![]() Planning is underway in Tempe for work that will see the improvement of treatment processes and capacity in the city’s water and wastewater treatment plants. Last month, 70% of voters in the southern Arizona city of nearly 200,000 approved a $134 million bond to fund the water and wastewater projects, funding that will also go for the upgrading of water distribution and storage infrastructure. By design, the $134 million will additionally target upgrading work and new construction with the city’s sewer infrastructure and reclamation facilities. Another bond, set at $74 million, will fund the construction and upgrading of streets, highways, avenues, bike paths and bridges across Tempe. That smaller bond, which passed with 69.7% of the vote, will also be used for storm drain improvements. The funding from both bonds must be spent over a 5-year period. This spring, members of the Tempe City Council were hesitant to put the bond questions on the November ballot given the state of the pandemic economy, and actually reduced the dollar amount of the proposed bonds. A mitigating factor in favor of having a bond election was the recent history of such questions: Tempe voters have approved five large bond proposals going back to 2002. Altogether, Tempe voters this year approved some $349 million in bonds for a variety of public improvement efforts. By Garry Boulard
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![]() Plans are now fully underway for the construction of a 72,000 square foot hangar that will go up within the borders of the Roswell International Air Center. The hangar, with an attached office measuring 13,000 square feet, will belong to Ascent Aviation and is expected to take at least $25 million to complete. The project will be headed up by Western LLC, a commercial real estate development firm based in Denver. Construction of the big hangar is seen as part of a larger effort on the part of airport officials to expand facility operations in Roswell. Ascent Aviation, based in Marana, Arizona, specializes in aircraft maintenance operations, serving such aircraft brands as Airbus, Boeing, and Bombardier. Financial support for the new hangar, which will also see the construction of a ramp and parking lot, is expected to come partly through State of New Mexico and Chaves County economic development funds. Work on the hangar could begin by late spring, with a late 2021 or early 2022 completion date. Ascent announced its plans to lease some 19 acres at the Roswell Air Center earlier this fall. At the time of that announcement, David Querio, president of the company, noted that heretofore planes parked at the Roswell Air Center had “limited options for heavy maintenance and service and had to be ferried out.” The company’s presence at Roswell, continued Querio, will increase the likelihood of keeping aircraft maintenance jobs in New Mexico. By Garry Boulard ![]() Unlike the economies of other major western countries, including France and Germany, the U.S. is enjoying a late 2020 surge. According to an index of business activity complied by data firm IHS Markit, the manufacturing and services sector made for a 57.9 reading in November, up from 56.3 the month before. The index reading is also driving optimism about the near future, notes Chris Williamson, chief business economist with IHS Markit. “Expectations about the year ahead have surged to the most optimistic for over six years,” Williamson told the Wall Street Journal, noting that a more upbeat outlook was being driven in part by the fact that the 2020 election is over and news that a Covid-19 vaccine is just around the corner. The numbers as compiled by IHS also reflect the fastest recorded pace of national economic growth since November of 2015. In a separate report, IHS is additionally reporting that the country’s Gross Domestic Product saw a 7% increase in October that was in part driven by personal consumption expenditures. The report noted that monthly GDP has “climbed steadily over the last few months, albeit at a slower pace than over May and June, when the broad economy was reopening.” Based in London, IHS Markit is one of the world’s leading economic information providers. By Garry Boulard ![]() A Boulder Valley School District working group is expected to meet several times early next year with the goal of deciding whether to build a new high school or upgrade an existing one. District officials have long expressed concerns about the New Vista High School located at 700 20th Street. The 78,000 square foot structure was built in 1952 and through the decades has been added onto at least nine times. According to district documents, the building is plagued with a number of structural issues including cracked walls and foundations, as well as some water leakage. The structure is also not entirely Americans with Disabilities Act compliant. A report released this fall by the district’s school board additionally noted that the building’s auditorium lacks proper lighting and acoustics and has experienced repeated HVAC system failures. That same report indicated that it will probably cost upwards of $50 million to maintain the structure. At the same time, it is thought that construction of a new school building would come with a price tag of around $40 million. Because the current New Vista High School has a capacity of around 600 students but currently serves only half that number, thought has been given to building a smaller replacement facility. The working group, which will be partly made up of school officials, parents and neighbors, is expected to meet twice in January before delivering its recommendations to the school board in March. By Garry Boulard ![]() A 10 year-old Albuquerque-based program dedicated to the educational needs of deaf children is making plans for the construction of a new facility. Currently located in a one-story building at 620 Lomas Boulevard NW, the Albuquerque Sign Language Academy is a nationally recognized institute serving children from kindergarten to 12th grade. The public charter academy is the first American Sign Language-English dual language program to be certified by the State of New Mexico and was officially opened in 2010. Because of its success, the school, starting out with an initial enrollment of 36 students, now has around three times that many, along with a waiting list of applicants who want to be a part of the program. Before the current Lomas location was opened, some $350,000 in state and county funding was spent to remodel the structure, which is owned by Bernalillo County. But ongoing growth since then has come with a price, as the school has outgrown its 9,800 square foot location. A site for a new location has not yet been determined, while the school remains in the process of trying to secure funding to build a new facility. The academy’s executive director, Raphael Martinez, has announced that he is currently working with state officials in the hope of obtaining a grant to at least partly underwrite the cost of building the new school. By Garry Boulard ![]() Legislation in Congress that may still be acted upon before the end of the year is calling for up to $100 billion in grants to fund school ventilation system upgrades across the country. The Reopen and Rebuild America’s Schools Act will also provide $30 billion in bond authority for schools with ventilation issues in lower-income districts. The legislation, as introduced by Virginia Representative Bobby Scott and Rhode Island Senator Jack Reed, is partly in response to a report issued earlier this summer by the federal Government Accountability Office. That report noted that roughly 36,000 public schools are in need of new or updated heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems. Those schools, continued the report, represent around 40% of all of the nation’s school districts. In an open letter, Elizabeth Beardsley, senior policy counsel at the U.S. Green Building Council, along with several other industry experts, noted that since the Covid-19 outbreak, school officials have been focusing on such initiatives as the spacing of desks, cleaning, and requiring all students and staff to wear masks. But, asserted Beardsley, “School facilities also require attention.” As proposed, the Reopen and Rebuild legislation will “invest construction funds, targeted at high-poverty school facilities that put the health of students and their staffs most at risk,” said Scott in a statement. The legislation, which has been folded into a larger infrastructure bill, has been approved in the House and is now awaiting action in the Senate. By Garry Boulard ![]() A project that will see the upgrading and repurposing of a more than century-old building in downtown Tucson is currently being looked at by members of the city’s Design Review Board. The building in question, located at 82 S. Stone Avenue, was for some 30 years the home of the former Tucson Daily Citizen newspaper. In more recent decades the two-story, 4,300 square-foot structure housed the main offices for the Tucson Chamber of Commerce. Now, according to plans filed by the Tucson-based A.23Studios architectural firm, the structure will have a new life as a hotel called The Citizen featuring a wine-tasting room. That tasting room will be centered on Sand-Reckoner wines native to southern Arizona. For nearly 4 years, the Sand-Reckoner Vineyards has successfully operated a similar wine-tasting room in Tucson’s Warehouse Arts District. Plans for the Stone Avenue building call for a space expansion into an adjacent building, giving the project a total footprint of 14,800 square feet. Public documents indicate that the transformation of the Stone Avenue building will see exterior colors conforming with the overall color palette and context of the area, with all cornices, lintels and arches designed in keeping with the historic style of the structure. Depending upon city approval, work could begin on the Stone Avenue building next year. By Garry Boulard ![]() A business known for its unusual blend of restaurants and dog playing space may be building a new location in El Paso. Mutts Canine Cantina says it would like to open the new outlet by the fall of 2021 at an undisclosed spot in the city. With locations in Dallas and Forth Worth, the company offers a spacious fenced-in and off-leash park for dogs, along with an outdoor restaurant and beer garden for their human companions. The park space is divided into two fenced lawn sections, one for larger canines and the other for smaller ones weighing less than 30 pounds. The company was founded in 2013, offering, according to a press release, space for dogs to “release energy, exercise, run freely and play safely in both shaded and unshaded areas, while their owners relax and socialize.” The spaces for both the dogs and human are designed by a professional architect with franchise investments in a Mutts Canine Cantina location costing as much as $1.2 million. The company announced that it was considering opening another location in Austin last year, and currently has working plans for a spot in Tucson. A membership-driven operation, the company enjoys a current combined membership of around 3,200 people who use the Dallas and Fort Worth locations. “They plan to grow at a measured pace over the next several years, with a retail line of dog food and treats on the horizon as well,” the publication Nation’s Restaurant News noted of the company’s plans for building around a dozen new locations throughout the Southwest. By Garry Boulard Bridge Construction Slated for Worldwide Growth; Hampered in the US by Lack of Infrastructure12/1/2020 ![]() Despite the downward pressures of a pandemic economy, the bridge construction industry is expected to see a $300 billion increase in work projects between now and the year 2027 according to a new report. The Bridge Construction Market Outlook, published by the Allied Market Research company, is forecasting a roughly 4.6% annual growth rate for the industry in the next seven years. Allied Market Research is a global company with offices in Portland, Oregon, among other cities. Looking at arch, beam, cable-stayed, truss, and suspension bridge segments, the report notes that despite the upward numbers, the industry is challenged by everything from a lack of quality raw materials to complex structural geometry, as well as insufficient project funding. Even so, each segment of the business is expected to experience some form of growth between now and 2027, with beam and cable-stayed bridge projects leading the way. The total value of such construction world-wide appears on track to pass the $1.2 trillion mark, up from $908 billion in 2019. Spiriting the demand for new bridges is a combination of factors including the expansion of railway networks, and an increase in urbanization, among other factors. A separate report focusing only on the U.S. market and published by the company IBIS World, notes that the industry has been plagued by the inability of Congress to pass a comprehensive infrastructure bill. Temporary government stimulus spending this year, along with federal discretionary grants, have helped, notes the Bridge & Elevated Highway Construction report. But a lack of a larger federal spending bill designed to address both new bridge construction as well as upgrading existing bridge projects has proven a downer. Congressional analysts say such a bill, which would essentially be a renewal of the existing Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act, will have another chance of passage if pushed by the Biden Administration, once the new 117th Congress meets next month. The current FAST Act is scheduled to expire in September. By Garry Boulard ![]() Plans are now underway for a significant expansion of a busy industrial and logistics park in Aurora, Colorado. Developers Hyde Development and Mortenson Properties have announced they are growing the HighPoint Logistics Park by some 274 acres, with the intention of seeing new construction on that land. Located at the intersection of the E-470 highway and 64th Avenue, the business park, which currently measures around 125 acres, could see the building of more than a dozen structures housing offices and warehouse space. Altogether, it is expected that the new buildings at the park will cumulatively measure around 5 million square feet. Creation of the park, about 24 miles southwest of the Denver International Airport, was announced earlier this year by Hyde with an initial 2.2 million square feet of Class A office and warehouse construction. The park is strategically located in a federal Opportunity Zone as well as a foreign trade zone, making construction projects within the boundaries of the park eligible for any number of tax credits. The larger underway High Point master planned community is made up of 1,800 acres, with a planned build out of 3,000 residential units and more than 12 million square feet of commercial space. By Garry Boulard |
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