housing development, and how many private developers would be interested in such a program, is not yet known. According to the Colorado Department of Education, the average salary last year for a teacher in the state was almost $53,000, substantially below the $61,700 national average. At the same time, rents in Colorado, particularly in metro Denver, are beginning at $1,700 per month for a one-bedroom apartment. By Garry Boulard ![]() Responding to an ever-increasing demand for more internet and cloud services in the Western states, the Microsoft Corporation has announced plans to build three new data center campuses in southern Arizona. Two of the new campuses, according to the Redmond, Washington-based technology giant, are slated for construction in the city of Goodyear, with the third in El Mirage. The announcement is seen as a big win for state and local officials who have recently been in talks with Microsoft in the hope of securing the three-campus project. Brian Janous, a sustainability and energy general manager for Microsoft, said that the corporation decided to build the campuses in Arizona because the state has increasingly embraced “the technology industry with a pool of growing talent.” Microsoft additionally announced that the new centers built on the three campuses will be powered entirely by renewable energy sources. Earlier this year, members of the Goodyear City Council gave the green light to a development agreement allowing Microsoft to build two new data facilities on land that the corporation owns near the Phoenix Goodyear Airport. Leading up to the three-campus announcement, Microsoft in late April also completed a deal purchasing just over 150 acres in El Mirage for $20.3 million to be used for the construction of at least one new data center. By Garry Boulard ![]() Substantial work is expected to begin soon on the construction of a border wall between the U.S. and Mexico, now that the Supreme Court has approved a funding plan for the project. Earlier this summer, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California blocked a plan by the Trump Administration to use military funds originally intended for other purposes for the wall project. That court ruled that such funds, amounting to around $2.5 billion, could not be used for the wall project while litigation over the matter was ongoing. But now, the Supreme Court has decided that the White House can use those funds for a wall project stretching from New Mexico to California. In that ruling, a majority of five justices said the federal government had made a “sufficient showing at this stage that the plaintiffs have no cause of action.” Those plaintiffs included the Southern Border Communities Coalition as well as the Sierra Club. But legal analysts say states that are currently engaged in litigation to stop construction of the wall may eventually be able to prove that they have greater standing in the matter, possibly resulting in a reversed Supreme Court decision in the future. A report published late last month by the Washington Examiner noted that so far the Trump Administration has not built any new border wall sections, but has instead replaced deteriorating sections of existing infrastructure. The President has said that his immediate goal is to build up to 100 miles of new border wall. By Garry Boulard ![]() Plans are now solid for the renovation of the Norris-Penrose Event Center in Colorado Springs, a multi-building facility that includes a 10,000-seat stadium that hosts football games, rodeos, and music events. Members of the El Paso County Commission have given their approval to a project that will see roughly $2.6 million in upgrades to the facility. As part of that approval, commission members also stipulated that the owners of the center, the Bust Rodeo Foundation, must purchase liability insurance should any part of the larger site require remediation. According to county records, that insurance in the form of a ten-year policy will have a cap of $10 million. More than a century ago, the property at 1045 Lower Gold Camp Road was used as a dumping ground for toxic tailings left over from a gold ore processing operation. After that, until at least the late 1950s, the site was a trash landfill. An earlier effort on the part of the county to obtain federal funding to clean up the site fell through when it was learned that the county would be required to provide matching funds. The upgrading of the site’s main building will see the renovation of kitchen space, new air conditioning and electrical systems, as well as exterior façade improvements. The Norris-Penrose stadium is most known for an annual July rodeo show, which raises money to support programs for area military families - an event that has brought in around $360,000 in the last four years. By Garry Boulard |
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