A unique housing project that will see the construction of 144 homes on the west side of Fort Collins has received a green light from the city. The Polestar Village will be situated on a 20-acre site to the east of the South Overland Trail and will include landscaped streets and trails, a large community garden, and designated open space. The project, winning the unanimous approval of the Fort Collins Planning and Zoning Commission, is the newest version of a community concept that was originally established in Hawaii. More than that, the project is billed as a place of "spirit, community, and lifelong learning," that will additionally feature a community center with a dining hall and classrooms, small commercial center, pickleball and volleyball courts, and common areas for cooking and dining. According to plans submitted to the city, the village will also see the construction of energy-efficient structures, including townhomes and condos. Polestar Village is also the name used for the nonprofit group behind the development. Formerly based in Pahoa, Hawaii, the entity first proposed a community in Fort Collins more than two years ago. The original template called for 136 homes, with hopes that construction would start by the spring of 2023. Now, if all goes according to plans, the initial work on the Polestar Village is expected to begin sometime next year. By Garry Boulard
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The design phase calling for an extensive reconstruction of a busy east central El Paso throughway is expected to begin sometime in 2025, with the actual work slated to start the following year. The Buffalo Soldier Road runs between Montana Avenue and Interstate 10, just to the northwest of downtown El Paso. Its naming made national news in the summer of 2020 when members of the El Paso City Council decided to do away with what had been called Robert E. Lee Road. While Lee Road, honoring the Confederacy's greatest most famous General, endured for decades, it was discarded during a national season of renaming Confederate buildings and streets. Council members then decided to put a positive spin on matters by naming the road after the famous Buffalo Soldiers, a group of several U.S. Army regiments in the years after the Civil War who were black and protected and patrolled vast stretches of the American West. One regiment, watching guard over El Paso, was housed at nearby Fort Bliss. Now up to $8.4 million in funding has been secured to modernize the Buffalo Soldier Road, adding new sidewalks, bicycle facilities, street lighting, and irrigation, among other features. The work, remarked El Paso Council member Cassandra Hernandez, is a testament to the City of El Paso "honoring its past and forging a dynamic future." In comments prepared for the El Paso Times, Hernandez added that the road reconstruction project will "transform the area's infrastructure, enhancing safety and accessibility for everyone, especially visitors staying at nearby hotels." The $8.4 million is coming through the El Paso Metropolitan Planning Commission. If all goes as planned, actual work on the Buffalo Soldier Road will begin during the winter of 2026-2027. By Garry Boulard The national rental market is about to see a significant tenant change, and it’s all due to people who were born when Bill Clinton was president. According to a new study released by the Harvard University Joint Center for Housing Studies, Generation Z, or those in the 13 to 27 years of age range, are on the verge of flooding the rental scene. “Generation Z is now the only generation adding rental households,” says the study, a number that will almost certainly continue to grow as older generations, in particular the Millennials, “are leaving rental units due to homeownership transitions or mortality.” Officially, Generation Z is comprised of people born between 1997 and 2012, meaning that their current ages range between 11 and 26. It’s the portion of this population that is 18 and above, according to the Harvard study, that is about to become the largest demographic for the nation’s apartment complexes and communities. “The number of renter households Gen Z adds in the next 15 years will be an important pillar of rental housing demand,” says the report. And the “extent to which the size of the Gen Z population grows in the next 15 years ultimately could determine whether the number of renter households in the US grows, stabilizes, or declines in the coming years.” One thing is certain, says the report: “After decades of driving growth, the number of renter households headed by Millennials” has peaked and is now on the way down. Indeed, continues the report, the Millennials, born between 1981 and 1996, have now reached an age when “more households are transitioning into homeownership rather than forming new rental households.” At some point during the Great Recession, the Millennials, who up to then had made up a significantly smaller segment of the rental market compared with Generation X and the Baby Boomers, all of a sudden became dominant. That dominance saw their numbers increase from 14 million households in 2012 to more than 16 million by 2019. Generation X, during that same period of time, declined from around 13 million to 11 million. Although a large number of Baby Boomers sold their homes during the Great Recession and re-entered the rental market, their overall numbers declined from just over 10 million rental households to 9 million as of last year. Market analysts are now trying to get a better feel for what Generation Z wants in terms of their renting and consumer tastes. According to a Pew Research Center report, members of the Generation Z are “more racially and ethnically diverse than any previous generation, and they are on track to be the most well-educated generation yet.” The Pew report added: “they are also digital natives who have little or no memory of the world as it existed before smartphones.” That Generation Z is regarded as a promising rental segment is seen in a survey conducted this summer by the site RealPage, which indicated that a majority of respondents in this age group saw renting an apartment as a better choice than buying a house because of affordability issues. In fact, according to a New York Times story published in August, more than a third of Generation Z members responding to one survey said they regarded homeownership as “something they think they’ll never be able to achieve.” Nearly a third of Generation Z, responding to another question, currently live with their parents, “and plan on staying with them as a long-term housing solution.” By Garry Boulard A major semiconductor equipment maker has announced plans to build a permanent presence in Scottsdale and to spend upwards of $325 million doing so. ASM International, which was founded in 1968 and has been based in the city of Almere in the Netherlands, specializes in the building of semiconductor water processing equipment, among other things. The company has facilities in some 14 countries and has been a part of the southern Arizona high-tech manufacturing scene since 1976. Now ASM wants to build what will be a 250,000-square-foot headquarters and plant near Scottsdale Road and Arizona State Route 101. The project will go up on 21-acre site and will house expanded space for research and development. ASM has also committed to investing in “leading edge-lab equipment and state of the art infrastructure not just for research and development, but also for renewable energy, a water recycling facility, and other sustainability features.” In celebrating the ASM decision, Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs said the new facility will have the effect of “deepening our semiconductor ecosystem.” Benjamin Loh, chief executive officer of ASM, said the decision to build in Scottsdale speaks to an “exciting time for ASM and semiconductors in general.” Loh also remarked that his company’s big investment in Scottsdale “will substantially expand our research and development activities, further strengthening Arizona as a hub for top-notch semiconductor innovation.” ASM’s ties to Arizona are long and deep. It currently works with more than two dozen suppliers in the state and has an Arizona workforce of around 800 people. The company has said that it plans on hiring up to five hundred more people between now and 2028. By Garry Boulard Nearly $140 million in funding for a wide variety of facility projects at the main Albuquerque campus of the University of New Mexico and its sister campuses may be approved by state lawmakers this coming spring. The New Mexico Education Department has given the OK to a list of projects that it would like to see the legislators approve as capital outlays, beginning with the largest, at $60.5 million, to plan, design, and build phase one of a new humanities and social sciences complex on the main Albuquerque campus. That main campus is also up for $5.1 million to demolish the Humanities and Ortega Hall buildings, Brutalist structures which date to 1971. Up to $45 million is being requested for the building of a new College of Pharmacy structure, along with $15 million to put up a cancer center, both of which will be a part of UNM's Health Sciences Center. The school's Gallup campus is in line for a combination of nearly $5 million for renovations and updates to the Gurley Hall, which is regarded as the "front door to the campus," and houses administrative assistance offices, among other services. Around $4.6 million will target general facility improvements on UNM's Los Alamos campus, along with $1 million to renovate the Student Success Center. The Taos campus is up for $1.5 million for the phase one construction of its Space STEM Center, and another $1.1 million for renovation work on the Fred Peralta Hall, which was built in 1996 and houses a series of woodworking, sculpture, and drawing studio space. A final $1 million is being requested for the phase one improvements to the nursing and health sciences facility on the school's Valencia campus. State lawmakers will review these requests in a one-month 2024 legislative session scheduled to begin on January 16 and end on February 15. By Garry Boulard The construction industry has seen the creation of more than 200,000 new jobs in the last year, even though the latest increase in November was only 2,000, according to a just-released Bureau of Labor Statistics report. The heavy and civil engineering sectors was up by a substantial 3,030 jobs last month, with nonresidential construction employment seeing a 1,400-job increase. At the same time, the nonresidential specialty trade sector was off by around 800 jobs. Looking at the latest figures, Anirban Basu, chief economist with the American Builders and Contractors, noted that the construction industry overall has "added jobs at a significantly faster pace than the broader economy over the past year." But in a sobering note, Basu added in a statement that "faster hiring in the industry has coincided with worsening labor shortages, and that has led to rapid increases in labor costs." The national unemployment rate is now at 3.7%, relatively unchanged from where things stood a year ago when the rate came in at 3.6%. The highest November rate was seen in 2020, just a little over half a year after the Covid 19 breakout, when it stood at 6.7%. Looking at it from another angle, November's 199,000 new jobs was somewhat on the low side: September saw 262,000 additional jobs, while November of 2022 was up by 290,000 jobs. The biggest most recent one-month gain was recorded in February of 2022, when the nation added more than 904,000 jobs. The largest industry gainers in November were seen in the healthcare sector, which added 77,000 jobs; government, up by 49,000; and manufacturing, with a 28,000 increase. The latest numbers were also particular to recent events. Notes the New York Times: "The increase in employment includes tens of thousands of autoworkers and actors who returned to their jobs after strikes, and others in related businesses that had been stalled by the walkouts, meaning underlying job growth is slightly weaker." In a statement from the White House, President Biden lauded the November figures, remarking that more than 14 million new jobs have now been created since he took office in January of 2021. "That's more than 14 million additional Americans who know the dignity and peace of mind that comes with a paycheck," Biden remarked. By Garry Boulard Plans have been announced for the construction of a new 12-story office building that will go up in downtown Colorado Springs, across the street from the Weidner Field multipurpose outdoor stadium. The project, to be called 30 West, belongs to the Norwood Development Group, which is also based in Colorado Springs, and will see the construction of a 194,000-square-foot mixed-use complex. As proposed, that complex will see the building of 25,000 square feet of amenity space, and another 4,500 square feet of restaurant space. Additional features will include a fitness studio, conference center, and rooftop lounge. The Denver-based Open Studio Architecture has been brought in as project designer. Founded more than 50 years ago, the Norwood company has in the last decade taken on upwards of $2.3 billion in downtown Colorado Springs apartment, office, and hotel projects. In that same ten-year period, the company has spearheaded the development of around 1,800 individual apartment units. If all goes well in securing city approval, construction of 30 West could begin next year, with a rough completion date of sometime in 2026. The 8,000-seat Weidner Field, built in 2021 and serving as the home to the Colorado Springs Switchback FC soccer team, has been regarded as a catalyst for new mixed-use projects in the southwest part of downtown Colorado Springs. By Garry Boulard Plans have now been announced for the construction of a 10,000-square-foot store in Santa Fe that will belong to a long-standing New Mexico retail operation. The building will go up on currently vacant land some 9 miles to the southwest of downtown Santa Fe at 7600 Baca Lane. Once completed, the structure will house the latest location for Frank's Supply Company Incorporated, a 70-year-old business launched and based in Albuquerque, with stores in El Paso, Farmington, Hobbs, and Los Alamos. According to news sources, the plans for building a new Frank's Supply store in Santa Fe have been under consideration for at least a year. Construction of the building is expected to launch in either late next year or in early 2025. To call the Frank's Supply a construction industry institution would be putting it lightly. The company's stores sell a wide variety of everything from hand and power tools to safety and welding equipment, and electrical mechanical equipment. Altogether, such stores offer up to 50,000 items for sale, let alone the roughly 1,000 items available for rent. A key to the company's success may be found in the tenacity of its staff, who never a turn a customer looking for a stray item away, but instead always say something along the lines of "let me look into it," or "let me do a little research and get back to you," a reporter for the Albuquerque Journal recently wrote. By Garry Boulard New proposed banking industry regulations could hamper the economy just as the nation is trying to steer clear of a recession. So said several chief executive officers of the country's largest banks in testimony before the Senate Banking Committee. Central to the bankers' concerns: a feeling that Washington regulators are out to get them. The biggest complaint was heard in response to what is known as the Basel Endgame proposal, which is designed to increase the federal regulation, supervision, and risk management of banks. If actually made reality, the proposal, said Jamie Dimon, chief executive officer of JP Morgan Chase, "would have predictable and harmful outcomes to the economy, markets, businesses of all sizes, and American households." Dimon further warned that unless altered, the Basel Endgame proposal will increase capital requirements on the banks by at least 25%. "Mortgages and business loans will be more expensive and harder to access, particularly for low-to-moderate income borrowers," Dimon continued. "Savings for retirement or college will yield lower returns as costs rise for asset managers, money-market funds, and pension funds." Jane Fraser, chief executive officer of Citigroup, remarked that the proposal could negatively impact "the cost of borrowing for farmers in rural communities." "It could impact them in terms of their mortgages, it could impact their credit cards. It could also importantly impact their cost of any borrowing that they do." The law of unintended consequences was also raised during the hearings when it was suggested that a federal tightening of banking regulations could lead to the growth of what are known as "shadow banks," mortgage lenders and hedge funds, among other sources, that are substantially less regulated than the average bank. In announcing the proposed new regulations, the Federal Reserve said the changes would have the effect of curtailing operational risk. They would also require a higher level of capital for banks as a means of decreasing possible losses. With the comment period for the proposed regulations ending last week, it is currently expected that the largest banks in the country will be required to transition to the new framework by no later than July 1, 2025. By Garry Boulard A state that has enjoyed a consistent building boom since well before the Covid 19 pandemic may experience a decline of some 2,300 jobs next year in its construction industry. Other the other hand, the state's leisure and hospitality industry is expected to see yet more growth, leading to the creation of at least 5,000 jobs. These are two of the findings in a new report just issued by the University of Colorado's Leeds School of Business looking at economic and business prospects in the Centennial State in 2024. Always one of the West's most dynamic states, with a population that has increased by 15% in the last decade for a current total of around 5.8 million, Colorado overall is expected to see a 1.4% increase in jobs next year, with seven of the state's eleven top industries adding to their payrolls. While the Leeds School report does envision slower job growth in 2024, notes Richard Wobbekind in a statement, "we are pleased with how well the economy is performing in this financially constrained environment." Wobbekind is an associate dean for business at Leeds and director of the school's Business Research Division. The biggest sector job gainers for 2024 are expected to be seen in the professional and businesses services field, according to the report. This sector, largely made up of professional, scientific and technical businesses and mostly confined to the state's Front Range region, is slated to see an addition of some 10,500 new jobs next year. Next up: the government sector at the federal, state and local level. Altogether, this sector will probably hire nearly 11,000 people in 2024. The Leeds report expects particular growth in the state's Department of Public Health as well as the Labor Department. A third job gainer will be seen in the education and health services sector, with an increase of around 9,400 jobs, driven by the demand for more nurses and residential care professionals. The biggest job losses are expected to be seen in the state's usually robust construction industry with an employment decline next year of 2,300. "Rising interest rates have slowed demand in the single-family housing market," notes the report. Multifamily construction is also expected to be off, "as apartment demand will be partially met by new units reaching completion." The state's manufacturing sector will additionally see a loss of some 1,400 jobs, along with the information sector, comprised of telecommunications and publishing entities, dropping around 1,000 jobs. Colorado's agricultural industry, beset by any number of challenges including access to water, higher production costs, and lower crop prices, is also not expected to see the kind of growth it has in the past. One industry that speaks to the state's unique culture, however, should be remain steady in 2024: craft brewing. In fact, says the report, this industry "continues to thrive and has proven its ability to innovate and adapt over the past few years." Colorado now has around 440 individual breweries, producing 834,000 barrels of craft brew yearly. Using solar power and sustainable water practices, these breweries, adds the report, "have not only become community staples, but tourist attractions and will likely continue driving economic growth and job creation." By Garry Boulard |
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