A press box original to the 45-year-old Aggie Memorial Stadium in Las Cruces, may be replaced if state funding for what is expected to be a $10 million project is secured.

The project has been talked about for several years at an initial cost of $8.2 million.

New Mexico State University official are hoping that capital outlay requests for exactly 13 projects totaling $16.8 million will win the approval of both state lawmakers and Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham this spring.

Ironically, given the ever-increasing cost of labor and materials, the price tag for a new press box is more than double the $4 million it cost to build the entire stadium, which saw its first football game in September of 1978.

Other NMSU athletic facility projects to be funded with the New Mexico State Legislature’s approval: locker room renovations, roof renovations, a new football video board, and new lighting for the school’s softball fields.
​
The stadium saw the construction of a new 2,200 square foot covered skybox in 2015.

​By Garry Boulard

The U.S. is one of three world regions tracked by the industry analysis firm Lodging Econometrics that saw an increase in hotel pipeline projects late last year.

New figures compiled by the Portsmouth, New Hampshire-based company put Asia Pacific and Canada in the category of increased pipeline projects between the final quarter of 2021 and the last three months of last year.

Altogether, the global pipeline as of the last day of 2022 stood at 15,267 individual projects, comprising just under 2.3 million new rooms.

Leading into late 2022, Lodging Econometrics reports, the global pipeline “has remained relatively flat for three consecutive years, following the onset of the Covid 10 pandemic.”

That flatness, continues the report, followed on the heels of “peak project and room counts” in the final quarter of 2019.

As of late last year, the U.S. and China led the world in new hotel pipeline projects. China saw just under 3,600 new projects, for slightly over 675,000 rooms; while the U.S. had nearly 5,500 hotel projects in the pipeline, representing 650,626 rooms.

In a distant third place was India with 383 hotel pipeline projects and 43,332 rooms.

Three U.S. cities made up the top five cities with the largest construction totals: Dallas, at 176 projects, and just under 20,800 rooms; Atlanta, with 145 projects and 18,100 rooms; and Los Angeles, compiling 122 projects for 19,419 rooms.

Companies leading the project list: Marriott International, with 2,656 projects representing just over 429,000 rooms; and Hilton Worldwide at 2,662 projects and 384,498 rooms.

Third largest performer: the InterContinental Hotels Group with 1,736 individual projects in the pipeline, and 257,145 rooms.
​
Adding up all of last year’s figures, Lodging Econometrics is reporting that some 1,842 new hotels opened in 2022, representing just under 285,000 rooms.

​By Garry Boulard

Expanding its market in the West, the company Google Fiber has announced that it is building new infrastructure for its services in two large metro areas in both Arizona and Colorado.

Members of the Westminster City Council in metro Denver have given their approval to a proposal that will see the company using the city’s rights of way and easements for construction. The project is expected to be completed sometime next year.

Westminster is the second city in Colorado to work out a partnership with Google Fiber. Late last year the city of Lakewood also reached an agreement with the company. At the time of Lakewood announcement, Mayor Adam Paul remarked: “Internet connectivity is as important as having water and electricity, and we need to ensure we have robust systems in place to serve our residents and businesses.”

At the same time, Google Fiber says it wants to build out a system in Chandler, Arizona, after earlier announcing plans to expand its fiber optic service in nearby Mesa, too.

A part of the Access division of the Mountain View, California-based Alphabet Incorporated, Google Fiber has been slowly building out its footprint in select areas of the country. Last summer the company announced plans to build new infrastructure in some 33 metro areas.
​
Dinni Jain, chief executive officer of Google Fiber, several months ago told the Reuters news service that while it has no plans to “build the entire country,” it did want to go into areas “based on the company’s findings of where speeds lag.”

​By Garry Boulard

Plans are advancing for the construction of a student center on the Hobbs campus of New Mexico Junior College.

To be called The Hub, the structure is expected to measure around 10,800 square feet, and would house meeting rooms, study rooms, a coffee shop, game room, and a mail room, among other amenities.

According to NMJC documents, the center will most likely be built within the school’s Student Housing Complex, and could cost around $9.7 million to complete.

The project has been discussed by members of NMJC’s Facilities Committee, and remains to be  included as part of the school’s Campus Master Plan. Once that’s done, the project will be submitted to a hearing of the Capital Outlay Committee, which is a part of the state’s Higher Education Department.

The student center project is being viewed as a way to attract more students from the school’s southeastern New Mexico and western Texas enrollment base.
​
The school, located at 5317 Lovington Highway, currently has an enrollment of around 3,000 students.

​By Garry Boulard

For the fourth month in a row, billings at the nation’s architectural firms were off.

But the good news, according to numbers compiled by the Washington-based American Institute of Architects, is that the decline is less than what it has been in recent months.

With a score above 50 representing an increase in billings from the month before, and anything below 50 showing a decline in billings, the overall score for all reporting firms in January stood at 49.3.

In December that number stood at 48.4.

Seen regionally, the Midwest posted the strongest billings numbers at 51.6, followed by the West at 51.3, and the Northeast at 50.9. The South, in pre-covid months an industry hotbed, came in at 46.9.
“Business conditions were soft at most firm specializations,” an AIA press release noted, while firms offering a mixed specialization saw growth for the third month in a row.

Firm responses indicated that project inquiries, on a general decline for the last year, saw an uptick in January, as did design contracts.

Billings were strongest, at 48.6, in the institutional sector; followed by the commercial/industrial sector at 46.8; and residential at 45.0.

In a statement, Kermit Baker, chief economist with the AIA, said that despite the continued industry decline in billings, “there are signs of easing.”
​
Continued Baker: “In particular, architecture firms reported that new project work has begun to increase, signifying that this decline in billings may reverse in coming month.”

​By Garry Boulard

A two-story brick building that once housed an F.W. Woolworth Company store in downtown Longmont, Colorado, is now on the market for around $3.4 million.

Located at 380 Main Street, at the corner of Main and 4th Avenue, the structure measures nearly 25,400 square feet and is designated as a Class B building.

The Longmont Woolworth’s was part of a vast network of around 600 five-and-dimes offering a wide variety of apparel, household goods, and toys across the country.

The stores contained everything from “dime parakeets, toasted cheese sandwiches, and Lovelee hairnets,” to “’Evening in Paris’ perfume for Mom, an all purpose ‘4K vegetable peeler’ for the kitchen drawer, and a plastic whirlybird for Grandpa’s garden,” notes author Karen Plunkett-Powell in her 2014 book Remembering Woolworth’s: A Nostalgic History of the World’s Most Famous Five-And-Dime.

The chain thrived for more than half a century until the 1960s and 70s when it faced new and increasing competition from such retail giants as Kmart and Walmart. The company closed its final U.S. stores in 1997.

While many of the one-time Woolworth’s stores have remained empty, others have been repurposed as office space and even newer retail space.

In recent years, the Longmont building has alternatively housed a restaurant and tavern, among other businesses.

Located within Longmont’s National Historic District, the structure saw renovation work in 2013 and 2014, and features 8,500 square feet of office space on its second level.
​
The property is being listed by the Longmont offices of Re/Max Commercial.

​By Garry Boulard

Up to $12 million may be spent on the building of a new rail spur on the south side of Colorado Springs.

The project, which has been in the talking stage for several years and has just won the approval of the Colorado Springs City Council, will be an extension of a rail line serving the Colorado Springs Utilities company.

As planned, the rail spur will feed into a 3,000-acre industrial park that is expected to be the home to future heavy manufacturing activity, and will also serve the U.S. Army base at Fort Carson, some 9 miles to the southeast of Colorado Springs.

The spur will be built by the Dearborn, Michigan-based Edward C. Levy Company and will run roughly adjacent to Interstate 25. A rough timeline for the big project states that work is expected to begin sometime in the next 5 years.
​
The project’s connection to Fort Carson has been seen as especially significant, allowing for the movement of heavy equipment to that facility.

​By Garry Boulard

The prices for concrete, fuel, and gypsum products saw a clear increase in the first month of this year, even as costs for other materials were on the downside, according to a new analysis.

Crunching the latest government data, the Washington-based Associated General Contractors of America documents declines in two materials that have experienced uneven price rides in the last several years: lumber and steel.

The AGC analysis shows that the price of cement was up by a significant 17.6% between January of 2022 and last month, while concrete products experienced a 14.8% increase during that same period of time.

Diesel fuel prices registered a 22.8% gain over the last year, with gypsum building materials up by 11.1%.

Also on the increase: asphalt felts and coatings, by 7.4%; and flat glass, which saw an 8.7% jump.

But after a historic increase in 2021 and 2022 due to a production shortage, lumber and plywood product prices are off by a substantial 30.8%. During the same January 2022 to January 2023 period, the prices for steel mill products fell by 30.1%, with steel pipe and tubing prices off by 10.0%.

Copper and brass mill shapes saw a price decline of 4.5%; with aluminum mill shapes down by 6.1%.
Providing an overview of the price trends, Ken Simonson, chief economist with the AGC, noted that even though “producer price indexes for construction inputs moderated over the past year,” many items nonetheless were on the up side last month.

Added Simonson: “With demand shifting among project types, prices for many inputs are likely to diverge further in 2023.”

A press release from the AGC noted an ongoing uncertainty regarding what materials are qualified to be used on infrastructure projects funded by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
​
That uncertainty will likely make it harder for contractors to “find materials to complete infrastructure projects, raise the cost of those materials, and lead to delays in completing the work,” the AGC statement continued.

​By Garry Boulard

A historic two-story brick structure in downtown El Paso that was built when Theodore Roosevelt was president is now on the market for $750,000.

Located at 408 S. El Paso Street, the building measures just over 4,600 square feet, and is designated as a Class B structure.

The property is located on a block of one- and two-story brick commercial structures housing department and shoe stores, as well as the Continental Dry Goods, which has been in business since 1903.

Most of architecturally rich brick structures on the block were built more than 75 years ago.

For more than 10 years, the 408 S. El Paso Street address has been the home to a popular women’s clothing store called the Bella Boutique. In its early decades, the building served as a boarding house.
​
The property is being listed by the El Paso real estate company Team Juan Uribe.

By Garry Boulard

A dozen buildings in the historic El Paso neighborhood of Duranguito will be put on the market now that that part of town will not be the site of a proposed multi-purpose arena.

In January members of the ElS Paso City Council voted to abandon the Duranguito site after six years of litigation in a variety of courts challenging the project.

Now city officials have announced that structures in the neighborhood earlier purchased by the City of El Paso will be sold, with revenue expected to go to the building of the arena somewhere else in the city.

To be funded out of a $473 million Quality of Life bond approved by El Paso voters in 2012, the officially named Multi-Purpose Cultural and Performing Arts Center came with a $189 million price tag.

Due to the costs associated with the prolonged litigation and a price increase in construction materials, it is thought that the arena may well cost more than $230 million to build today.

El Paso Mayor Oscar Leeser recently indicated that he is committed to seeing the arena through to completion. The project now may also include a 250-room hotel, and both residential and retail space.
​
A new plan for the arena, and where it may be built, is expected to be presented to the city council sometime in April.

​By Garry Boulard