A fundraising effort is now underway to build expanded facilities for a popular, all-volunteer museum in Bullhead City, Arizona.
The current Colorado River Historical Society museum is housed in a one-story former church, more than 70 years old, at 2201 Arizona Route 68.

Organizers with the museum say they want to build a larger facility, which will go up in phases, inside the Bullhead City Community Park at 1251 Arizona State Route 95, some 5 miles to the south of the current facility.

The project is expected to cost at least $250,000. The museum has recently received a $15,000 donation for the work, on top of another $60,000 that has already been raised.

The new museum will measure around 2,100 square feet, but plans call for the eventual expansion of the new facility to 6,000 square feet.

The museum celebrates the history of Bullhead City, which attracted workers in the late 1940s who were building the Davis Dam. That dam, which was completed in 1951, channels water from the Hoover Dam just over 90 miles to the north.

By Garry Boulard

The benefits of corporate tax reform as enacted under last year’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act is proving “unambiguously positive for the economy.”

So says a report just released by the California Lutheran University Center for Economic Growth and Forecasting, which lists a number of large U.S. companies that have handed out bonus checks to their employees as a result of the legislation.

“The reform package signed into law is fundamental change of the very type we thought impossible,” notes the Thousands Oaks-based Center in its first quarter 2018 United States Executive Summary.

Noting that across-the-board tax cuts are expected to lead to a 0.5 percent increase in the growth of the nation’s economy, the summary says that that expected increase is on the lower side of what it calls “the possible benefits of corporate tax reform.”

But the summary also says those benefits are dwarfed by the 3.5 percent average growth rate seen in the decades after World War II.
What is contributing to a more limited economic growth this year, says the survey, is ongoing deficit spending as well as President Trump’s increased tariffs on steel and aluminum.

Nevertheless, the survey is predicting a 2.8 percent increase in the nation’s gross domestic product for the second quarter of this year, the largest percentage recorded since the spring of 2015.

The survey additionally predicts a 2.5 percent GDP growth rate for the last quarter of this year and the first three months of 2019.

By Garry Boulard

Up to 120,000 square feet of production facilities are planned for construction in Tularosa, New Mexico as part of what will be the largest cannabis cultivation site in the U.S.

The Ultra Health company, based in Scottsdale, Arizona, says the site on desert land will also include 80 acres of outdoor cannabis fields and 100 acres of outdoor hemp fields.

Located on Otero County land just off of the Old Tularosa Farm Road, the Ultra Health project is responding to a growing market for medical cannabis.

But company officials say they are exploring the possibility of expanding Ultra Health’s facilities, should New Mexico make the sale of recreational marijuana legal.

Ultra Health announced in early 2017 that it was partnering with Israeli company Panaxia Pharmaceuticals to produce a cannabis medicine offered in candy-like treats, tablets, and patches to be absorbed by the skin.

Ultra Health has a ready base of more than 50,000 people who are currently enrolled in New Mexico’s medical cannabis program.
The company’s expansion will also include 20 air-supported, wind-assisted style greenhouses.

The new production facilities, said Ultra Health Chief Executive Office Duke Rodriguez in a statement, will “ensure the commitment of continuing to produce and deliver the highest quality, most affordable, and convenient cannabis in the state.”

Whether New Mexico will eventually legalize the recreational sale and use of cannabis remains unknown. Currently, 29 states allow for the sale of medical marijuana, while 10 states permit both medical and recreational cannabis use.

As more states have been moving in the direction of legalization, so has public opinion. According to a recent Gallup Survey, 64 percent of respondents said they supported making marijuana legal for recreational purposes, up from 41 percent a decade ago.

By Garry Boulard

A pitch is being made to build a family entertainment center in Alamogordo that, acknowledging southern New Mexico’s role in space exploration, will be called Lunar Escape.

As planned, the project will go up at 1807 E. 10th Street in a 1960s-era strip mall that last housed a Goodwill Industries outlet.

The more than 40,000 square-foot mall sits on a large 2-acre site.

Business developer Mike Elliott, in making a presentation before a recent meeting of the Board of Otero County Commissioners, said the center will have two interior black light miniature 9-hole golf courses, two themed escape rooms, four party rooms, and four virtual reality stations.

Plans also call for LED lighting in the facility’s large front parking space.

Elliott and his partners on the project say the center would be partly in response to a need for more quality family entertainment options in Alamogordo and the surrounding area.

The project, which will see the renovation and building out of the former mall space, is expected to cost around $2 million, a figure that will cover the costs of the structure’s acquisition, renovation, and equipment.

The Lunar Escape partners are currently researching funding options, which could eventually include business development support from the City of Alamogordo.

By Garry Boulard

Despite generally robust conditions, the construction industry nationally remains challenged by increased materials and equipment costs.

In fact, notes a just-released report published by IHS Markit, a business analysis group with offices in New York, the construction industry’s costs have been moving upwards for every month since October of 2016.

According to the IHS Markit PEG Engineering and Construction Cost Index, the price of compressors, heat exchangers, and pumps have all increased by double digits in the last month.

Costs are also up for fabricated structural steel, carbon steel pipe, and alloy steel pipe.

Making matters more challenging for contractors is the recent imposition of steel and aluminum tariffs by the Trump Administration, which, according to John Anton, associate director of pricing and purchasing with IHS Markit, has added a troubling element of uncertainty to the steel-buying market.

“When the cost is unknowable and availability dubious, rational behavior is to do nothing,” Anton said in a press release.

The report also notes that labor costs are expected to rise for the foreseeable future, with industry officials expressing concerns about a shortage of carpenters, electrical engineers, and welders.

By Garry Boulard

A new residence hall that could house up to 500 beds is being seen as one of the cornerstones of a new Facilities Master Plan announced for the University of Colorado at Denver.

That hall would be built especially for first-year students at the school, with construction planned for a site on the northeast side of the campus between the existing North Classroom building and the Student Commons building.

The larger plan, to be executed in two phases over a ten-year period, is calling for the construction of a new Engineering and Physical Sciences building; a new Business School with a 125-seat auditorium; and an annex tower at the corner of 14th and Larimer streets.

The total costs for the various facility projects is estimated at just under $850 million, a figure that university officials are hoping would be largely met through a vigorous donor outreach program.
The possibility of public/private partnerships to take on certain aspects of the plan is also being considered.

The Facilities Master Plan was approved by the school’s Board of Regents last November and is partly designed in response to forecasts that the University of Colorado/Denver will see its enrollment jump from just over the 15,000 it has today to some 25,000 students in the next seven years.

By Garry Boulard

A policy document intended to provide Las Cruces officials with a road map for the future development of a large and mostly residential section of the city is on its way to the Las Cruces Planning and Zoning Commission.

The Apodaca Blueprint focuses on a multi-block area to the east of the 25-acre Apodaca Park that, like much of Las Cruces, has seen significant growth in recent decades.

The result of more than six months of public input meetings, workshops, and online surveys, the document recommends a series of approaches that Las Cruces may want to adopt as it contemplates future residential and commercial development in the area.

Among the many subjects the Apodaca Blueprint tackles is the question of affordable public housing construction.

Noting that there are already five affordable housing complexes in the Apodaca area, the document states: “High concentrations of affordable housing within constrained geographical areas can produce cumulative negative impacts on the stability of surrounding neighborhoods.”

“A policy of affordable housing dispersal should be practiced instead,” the Apodaca Blueprint continues, “with a ratio of no greater than one subsidized or affordable housing unit per ten total dwelling units.”

The document additionally calls for the future development of public trails; social spaces such as courtyards and plazas; greater transit access; and possible future public/private partnerships regarding the construction of storm water detention areas.

The Apodaca Blueprint was developed by the City of Las Cruces with the technical assistance of the Richardson, Texas-based Halff Associates, an engineering and architectural consulting firm.   

By Garry Boulard

As a means of getting from one place to the other, public transportation remains a viable option nationally with more than 10.1 billion individual rider trips recorded in 2017.

Those numbers, according to the American Public Transportation Association, show continued popular use of bus and subway services, with commuter rail in particular seeing an increase in eighteen different urban transit systems nationally.

“Public transit remains a critical part of any community’s transportation network,” said Paul Skoutelas, the president of the APTA.

In a statement, Skoutelas added: “Public transportation organizations are revamping their services and experimenting with pilot projects to be more time and cost-competitive, and more consumer-focused, to meet the needs of today’s riders and the growing population.”

The report notes two trends in the West: a 64 percent increase in commuter rail ridership in Denver, due to the opening of a new rail line; and an increase of 6.2 percent in bus ridership in Phoenix, the largest such increase in the country last year.

The APTA has been pushing for increased federal funding for transportation infrastructure projects nationally. It has additionally been critical of President Trump’s infrastructure proposals, which call for a reduction in funding for Capital Investment Grants as well as Transportation Investment Economic Recovery (TIGER) grants.

By Garry Boulard

A project that will see the construction of a new ten-house subdivision in Durango, Colorado has won the approval of a city planning commission that had previously voted the proposal down.
What is being called Jameson Court will see the construction of a pocket park in an already-existing residential neighborhood on the northwest side of Durango.

The project will go up at the site of the former Puckett Electric at 73 Jameson Drive and will require the demolition of the 3,400 square-foot building that housed that business.

According to city documents, ten residential structures, measuring roughly 1,600 square feet and featuring three bedrooms and two bathrooms, will make up Jameson Court.

The houses will be designed with a unifying architecture and color scheme and will face a common courtyard some 65 feet in width.

Due to concerns regarding parking on the dead end Jameson Drive, members of the Durango Planning Commission in March had voted the project down.

But that same commission has now approved the project in the wake of an updated plan requiring Jameson Court residents to park in their garages, thus freeing up street space.

The project now goes to the Durango City Council for a final review and hoped-for vote of approval.

By Garry Boulard

Funding has been secured towards an effort to restore the first synagogue in Phoenix history, built specifically for the city’s Orthodox Jewish population.

Constructed in 1955, the arc-shaped Beth Hebrew Synagogue was designed by modern architect Max Kaufman and is most known for its unique raised roof allowing for light to flow in through a series of upper glass windows on three sides of the structure.

Located at 333 E. Portland Street in downtown Phoenix, the building is also historically important owing to the fact that the synagogue was founded by Elias Loewy, a German-born resident of the city who is thought to have saved at least 1,500 people from concentration camps during World War II.

Serving as a synagogue for more than two decades, the building was eventually rented out for other purposes after Beth Hebrew was absorbed into the larger Beth El synagogue in north Phoenix.

But after published concerns several years ago that the building would eventually be demolished, Michael Levin, a local developer, purchased it for $850,000 with the idea of guaranteeing its preservation.

Now, members of the Phoenix City Council have given their approval to awarding what is called a Historic Preservation Warehouse Theatrical Building grant of some $280,000 that will go towards restoring the building.

While the total restoration cost for the structure is thought to be near $3 million, what it will eventually be used for remains uncertain, with thoughts that it could be returned to its original function as a synagogue or turned into a Jewish cultural center.  

By Garry Boulard