![]() What to do with the enormous 28-acre site in north Scottsdale that formerly was the home to the Cracker Jax Family Fun & Sports Park has been a topic of great interest to developers, investors, and public officials for more than a year now. The park at 160001 N. Scottsdale Road featuring miniature golf, a driving range, batting cages, volleyball courts, and a clubhouse with food offerings, among other features, was opened in 1993 and did a thriving business for nearly three decades. But in the summer of 2022 it was announced that the owner of the cybersecurity company Crowd Strike had purchased the site for $55.5 billion with plans to transform it into a mixed-use property that would include housing. At the time of the purchase, new owner George Kurtz said he wanted to create what he called a "transformational, sustainable, mixed-use campus" that would attract entrepreneurs and innovators, among others, and contribute to Scottsdale's "growing technology cluster." Now more specific details have been announced regarding plans for the site - plans that include the building of around 1,200 residential units, some 30,000 square feet of new restaurant space, and 25,000 square feet of retail. To be called The Parque, the project will also see the building of a 5-star hotel with around 220 rooms. City documents have also indicated that the centerpiece of the project will be a two-acre park, with an emphasis on shaded corridors and open space. The big redevelopment plan comes with an estimated price tag of at least $1 billion. Updated plans for the site, which include demolishing existing Cracker Jax facilities, have now been submitted to the City of Scottsdale. By Garry Boulard
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![]() Three months after voters in Tempe defeated a proposal to build a new arena for the Arizona Coyotes, the hockey team is contemplating the purchase of a new site some 6 miles to the east in Mesa. The earlier proposal called for the construction not only of an arena, but also a surrounding 46-acre entertainment district, and was expected to cost around $2.1 billion to complete. Three questions on the May ballot in Tempe would have allowed for construction of the new Coyotes home, and all three were rejected by margins of better than 12%. Objections to the project largely centered on the granting of city tax incentives designed to get the entertainment district and arena built, with one group attacking billionaire Alex Muerillo, owner of the Coyotes, with the slogan "No New Handouts for Billionaires." Now, according to reports, the Coyotes are looking at a 41-acre site on the northwest side of Mesa as a potential new home, with the goal of building an arena and entertainment district still intact. In a statement, the Coyotes said they "remain committed to building the first privately funded sports facility in Arizona history." To that end Muerillo has disclosed a letter of intent to purchase the Mesa site, although the exact terms in that document have not been revealed. The team is thought to also be looking at five other sites in the Mesa area for a possible new home. Crucial at this point is the fact that the none of the sites in Mesa would require voter approval to build the project. Speaking to reporters, Coyotes president Xavier Gutierrez remarked: "We still want to put our money where our mouth is and build something that will be best in class, and, finally, to all the fans, we are committed to making this happen." By Garry Boulard ![]() Lawmakers in Washington are hoping to pass within the next several weeks an extension of the pivotal National Flood Insurance Program before it reaches its expiration date of September 30. The program, which was first created by Congress in 1968, currently insures more than 5 million homes nationally, and provides hundreds of thousands of dollars of flood coverage when required for a federally backed mortgage. What is officially called the National Flood Insurance Program Reauthorization Act will extend the program for five years, cap annual premium increases, and include affordability provisions for low- and middle-income policy holders. The bill additionally includes a provision increasing federal funding for mitigation grants, while also modernizing mapping technology in order to reduce flood risks more effectively. In a statement, Matthew Chase, executive director of the National Association of Counties, said the reauthorization legislation, if passed, will "provide much-needed long-term certainty and key reforms that would benefit counties and our residents." Continuance of the program, said New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez, also in a statement, is particularly needed is view of "disastrous flooding events" that have become "all the more common." Lawmakers have said that they particularly want to bring greater financial accountability to a program that, according to a report issued by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, owned $20.5 billion in loans to the U.S. Treasury as of late last year. The reauthorization legislation is currently under review in the House Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings, and Emergency Management. By Garry Boulard ![]() Work could begin sometime this fall on an El Paso project seeing the building of a four-phase industrial park on the east side of the city. The project, officially called Sky Park El Paso, will go up in a development district owned by El Paso International Airport, and will be built out over a space of 200 acres. The park project is being undertaken by the Dallas-based Green Point Property Company, not far from the big 2-million-square foot Marshalls clothing distribution center, which was opened earlier this year. Sky Park El Paso is more specifically going up in what is called the 601 Corridor Business District and will see the construction of half a dozen buildings with a cumulative industrial space of just over 2 million square feet. The district itself has been identified as having an abundance of space for office, manufacturing, and warehouse use. First phase work on the park will focus on two buildings, measuring around 636,000 square feet. The Green Point Property Company is a private real estate investment firm. Among the company's most-known projects: the GTX Logistics Park, a 3 million-square-foot industrial hub in Georgetown, Texas, around 25 miles to the north of Austin. The opening earlier this year of the Marshalls distribution center at 3900 Global Reach Drive is regarded as something of a game-changer for East El Paso, signaling the possibilities of future big business park development in the area. By Garry Boulard ![]() A company nationally known for its production of high-tensile steel wire nets wants to build a 20,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in north central New Mexico. Geobrugg North America, which was founded in 1951, hopes to build the plant on roughly 13.5 acres it has purchased in the town of Algodones near its corporate headquarters. Because the expansion will result in an expanded workforce for the company of some sixty people, the project has received $500,000 in Local Economic Development Act funding. The expansion, said Geobrugg chief executive officer Andrea Roth in a statement, "will give us the potential to meet the growing demand in the market and offer possibilities for other products from the Brugg Group, such as electric vehicle charging cable or wire ropes for cable cars." The company, which moved to Algodones from its previous headquarters in Santa Fe in 2011, received $50,000 in Sandoval County in funding support when it added 7,000 square feet to what was its existing 16,000-square-foot building in 2017. The larger Brugg Group is based in Switzerland and operates 19 production facilities and 32 sales offices across the globe. Last year the company was involved in a complicated project seeing the building of 20,000 square feet of pinned mesh designed to stabilize an eroding slope damaged by historic flooding in the Yellowstone National Park. The company has also been known for its manufacture of rock fall fencing, By Garry Boulard ![]() More and more states are offering tax holidays for the purchase of school supplies and other goods, a grouping that is now up to 19 states, according to a new study. The Denver-based National Conference of States Legislatures has compiled a list of the states enacting such policies for this year. In the sales tax holiday world, the number of states offering such benefits come and go, as does the exact type of consumer goods to be affected. This year states in the South, including Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Louisiana, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas offering tax holidays for various items. Only the West comes close currently in the number of states with legal tax holidays: Nevada, New Mexico, and Texas. Iowa and Ohio in the Midwest have seen similar holidays. While department and clothing stores in such states record a distinct uptick in sales during designated sales tax holidays, not everyone thinks they are fiscally logical. The Washington-based Institute of Taxation and Economic Policy, for example, recently undertook a study showing that the cost of tax holidays for state and local governments in 2022 was in excess of $1 billion. That study raised the issue of the regressive nature of such policies, especially as such holidays are implemented as a "substitute for more meaningful, permanent reform" of tax policies. The origin of such holidays dates to 1980 when both Michigan and Ohio, in trying to bolster lagging automobile sales, decided to not tax the sales of vehicles for a given period of time. Other tax holidays in Illinois, New York, North Carolina, Vermont, and Wisconsin, have come and gone, depending upon how state lawmakers structured them. The holidays are also often problematic for businesses, too, notes the NCSL study, observing that the "administrative work required to exempt eligible products from sales taxes can be time-consuming and difficult because the list tends to be very specific and limited to a dollar amount." Even so, such holidays appear to be here for the foreseeable future, notes the NCSL study: "Consumers support them and, for now, states continue to enact legislation allowing for multiyear sales tax breaks." By Garry Boulard ![]() Plans have now been announced for the repurposing of a well-known downtown Phoenix landmark into a new location for the national non-profit Goodwill Industries International. Located at 302 W. Van Buren Avenue, the building in question was built in 1925 and has served as the long-time home of a Firestone Tire and Rubber Company service station. Listed in 1985 on the National Register of Historic Places, the building is valued by preservationists for its Streamline Moderne architectural style, although its façade was at one point modernized. Firestone ceased operations in the building some three years ago. Now Goodwill wants to transform the one-story structure into a new thrift store and donation center. The project is being undertaken by JAG Development of Phoenix, which has extensive experience in restoration work, with a focus on downtown Phoenix revitalization efforts. The project will see a reconfiguration of former garage space into store and office space, as well as new landscaping along North 3rd Avenue, which runs along the east side of the building. Goodwill has made it a practice to open new stores in repurposed buildings: earlier this month it opened a facility in a former Office Max building in Decatur, Alabama; last month it opened a store in a one-time CVS location in Dayton, Ohio. Founded in 1902 in Boston, Goodwill provides a wide array of community-based services, including job training and transitional housing for veterans and disabled people, among others. It provides those services for an estimated nearly 40 million people on an annual basis and is supported by revenue from its network of more than 3,200 thrift stores. Those stores, according to a 2016 estimate, take in nearly $5 billion yearly. Goodwill’s emphasis on veterans’ support services was cemented in 1947 when it entered into a joint agreement with the federal Veterans Administration to build nearly 100 new stores and centers across the country, all with the mission of serving World War II veterans. By Garry Boulard ![]() Plans are advancing for the building of what is expected to be a transformative multi-purpose project some 13 miles to the southwest of downtown Santa Fe. City officials are looking at developing a roughly 30-acre currently vacant site just to the south of South Meadows Road and New Mexico State Road 599 and turning it into a space that would include affordable housing units as well as some commercial development. What is being called El Lucero Crossing may also include a grocery store in a part of the city lacking such facilities, as well as an office and industrial park. City documents also indicate that the space may see the development of a bioscience hub. The residential aspect could see as many as 160 affordable housing units built on around eight acres of the site. Companies building at the site may also be eligible for Local Economic Development Act funding. The project, which has been in the talking stage for several years, will additionally see the creation of playing fields and a new fire station. A proposal has also been made to use the off ramps belonging to State Road 599 to create a crossing onto the site. The site is owned by the State of New Mexico, which earlier agreed to lease it to the City of Santa Fe for development purposes. It is expected that the project could be entirely built out over a period of five years, with the first phase of the project carrying a price tag of upwards of $48 million. Although an official construction schedule for El Lucero Crossing has not yet been announced, an economic feasibility study looking at the pros and cons of the project is expected to be undertaken soon by the city. By Garry Boulard ![]() Banks across the country are increasingly making it more difficult for both companies and individual consumers to secure loans, says a new just-released survey. According to a Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey issued by the Federal Reserve, exactly 51% of banks questioned said they had tightened up standards this spring for both larger and medium-sized businesses trying to obtain financing. That 51% figure is significantly up from the 46% of banks who earlier this year reported that they were tightening their standards. According to a narrative accompanying the survey, banks this spring reported tighter lending standards “across all categories of residential real estate loans,” with a concurrent tightening of business and commercial real estate loans. Contrasting the latest bank survey with where things stood exactly a year ago, says the narrative, “banks reported tighter levels of standards in every loan category.” Banks “most frequently cited a less favorable or more uncertain economic outlook,” as the reason for their tightening policies, expecting a “deterioration in collateral values and the credit quality of loans” for the duration of 2023. The number of banks embracing tighter loan standards is the highest recorded since the Covid 19 outbreak in early 2020. Previous highs were recorded during the onset of the Great Recession in 2008. Between those two epochal events, a majority of banks consistently reported a loosening of loan standards. Some 36% of reporting banks also said they were toughening up standards for credit card loans, while, conversely, the number of banks reporting a tightening of auto loans has decreased from 27% in the first quarter of this year to 15% this spring. On business and commercial lending, the narrative notes that banks were generally reporting a reduced tolerance for risk, deterioration in their liquidity positions, and increased concerns about the effects of legislative changes as among the primary reasons for their loan tightening decisions. The narrative also notes that a majority of reporting banks are expecting to “tighten standards on construction and land development loans and nonresidential loans,” with a growing number also feeling less generous in the multifamily properties area. By Garry Boulard ![]() City officials in Fort Collins are trying to re-ignite a nearly 200-unit student housing complex project that was stalled more than a year ago. The project, with a planned 4,000 square feet of retail space, belongs to Valeo Groupe Americas, which is based in Charlotte, North Carolina and specializes in student and senior housing developments, among other areas. The company was earlier profiled in the Charlotte Business Journal and lauded for "delivering unmatched personalized resident experiences in the senior and student market it serves." Work on the project at 255 Johnson Drive in the midtown section of Fort Collins began some two years ago after a handful of 1950s-era ranch houses at the site were demolished to make way for the new complex. But that work came to an abrupt halt in early 2022 for undisclosed reasons. Before the project was halted, some foundation work had begun, including the building of a series of concrete pillars, an elevator shaft, and masonry stairwells. Around the same time that Valeo, which has advertised itself as having completed more than 22.5 million square feet in housing projects, ended its project in Fort Collins, it also stopped work on five other projects in various parts of the country. For all of that, Valeo continues to have a web presence, advertising its "cottages, townhomes, and brownstones." According to the Coloradoan newspaper, the company has been looking for someone to buy the property, but without apparent success. Fort Collins city officials are hoping that another development company will step in and take up the project. But in order for that to happen, the company would have to obtain a building permit and pay off any fees’ association with the failed project. By Garry Boulard |
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