A new railroad may be built in northern New Mexico designed to serve the Navajo Nation and enhance area economic development opportunities. Officials with the Navajo Nation and the San Juan County Commission have signed a Memorandum of Understanding designed to foster development of the project. If made reality, the railroad would most likely be built along New Mexico Highway 371, which runs north to south through both San Juan and McKinley Counties. The railroad has long been seen as a necessary component to attract industries to the area, particularly manufacturing plants relying upon the regular shipments of goods and materials. Cost estimates for actually building the railroad have ranged between $200 million and $300 million, money that would have to be secured from a variety of sources, including the federal Department of Transportation. Besides exploring the potential for those funding options, Navajo Nation officials have said that they will soon be developing a larger master plan for the Highway 371 corridor that will include the construction of a railroad. In a statement, Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez noted the more than 70,000 acres of agricultural farmland belonging to the tribe in northern New Mexico, saying that the establishment of a railroad would allow for an easy transport of produce to other parts of the state. By Garry Boulard
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A decision by the White House to exclude the construction industry from its long-anticipated Industry Regulated Apprenticeship Program is being criticized by a major builders’ group. “It remains troubling that the administration has wasted so much time, energy and political capital in creating a new apprenticeship program that is both deeply flawed and fails to address construction workforce shortages,” Stephen Sandheer said in a statement. The chief executive officer of the Washington-based Associated General Contractors of America, Sandherr continued: “The administration should have found ways to make it easier to establish the kind of rigorous, high-quality, construction apprenticeship programs that exist in some, but far from every part of the country.” As established, the Industry Regulated Apprenticeship Program is actually a series of programs governed by the Department of Labor allowing individuals to obtain knowledge and advanced skills in the workplace. The Labor Department’s just-issued final rules on the programs notes that such entities can be developed by nonprofit organizations, corporations, and any number of trade or industry groups. In announcing those rules, Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia said that the programs are “widely recognized to be a highly effective job-training approach for American workers and for employers seeking the skilled workforce needed in today’s changing workforce.” President Trump had signed an executive order in the summer of 2017 expanding the program, while also establishing a task force made up of business, labor, trade associations, and educational institutions designed to offer their input on how to improvement the effort. By tradition, once such programs are put in place by various industries, those industries also qualify for federal grants to underwrite them. Almost from the start, the construction industry was excluded from the new rules based on the theory that there are other non-construction industry specific apprenticeship efforts that nevertheless still relate to construction workforce training. Various construction labor groups have contended that creating any new effort within the Administration’s Industry Regulated Apprenticeship Programs would prove duplicative. According to industry statistics, there were as of 2018 nearly 167,000 individual construction apprentices nationally. By Garry Boulard Plans have been announced for the building of a unique multi-use development that will include hotel and residential space, along with a park and walking trail, on some 100 acres currently dominated by a shopping center in Oro Valley. The project comes after new owners purchased the 800,000 square foot center, which was built in 2008 but has in recent years been plagued with a number of store vacancies. What was called the Oro Valley Marketplace at 12155 N. Oracle Road has since been rebranded as the Oro Valley Village Center, with upgrades taking place to the original structure. But now the owner, real estate firm Town West of Tucson, says it wants to build up to two apartment structures housing a combined 220 units, as well as two hotels. The project, which has already been the subject of one public input meeting, will also see the redesign of a central open space on the site to be reconfigured as a public gathering space. The plan is now on its way to the Oro Valley Planning and Zoning Commission, before a final review by the Oro Valley Town Council. By Garry Boulard Construction of an emergency 24-hour homeless shelter on property owned by the University of New Mexico is generating opposition from a nearby neighborhood. Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller has pointed to a site north of Lomas Boulevard NE and south of Indian School Road as a likely location for the new shelter. In a press conference at the site, the Mayor commented, “I want to note that this is nowhere near the campus. It’s on UNM land, but it is very far from the campus and so we want to kind of debunk that myth.” But residents living in the nearby Spruce Park neighborhood have said that the location for the proposed shelter is too close to both the main UNM campus as well as their own homes. In response, the Spruce Park Neighborhood Association has issued a statement condemning using the UNM property to build the shelter. As planned, the shelter, which will be called the Gateway Center, would house around 300 beds and also have on-site staff and counseling services to help those residing in the facility. Funding for the project is coming from some $14 million in bonds approved by Albuquerque voters last year. City officials have acknowledged that if opposition to the UNM site proves too enduring, a site elsewhere will have to be found. At issue is finding a location that could be regarded as accessible to homeless individuals in the downtown and UNM vicinity. By Garry Boulard A bill designed to substantially eliminate discriminatory land use policies pertaining to housing construction projects has won the approval of the House Financial Services Committee. Called the Yes In My Backyard Act, the legislation will also require recipients of federal Community Development Block Grants to report on any land use policies in their communities serving to inhibit new housing construction. In an article written for the publication The Hill, David Schwartz, chairman of the National Multifamily Housing Council, said there is “no silver bullet to the housing affordability crisis, but productive and practical bills like this, when used to complement more localized efforts, can have a significant and positive impact.” The bill, whose acronym YIMBY is a rhetorical response to the opposition seen in many communities to proposed housing projects known as Not In My Backyard, or the NIMBY movement, particularly addresses itself to local regulations that often stifle the development of such projects. A statement issued by the Financial Services Committee argues: “As these regulations have increased, the result is fewer homes built and untenable housing costs.” Sponsored by Representative Denny Heck of Washington and Trey Hollingsworth of Indiana, the YIMBY legislation has won the support of such groups as the American Planning Association and the National Association of Realtors. Housing industry experts have maintained that there is currently a 7 million gap between the number of new housing units needed in the country and the number of such units actually being built. They additionally note that a plethora of new local land use policies and zoning regulations, often enacted in response to the opposition expressed by the neighbors of any proposed project, have increased in recent years. The YIMBY legislation contains no enforcement mechanisms regarding how such decisions are made, but instead will require local governments to detail their rationale for deciding on zoning and land use policies impacting new housing development. By Garry Boulard A former transportation hub in Denver may soon see the building of a long hoped-for neighborhood grocery store and just under one hundred affordable housing units. The project will go up on a largely vacant 1.3-acre site at 12300 East Albrook Drive on the northeast side of Denver. That site was once the home to a Regional Transportation District Park-n-Ride stop, which ceased operations four years ago. In the years since, community activists in the geographically large Montbello neighborhood have been trying to get a combined housing and retail development built at the site. Last month it was announced that the Montbello Organizing Committee, which is dedicated to providing more affordable housing options in the neighborhood, had purchased the property in question from the RTD for $600,000. In a statement, Chris Martinez, president of the Montbello Organizing Committee, hailed the purchase agreement, remarking: “We are very proud that this project is being envisioned by the community and that it will be owned by the community.” It is expected that it will cost at least $40 million to build what is being called The Hub. Funding support for the effort has previously been secured from the Kresge Foundation, the Colorado Health Foundation, and the Denver Foundation, a nonprofit supporting community endeavors. The housing part of the new project is expected to include one, two, and three-bedroom units, as well as studio-sized apartments. The grocery store, as well as a community center, will be located on the ground level of the structure. Organizers they would like to see construction on the project begin by early next year, with a completion date of sometime in 2022. The Montbello community has long been regarded as a food desert - defined as a neighborhood with little access to nutritious and affordable food. The last full-scale supermarket in the area, a Safeway, closed its doors in 2014. By Garry Boulard Work is expected to begin roughly a year from now on a Biomedical Research Center on the Las Cruces campus of New Mexico State University. The project is one of three large facility projects the school hopes to take on in the next year, and includes the renovation of the Food Science Security and Safety Facility, as well as an updated Animal Nutrition and Feed Manufacturing facility. The projects are all being funded through a General Obligation bond passed by New Mexico voters in the fall of 2018, providing some $25 million. At the time of the bond election, Garrey Carruthers, then chancellor of the NMSU System, noted that “after generations of use, many of our agricultural facilities are growing old and in need of repair.” With a long history of work on agricultural science and biomedical research, NMSU, with a current enrollment of around 22,000 students, is looking at the modernized facilities as essential to its historic mission. If all goes according to plans, the work on all three facilities is expected to be completed by the fall of 2022. By Garry Boulard Based in Bengaluru (Bangalore, India), Oyo Hotels and Homes are launching an aggressive expansion effort on the heels of 2019 revenues in excess of $951 million. Regarded in the industry as the fastest growing hotel chain in the world, Oyo now has more than 50 hotels across the U.S., but has said that it plans to invest at least $300 million to build more. The trendy hotels with their starkly designed rooms offer shared work and kitchen space, a common laundry room, libraries, and WiFi, with guests being able to book stays at other locations through the OYO Rooms app. But perhaps the greatest appeal of the brand is the price of its rooms, which on average is below $50 a night. Last year Oyo founder Ritesh Agarwal even said that ideally he would like to open at least five new hotels a day in the U.S. The U.S. expansion comes as the company has also committed to building new locations in China, Great Britain and in several Latin American countries. In the last 12 months, the company launched more than 400 hotels in just Mexico alone. Last month an Oyo spokesperson told the New York Times that the company was taking steps to “optimize and strengthen our business.” That effort, the spokesperson continued, includes “balancing the speed of our expansion with our operational capabilities, ensuring our growth is sustainable and maintaining our commitment to excellence across the board.” Since 2019 Oyo has renovated existing structures and opened new properties in Atlanta, Augusta, Dallas, Denver, and Houston, among other cities. The company has not yet announced where its future locations will be, but some analysts are predicting growth in the West and South, with at least five hundred OYO hotels open for business in the U.S. by early next year. By Garry Boulard In an effort to pay homage to the sport that has done so much for the southern Arizona tourist and recreation economy, city officials in Scottsdale are talking about building a baseball museum. The city has issued a Request for Qualifications asking for ideas on putting up what it calls a “modern, first-class facility” that would celebrate both the history of professional baseball, as well as its long-standing role in the Phoenix metro area. As planned, the facility would feature a series of interactive exhibits and would most likely see construction on land between the Scottsdale Stadium and the Civic Center parking garage off of Drinkwater Boulevard. Depending upon the responses to the RFQ, Scottsdale city officials have said that they would like to have a signed agreement with a developer in hand by the end of this summer, subject to the final approval of the Scottsdale City Council. If that approval is secured, work on the museum could begin sometime in 2021. In an earlier Request for Proposals for the project that did not generate much response, the city made it clear that the developer would be responsible for all construction costs and future operations of the facility. Baseball in Scottsdale and metro Phoenix goes back to at least 1904 when the University of Arizona inaugurated its first team. By 1947, the Cleveland Indians were regularly spending the spring training season in Tucson, and sometimes joined by team part-owner Bob Hope. The Major League Arizona Diamondbacks, meanwhile, are based in Phoenix and have played at the Chase Field since 1998. The team attracted an average of 26,300 people per game last year. The submission deadline for the baseball museum RFQ is March 31. By Garry Boulard A library whose archival holdings include more than 10,000 historic photos relating to the history of southern Colorado, as well as rock art and archaeology collections, is in line for a major upgrade. Located on the third floor of the Robert Hoag Rawlings Public Library at 100 East Abriendo Avenue in Pueblo, the archive has received a $500,000 matching grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities for a facility space renovation. As planned, the upgrading inside the 15 year-old building will include enlarging the archive’s storage vault and installing new climate control and fire suppression systems. A workspace set aside for staff members is also expected to be expanded, with more workspace to be built for researchers. Altogether, the upgrading will cost around $2 million, with additional funding coming from other sources, including the Pueblo City-County Library District. In a statement, Amy Nelson, special collections and museum services manager with the district, said the upgrade project will include improving storage space in a manner that will provide “new pathways for our community to explore its roots and heritage.” Besides its historic photos and rock art collections, the Rawlings Public Library also includes such historically random items as a pen used by President John F. Kennedy in August of 1962 to sign the Fryingpan-Arkansas Project transbasin water diversion enabling legislation, and the final will of famous explorer and fur trapper Kit Carson, who died in 1868. Altogether, the National Endowment for the Humanities awarded just under $31 million in grants for a variety of humanities facility projects across the country. By Garry Boulard |
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