Plans have been unveiled for the construction of a four-story hotel in a growing mixed-development section of Avondale that will include 95 rooms and around 3,000 square feet of retail space. As proposed, the project will be within the larger retail, apartment and entertainment venue known as the BLVD’s Park Avenue District near the intersection of Avondale Boulevard and Van Buren Street, on the near east side of the city. Site plans for the project, which have just been approved by the Avondale City Council, also include a 5,000 square foot restaurant and specialty store space measuring just under 5,300 square feet. The BLVD district comprises some 356 acres and is designed to allow for walkable space, streets with sidewalks, and a central tree-lined plaza. Earlier this year the development saw the official $5.1 million inauguration of a half-acre lake and koi pond with two pedestrian bridges as well as a fountain. The district is now also home to the Phoenix Children’s Sports Medicine Clinic, as well as the Randall McDaniel American Sports Center. The new hotel and retail project, to be called Avid Hotel and Shops, will go up on four acres of the district, and is being designed by the Phoenix-based Archicon Architecture & Interiors. The district was formerly known as the Avondale City Center before being rebranded in the fall of 2019 as the BLVD’s Park Avenue District. By Garry Boulard
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More than $14.5 million in State of New Mexico funding has been approved for a long-awaited gas pipeline project in Taos County. That funding is coming in the form of a capital outlay approved by members of the New Mexico State legislature earlier this year and since signed into law by Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham. The gas pipeline funding is part of an overall $32.3 million in capital outlay support secured this year by Taos County for a variety of facility construction and upgrade projects. As planned, the pipeline will extend from the town of Dixon with a population of around 900 people, heading in a southwestern 13-mile direction through the Picuris Pueblo, with a population of less than 300, and into the town of Penasco, called home by around 1,200 people. Known as the “Dixon-to-Penasco Loop 1” pipeline, the project will be built under the auspices of the New Mexico Department of Transportation, following the general route of State Road 75. A construction schedule for the project has not yet been announced. By Garry Boulard More than $4.7 billion was made available for the clean up of orphaned oil and gas wells across the country through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act passed late last year. Now the Department of Interior has released a draft guidance providing information and instructions on how individual states can apply for the first round of $775 million in grant funding. “We are committed to getting these funds to states and communities as quickly as possible to confront legacy pollution and long-standing environmental injustices that have been allowed to fester for far too long,” Interior Secretary Deb Haaland remarked in a statement. According to Interior Department officials, the guidance is designed to allow states to launch their individual remediation projects, providing detailed information about the location of the wells to be eradicated, their condition, and actual clean-up plans. Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico are all eligible for up to $25 million in grant funding under the program. According to the Washington-based Environmental Defense Fund there are currently more than 81,000 documented orphaned oil and gas wells in some 28 states. Those wells are particularly abundant in Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas, with concentrations in Colorado and New Mexico. According to sources, the wells are almost everywhere, contaminating nearby backyards, parks and public spaces. State responses to the Energy Department well project guidance announcement have a deadline of March 30. By Garry Boulard Built just 30 or so years after Colorado was admitted into the union, a post office in the southeastern town of Hasty is being listed for sale with an asking price of $135,000. Located at 101 S. Main Street, the wooden Hasty Post Office structure was built in 1908 and has for decades served as the town’s postal facility, with apartment space located on the second floor. Measuring 3,800 square feet., the building is an institutional mainstay in a town said to have taken on its unusual name due to the hasty manner in which tents and small houses were built to accommodate workers for an Army Corps of Engineers project. Set in a defined Opportunity Zone, the less than half-acre site containing the post office building also features a nearly 1,000 square foot metal building currently rented out as an antique shop. Listed with the realtor SVN Commercial of Denver, the post office structure is classified as a Class B building. The town of Hasty has enjoyed a modest population growth in the last decade from 96 people to its current 129. By Garry Boulard Members of the El Paso City Council have agreed to reduce by some 15 acres a site on the west side of the city that may see the building of a massive Amazon distribution facility. The remaining 29 acres at the intersection of Paseo del Norte Boulevard and Interstate 10 are being sold to the Kansas City, Missouri-based VanTrust Real Estate for the expected future development of the Amazon building. The land in question was previously being considered as a new site for the Great Wolf Lodge of Chicago, which specializes in water parks and resort hotels. In the hope of securing that project, the city in 2018 agreed to buy the land from developer and businessman Paul Foster. But Great Wolf Resorts walked away from the deal in the spring of 2020 due to the economic impact of the Covid 19 outbreak. If the Amazon distribution facility becomes reality, it will be the second significant investment by the online retail giant in El Paso: last year the company opened a 625,000 square foot fulfillment center on the east side of the city between Interstate 10 and Rojas Drive. VanTrust Real Estate specializes in the acquisition and development of commercial real estate. It was instrumental last year in the development of two new Amazon sortation centers in southern Arizona. By Garry Boulard Members of the House of Representatives have given their approval to legislation governing pre-dispute contract arbitration agreements. On a 222 to 209 vote, the House passed the Forced Arbitration Injustice Repeal Act that in its essence prohibits the enforcement of forced arbitration clauses in antitrust, civil rights, consumer, and labor disputes. The legislation has been opposed by several business and industry associations, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce which has charged that the “ultimate goal of this bill is to promote expensive class action litigation that does little to help businesses, consumers, and employees.” A different perspective is offered by Rhode Island Congressman David Cicilline, chairman of the House Antitrust Subcommittee, who says that the legislation “prohibits the enforcement of forced arbitration clauses in consumer, civil rights, and antitrust disputes.” If the bill is ultimately passed by the upper chamber, says the National Law Review, “arbitration agreements and class action waivers would be prohibited in a wide variety of agreements, implicating anything from an employment contract to a credit card agreement.” The bill, which has also won the backing of President Biden, will specifically void all pre-dispute mandatory arbitration agreements in employment, antitrust, and consumer contracts. Congressional observers say the legislation may face rough going in the Senate. By Garry Boulard Construction could begin later this summer on a long-awaited project that will see the building of a water line for the To’Hajiilee community, located some 30 miles to the west of Albuquerque. Officials with the community, which is a part of the Navajo Nation, have come to an agreement with several parties regarding an easement needed to build the project. As planned, the To’Hajiilee community wants to build a 7.3-mile transmission line that would provide clean water to its nearly 2,000 residents. Reports have indicated that five wells built to serve those residents have failed completely, while the final sixth well has been plagued by operational issues. Parties to the agreement include the Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority as well as the company Western Albuquerque Land Holdings. The water transmission line will connect to a tank that is part of the ABCWUA system. Last month the ABCWUA approved just over $7.7 million in funding for the project from the New Mexico Finance Authority. Water challenges for the To’Hajiilee community have included a deteriorating pipe segment, with the ABCWUA repeatedly delivering water by tank to make up for the system shortfalls. Last year in a statement Jamie Henio, a Navajo Nation Council delegate representing the community said residents there “desperately need a long-term reliable water supply.” Short of the new pipeline, added Henio, the community’s “existing water wells will continue to fail after years of band-aid fixes.” It is thought that it will take anywhere from 12 to 18 months to complete the new pipeline project. By Garry Boulard A compact 20,200 square foot structure in an industrial section of Albuquerque has been put on the market for $990,000. Located at 600 1st Street NW, the facility for years served as the New Mexico Produce Building, a busy fruit and vegetable warehouse. Built in 1920, the one-story structure underwent an initial renovation in the early 1980s, transforming it into a series of office units and suites. In 2014 work was launched creating co-working space in the building. It is today officially called The Produce Company, in a salute to its historic past. The exterior of the building bears the unmistakable Art Deco design elements popularly seen in the 1920s and 30s, with sleek rows of glass bricks and intricately designed iron gating decorating the front and side of the structure. Designated as a Class C building, the structure is located within an Opportunity Zone. Listed with the Albuquerque-based realtor NAI SunVista, the building also features a lengthy cement ramp original to the structure that runs along its Roma Avenue side. By Garry Boulard In a trend encouraging the construction of more senior housing, a new report is showing an increase in senior housing capacity as of the final quarter of last year. According to the Annapolis-based National Investment Center for Seniors Housing such occupancy hit the 81% mark in the last four months of 2021. That number is a marked increase over the 78.7% recorded in the spring of last year. Surveying 31 metropolitan markets, the NIC analysis notes that just over 21,000 units were newly occupied. In a blog post Beth Mace, chief economist with the non-profit, sees this statistic as a “clear reversal in trend from the loss of 42,129 units during the pandemic in the second, third and fourth quarters of 2020 and the first quarter of 2021.” The strongest markets surveyed in the analysis showed properties in Boston, San Francisco, and San Jose with occupancy rates more than 90%. Properties in Atlanta, Cleveland, and Houston, on the other hand, had occupancy rates below 80%. In an industry seminar held in Los Angeles in late February, Courtney Siegel, chief executive officer of the Oakmont Management Group, noted that only certain types of amenities have proven to be the most attractive to would-be residents. “We made changes in our value proposition to showcase items like safety, security, and the presence of a medical director,” Siegel said, adding: “The client that we were speaking to wasn’t interested in our highly amenitized buildings anymore.” By Garry Boulard Work is set to begin by early summer on the construction of a long-awaited new high school in Grand Junction, Colorado. District school officials for years have been wanting to replace the current high school, located at 1400 N 5th Street, just to the north of downtown Grand Junction. That two-story brick facility was built in 1955 and has been challenged by a few structural issues, including the cracking and sinking of its foundation. Late last year Mesa County Valley School District 51 voters gave their approval to a $115 million bond that, along with an additional $10 million coming from the state’s Building Excellent Schools Today grant, will pay for construction of the new building. Additional funding for the project is coming from just under $20 million approved in a 2017 bond measure. New details regarding the project say the school will measure around 250,000 square feet and will go up just to the right of the existing school, with that facility slated to be demolished once the new building is completed. A new sports field and parking lot will then be built on the land where the old school once stood. The planned structure will be three stories in height, with a commons area devoted to both athletics and the performing arts. Designer for the project is the Grand Junction-based Blythe Group. If all goes well, it is expected that work on the new facility will be completed by the late summer of 2024, in time for that fall’s semester. By Garry Boulard |
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