A just-over 14,000 square foot building in a section of downtown Tucson populated with mostly newer multi-story office structures will be the subject of a three-day auction beginning on September 19. Located at 160 Alameda Street, the two-story building has for years been the home to a Big Brothers and Big Sisters youth center and underwent an extensive renovation in 2013. The structure in the 1980s and 90s housed offices for Southern Arizona Legal Aid. The building houses a dozen private offices, as well as a kitchenette, and reception areas on both floors. Listed by the Tucson-based real estate firm of Larsen Baker, the building is classified as a Class B structure and sits on a less than one-acre site. The starting auction bid for the Alameda Street building is $350,000. By Garry Boulard
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A two-story abandoned building just to the north of downtown Albuquerque may soon be upgraded to make way for city offices. What was formerly the offices of the law firm Dubois, Cooksey, & Bischoff at 2040 Fourth Street NW was built in 1990 and measures just under 6,000 square feet. The site includes some 500 square feet of storage space. The law firm moved out of the building around two years ago. Defined as a Class B office structure, the building was listed for sale for $695,000 and is on the other side of a block dominated by a park recently closed by the city that had become the scene of drug dealing and sex trafficking, according to sources. Reports indicate that the building may serve as the new home to such agencies as the city’s Family and Community Services, Parks and Recreation, and Solid Waste departments. By Garry Boulard For the first time in more than 2 years, house prices nationally may be cooling off, with parts of the Midwest and Plains states forecast to see the slowest growth in 2023, followed by formerly hot spots in Arizona and Colorado. The Seattle-based Zillow Group is estimating that house prices between now and next summer will increase by only 2.4%. That’s a significantly smaller figure than what the tech real estate company predicted earlier this summer when it charted growth at 7.8%. The new Zillow numbers come as homes sales in general have dropped nationally, with new home sales down by 17.4% last month, and existing home sales off by 20.2%. Home price declines of between 1% and 4% are being seen in such disparate locations as Fargo, North Dakota, with a 1.5% drop, and Charleston, West Virginia, off by 4%. Although Texas has long been at the forefront of increased home prices, Laredo is charted for a 1.9% drop, and Odessa, seeing a decline of 3.3%. The booming Tucson market, on the other hand, is expected to see a 5.3% price increase, with the Lake Havasu City and Kingman market at an even higher 6.8%. New Mexico price increases are ranging between 3.5% in Las Cruces and Farmington at 4.8%. Albuquerque is charted for a 4.3% hike. Price hikes are charted lower for the booming Denver metro market at 1.2% and Greeley at 1.9%. But representing the increasing popularity of the southern and western portions of the Centennial State, Pueblo is charted for a 6.3% jump, with Grand Junction up by 4.2%. Other analysts have also forecast declines in real estate prices heading into 2023, although Zillow has for the most part remained bullish. Notes the publication Fortune: “If Zillow’s 2.4% uptick comes to fruition, it would mark the lowest year-over-year home price growth jump since 2012.” Last week the National Association of Realtors noted a drop of $10,000 in average home prices in July, with an overall 10.8% decline. The average home price in July, nonetheless, still stood at just under $404,000. By Garry Boulard Three cities in eastern Colorado will see the building of mobility hubs as a result of new funding secured through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. The funding is going to the Colorado Department of Transportation and will be used to build a mobility hub in Glenwood Springs, with plans to transform a current Park-N-Ride facility at the intersection of Interstate 70 and Colorado State Highway 82 into a transit center. Work in Glenwood Springs will also include the building of a grade-separated bicycle and pedestrian underpass. The Grand Junction work will focus on building bicycle, parking and pedestrian improvements to an existing hub, as well as the creation of a pedestrian crossing connecting the Grand Junction Convention Center and the city’s main train station on South 1st Street. An existing Park-N-Ride site in the city of Rifle will see a facility expansion adding up to 120 vehicle spaces. The funding is more specifically coming through the Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability Equity grant program. Altogether the RAISE program is sending around $1.5 billion to Colorado for a variety of transportation facility projects. The projects in Glenwood Springs, Grand Junction, and Rife are being funded to the tune of $24.2 million. In announcing the RAISE support, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said such funding is part of a larger plan to modernize the nation’s transportation systems “to make them safer, more affordable, and more sustainable.” RAISE grants are for planning and capital investments supporting road, bridge, transit rail and port projects. By design, around 65% of the projects must be located in either historically disadvantaged communities or areas of persistent poverty. By Garry Boulard One of the most popular and successful after-school tennis training programs in the state has announced plans to build a new 12-court tennis complex in metro Santa Fe. First Serve New Mexico has been teaching hundreds of children and adolescents for nearly two decades not just the fundamentals of playing tennis, but also the value of self-discipline and good sportsmanship. Based in Santa Fe, the nonprofit program offers training classes several times a week, as well as an 8-week training camp. Now the organization has announced plans to build a facility that will go up on a nearly 9-acre site near the Genoveva Community Center on Rodeo Road on the southwest side of the city. The project, with an estimated $12 million price tag, will also include a facility measuring around 8,500 square feet that will house the program’s classrooms, as well as bathrooms and locker rooms. Plans for the project have been submitted to the County of Santa Fe. If all goes well, work is expected to begin later this year, with a rough completion date of spring 2024. First Serve New Mexico is a nationally recognized program. In 2013 the United States Tennis Association awarded the program a $12,500 grant to help support its training initiatives. By Garry Boulard Both homeowners and real estate investors may prove to be the beneficiaries of the recently passed Inflation Reduction Act, according to a new report. While the legislation is primarily centered on reducing prescription drug costs and making healthcare costs more affordable, the bill also provides what is called a green tax incentive for homeowners, notes the publication Realty Biz News. That incentive means that homeowners may be able to secure a credit of up to $1,200 for such house upgrades as replacing an aging heating and cooling system; reinsulating houses; and installing rooftop solar panel systems. For real estate investors, the green tax incentives will allow for federal tax deductions upon purchasing an energy-efficient building or upgrading an existing structure with new energy-efficient features. But the publication advises that real estate investors may need tax experts to correctly file for the new deductions, as well as an engineer to “certify the energy-saving amounts.” In a statement, the Sierra Club has lauded the green potential of the Inflation Reduction Act, declaring: “We will build safer, cleaner, and more cost-effective buildings and homes.” While some real estate industry groups have been wary of the legislation, the National Association of Realtors remarked: “When one considers all the real estate tax increase proposals that were recommended over the past couple of years, the final bill is very good for the real estate industry.” By Garry Boulard Work is set to begin on the construction of a multi-housing community on the east side of Flagstaff that will include 224 residential units, as well as up to 6,000 square feet of retail space. What is being called the Flagstaff Elkwood will go up on just under 14 acres at the northeast corner of E. Butler Avenue and N. 4th Street in a part of the city thick with pine trees. The project belongs to the Calgary-based Wexford Developments, which purchased the site last year and has just secured nearly $50 million in construction financing to build the community. As planned, that community will see the construction of four separate 4-story buildings of 56 units each, offering units ranging in size from studios to one- and two-bedrooms. The project will also include a leasing office measuring around 4,000 square feet, as well as a clubhouse, fitness center, amphitheater, and both swimming pool and spa. Designer for the project is the Scottsdale-based Stewart + Reindersma Architecture. A project with appeal for students, the Flagstaff Elkwood will be located some 3 miles from the Flagstaff campus of Northern Arizona University. With work beginning either later this year or in early 2023, the project is expected to see completion in the final quarter of 2024. Wexford Developments specializes in retail, industrial, and commercial projects primarily in Canada and Arizona. By Garry Boulard The main campus of New Mexico State University in Las Cruces may see the construction of a new College of Engineering facility, depending upon the fortunes of a general obligation bond proposal in the November election. Nearly $216 million in capital expenditures is on the line for education facility projects across the state, with $22.5 million of that amount going to both the building of a new engineering building at NMSU as well as the demolition of the Thomas and Brown Hall, located at 1305 Frenger Street. The bond will also provide $13.5 million to renovate both the Health and Social Services Building, as well as the O’Donnell Hall. Another $2 million will go for the expansion and modernization of the Nursing Skills and Simulation Center. The Thomas and Brown Hall Replacement project has been long in the planning and anticipating phase at NMSU. The new facility, according to NMSU, will “expand student-centric and experiential hands-on learning facilities for students from across campus.” The new facility will also include learning community space. By Garry Boulard A combination of rising mortgage rates and continually increasing home prices are making it significantly more difficult for African American families to buy their own home, according to statistics compiled by the Harvard University Joint Center for Housing Studies. In the last year, the number of Black renters able to purchase a median-priced home dropped by some 44%. During those same months, interest rates jumped by nearly 2% from 3.0% to 4.9%. Put another way, 14.2% of all African American renter households in April 2021 could afford to buy a median-priced home. By this spring, the number was down to 6.9%. According to the Center, mortgage payments increased by 35%, from $2,100 in the spring of 2021 to exactly $2,800 as of this year. Says the Center report: “In April 2021, a household had to earn at least $79,570 a year to afford payments on the median-priced home of $340,700. One year later the income requirement stood at $107,500 for the median-priced him of $401,700.” Altogether, the change means a loss of 4 million potential home buyers in the median-priced market. Continues the report: “While Black renter households were not the only group to face declining affordability, the share of Black renter households who could afford the median-priced home declined most by race/ethnicity.” For all of that, the report also notes the impact interest rates in general can have on homebuying: low interest rates in 2020 and more than half of 2021 “helped many first-time homebuyers qualify for mortgages while also providing current owners a chance to reduce their monthly mortgage payments through refinancing.” By Garry Boulard A 151-acre solar farm may soon be built just to just to the north of the Interstate in Grand Junction, Colorado that will be capable of generating up to 48 megawatts of power, enough to supply the needs of nearly 15,000 homes. The solar panel project will belong to the energy company Solar Gen, which is based in Denver. As planned, the solar farm will be built on desert property owned by the Colorado State Land Board. Earlier this month members of the Mesa County Board of Commissioners gave their approval to Solar Gen for a conditional use permit for the property. In making a presentation to the commissioners, Carmine Iadarola, chief executive officer of Solar Gen, remarked that the land in its current condition “doesn’t impact economically a community,” whereas the proposed solar farm would be good for both energy production and employment. Revenue from leasing the land would go to a State Land Board initiative providing funding for public school needs. In endorsing the project, the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel said the solar farm will “add renewable energy to the grid, add revenue to education, clean up the land it is on and won’t take land away from agriculture.” Solar Gen has developed similar solar projects across the country, with a focus on Arizona and California, producing a combined more than 282 megawatts of photovoltaic power. By Garry Boulard |
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