Up to $562 million in federal funding is being made available for a variety of projects across the country designed to enhance climate change resilience. The funding is coming through the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Climate-Ready Coasts Initiative and will see creation of resilient projects in some 30 states. The National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration has a long history of “working with community partners to advance our understanding of coastal processes, conserve coastal resources, and restore habitat,” remarked Rick Spinrad, administrator of the agency, in a statement. Spinrad added that funding secured through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act is making it easier to “super-charge these activities so that communities facing all types of climate impacts can prepare for what’s ahead, create climate-smart jobs, and build economic resilience.” The new funding will see $477 million targeting projects strengthening communities in coastal areas in their response to extreme weather events, while also restoring coastal habitats, among other initiatives. While most of the funded projects are located in states along the East and West coasts, Texas will share in just over $22 million in funding for a marine debris removal competition, along with just under $5 million for an oyster reef habitat restoration effort. By Garry Boulard
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Members of the Phoenix City Council have given their approval to a rezoning proposal that will see the demolition of a nearly 80-year-old church to make way for a modern apartment complex. Located at 745 W Fillmore Street, the Mercy Hill Church, in the city’s downtown Triangle Neighborhood, is under contract to be sold to the Trumont Group, a real estate and investment firm based in Dallas. Preliminary plans call for the construction of a four-story building that will house 122 residential units. While some consideration was given to preserving the church, which features a nave with intricate wood ceiling cross beams, it was subsequently thought that it would cost too much to bring the building up to date. Even so, published reports indicate that the new structure will incorporate the brick colonnades of what was originally called the Church on Fillmore as well as its highly visible bell tower, while also trying to maintain the Spanish-style design of the original structure. At least one public input meeting has been held regarding plans for the site, which include building live-work units on the first floor of the new structure as well as several studio spaces. A final sale date for the property has not yet been announced. Officials with the Mercy Hill Church say the congregation will move to another location in the city once that sale is finalized. The Trumont Group specializes in apartment complexes ranging in size from 228 units to 374 units in both Texas and Arizona. By Garry Boulard Funding has now been secured for the construction completion of a new school on the main Albuquerque campus of Central New Mexico Community College. Members of the New Mexico State Legislature several weeks ago voted in favor of a $7.3 million dollar capital outlay to fund the completion of the Applied Technology facilities. Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham has subsequently signed that legislation into law. The language in what was House Bill 505 specifically requires the $7.3 million to be spent to “plan, design, construction, furnish and equip” the Applied Technologies project. Last fall voters in New Mexico approved a nearly $216 million general obligation bond, with some $15 million targeting the new trades and applied technology facility at CNM. The school, which was launched in 1964 and has a current enrollment of around 22,000 students, has in recent months has seen additional new construction in the form of a 43,000 square foot Student Services Building, with work launching earlier this year. By Garry Boulard A move to streamline the application process for broadband deployment is picking up steam in Congress. Members of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce have heard testimony from a wide range of industry groups contending that the current process is not just unnecessarily lengthy, but also chaotic. According to an Energy and Commerce staff memo, new projects must not only secure the usual zoning and construction permits, but also endure lengthy environmental and historic preservation reviews. “The unpredictable timelines for permit approvals and high fees for processing applications have made it more expensive and burdensome to deploy broadband infrastructure,” continues the memo. While historic new levels of federal funding for broadband construction have been made available through the 2021 Infrastructure and Investment Jobs Act, the permitting process has served as an obstacle to new projects, asserts Cathy McMorris Rogers, chair of the Energy and Commerce Committee. “We need to lift these regulatory burdens, cut the red tape, and roll out the red carpet,” said Rogers, adding that unless the permitting process is simplified, rural America will be left behind, while children will “continue to go without access to educational resources.” A number of bills presently being considered in Congress would ease restrictions on projects on federal land and remove historic preservation and environmental reviews, while also implementing what are called “shot clocks” designed to limit how long broadband infrastructure applications can be reviewed. The move to shorten the broadband project review process has won the support of a number of prominent industry groups, including the National Association of Realtors. By Garry Boulard A company dedicated to advancing sustainable farming practices in the West has announced plans to develop two solar projects on around 7,500 acres of land on the far east side of Colorado. Crossroads Agriculture, which is a subsidiary of the Delray Beach, Florida-based Soloviev Group, wants to build what will be more than one gigawatt of photovoltaic solar energy on land it already owns not far from the small statuary town of Haswell. In a press release issued by the company it is noted that the solar installations in the Eastern Plains region have the potential of operating for “approximately 30 years, which allows the farmland and groundwater aquifer below to rest and regenerate.” The two solar projects will be done in conjunction with a subsidiary of NextEra Resources LLC. In a statement, Stefan Soloviev, Crossroads Agriculture chairman, said that the two planned solar projects are “another step in our commitment to renewable energy.” Continued Soloviev: “We already have more than 30 wind turbines operating in New Mexico, with another 40 to be built in 2024 on Crossroads ground in Colorado, with hundreds more anticipated in the years to come.” Crossroads Agriculture was launched in 1999. In the decades since, the company has operated up to 400,000 acres of ranch and farmland not only in Colorado, but also Kansas, New Mexico, and New York. According to the publication Kiowa County Independent, Soloviev is regarded as “one of the top 100 landowners in the country.” By Garry Boulard On a downtown street lined with historic one and two-story buildings in downtown Silver City, a building is up for sale that has provided endless hours of entertainment to three generations of residents. “It’s really in very good shape,” says Levi Hermman of the Gila Theater, which was first opened in 1948 when the top movies were the Red River starring John Wayne, Paleface starring Bob Hope, and Easter Parade starring Fred Astaire. “But although we have kept it up through the years, we decided it would just be easier to sell it, especially to someone who wants to keep it going as a theater,” continues Hermann, who owns the building. Measuring around 12,600 square feet, the Gila Theater at 415 N. Bullard Street was the first movie house of its kind in the area to feature a built-in candy concession, and features office space on the second floor and adjacent retail space. “We’ve had quite a few inquiries,” says Hermann of a building that has had a series of owners through the decades and underwent an extensive renovation in 2007. “But so far, nothing has been finalized.” With an asking price of $419,000, the Gila Theater should be seen as something of a steal. But such properties, notes Ken Stein, are not always that easy to sell. “They really are special kinds of properties,” remarks Stein, the president of the Forest Hill, Maryland-based League of Historic American Theaters. “Potential buyers are always confronted with the challenge of whether they want to keep these places open as theaters, or repurpose them for some other kind of use,” continues Stein. While the 19th century movie palaces of New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Los Angeles and other cities originally served as opera houses, before giving themselves over to vaudeville and finally becoming strictly movie theaters by the 1920s, the movie houses of small-town America followed a slightly different trajectory. “Unlike the grand palaces, which are really beautiful places that have been updated in recent years and still either show movies or feature Broadway plays, the movie houses in smaller towns have had a tougher time of it,” says Stein. That’s not just because the small towns in which the movie houses are located have oftentimes lost populations and been economically challenged themselves, but because such venues have frequently had only one screen. “That makes it harder to sell,” agrees Phyllis Bechtold, a realtor with Montana Real Estate who is representing the Roxy Theater, an Art Deco-designed two-story building in Choteau, Montana. Opened in the summer of 1946 and measuring around 4,800 square feet, the Roxy has been a mainstay in the northwestern Montana city of around 1,700 people ever since. “It’s one of our main social events,” Bechtold says of the movies that are still shown at the Roxy, located at 25 Main Street. “What happens to this movie house is important to the entire town.” In recent years, the Roxy Theater has endured by also hosting live theater. A stage was built to the front of the movie screen, providing enough space for performances, while the old-fashioned 35-millimeter project room has been upgraded to allow for digital technology. But such conversions, making movie houses more marketable as properties, come with their own challenges. “The projection equipment used for the digital screening of a movie has a different throw and angle, as well as a different lighting quality,” notes Stein. Some theaters, such as the grand Tampa Theater in downtown Tampa, built in 1926, spent around $150,000 switching over to digital. “They set up a series of mirrors to deal with the problem of the digital being too far away and at the wrong angle,” reports Stein. A nearly equal challenge has come with the iconic neon marquees that decorate the fronts of the movie houses and are treasured by movie house fans. “That’s not going anywhere,” says Bechtold when asked about the Roxy Theater’s classical multi-color marquee with the word “Roxy” spelled out in script form. In fact, while other theaters currently listed for sale around the country, such as the West Theater built in 1941 in Cedartown, Georgia; and the World War II-era Noyo Theater in Willits, California, have seen some interior renovations, their marquees have remained intact, prominent, and always colorful. “It would be great if everything about the place could remain the same,” says Hermann in speaking of the Silver City’s Gila Theater,” and that includes the marquee.” In fact, adds Hermann, his ultimate wish is not just finding a buyer for the Gila Theater, but one who “will keep it just as it is, showing movies, so that people can enjoy forever.” By Garry Boulard New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham has given her approval to four separate infrastructure projects that will take place on the Shiprock campus of Dine College. The public tribal land-grant school is based in Tsaile, Arizona, but has five satellite campuses in both the Grand Canyon State as well as New Mexico, with the Shiprock campus located at two separate sites in that city. The largest capital outlay at exactly $1 million will go for the phase one construction of a new mathematics and science building to be located on the south campus of the school off U.S. Route 64. Some $800,000 will target the planning, design, and building of a supplemental water supply system to be used by the school’s Agricultural Multi-Purpose Center, located within what is known as the Shiprock Demonstration Farm. Another $193,000 is set for equipment, fixtures, and furniture at the new mathematics and science building; while a fourth project, the building of a student services center on the south campus, is getting $50,000. The Dine College, launched in 1968 as the Navajo Community College, is the first tribally run and accredited institution of higher learning in the country. Encompassing its main and satellite campuses, the school has an enrollment of around 2,000 students. By Garry Boulard After weeks of debate within his caucus, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has announced the details of a plan that calls for raising the current $31.4 trillion debt ceiling for the next 12 months or so by around $1.5 trillion. Officially called the Limit, Save, Grow Act of 2023, the bill introduced by the Republican McCarthy proposes to eliminate some funds delegated to the Internal Revenue Service, while also putting a limit on discretionary spending and recouping monies delegated for pandemic relief that were never spent. In reducing the budget for the IRS, McCarthy said his legislation will essentially do away with an earlier proposal to hire some 87,000 new agents for the agency. “That will save taxpayers $70 billion and protect families and small businesses from a weaponized IRS,” McCarthy remarked. McCarthy added that the introduction of the legislation should prompt the White House and members of the Senate leadership to “sit down, negotiate and address” what he called the crisis of the looming federal budget and the possibility of the U.S. defaulting on its debts. The prospects for McCarthy’s legislation remain uncertain in the House, while members of the Democrat majority in the Senate have already expressed opposition to the plan. In introducing his bill, McCarthy remarked that “America is $31 billion in debt and Washington is on the clock.” In order to win passage in the House, McCarthy’s bill must secure a minimum of 218 votes. Although Republicans currently hold a 222 to 212 majority, there is no guarantee that the legislation has the support of every member of the party’s caucus. In response, President Biden has threatened to launch a full-scale assault on McCarthy’s proposal, remaking that the “American people should know about the competing economic visions of the country that are at stake right now.” The Speaker said that he plans to schedule a vote in the House on his proposal sometime next week. In testimony this past January Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the government could only pay its bills up to June without increasing the debt ceiling. By Garry Boulard Plans are now underway for the creation in Phoenix of an advanced water purification facility that is expected to be operational within the next decade. As proposed, the facility will be a part of the existing 91st Avenue Wastewater Treatment Plant and will be designed to recycle wastewater into drinking water. Upon completion, the facility, in a city always thirsty for water, could serve up to 200,000 homes on an annual basis. In her State of the City address earlier this month, Mayor Kate Gallego remarked that by “augmenting our existing 91st Avenue regional facility with advanced investment technology, we will recycle around 60 million gallons per day upon completion.” In an interview with the Arizona Republic, Gallego also remarked: “It’s a new bucket for us. For a lot of my life, I’ve been thinking about where you get that next bucket from, so it’s exciting.” By design, what is expected to be a multibillion-dollar facility will filter wastewater that is already being processed and released into the Salt River. The technology, known as direct potable reuse, cleans water poured into the drain of a home before sending it back to be reused. Other growing Arizona cities, including Glendale, Mesa, Tempe, and Scottsdale have signaled an interest in contributing to the new facility and enjoying its services. Those cities comprise the Sub-Regional Operating Group which has an ownership stake in the 91st Avenue plant. Troy Hayes, director of water services for Phoenix, recently indicated to the publication Axios Phoenix that the new facility could eventually prove to be a “drought resistant” source of water. By Garry Boulard Voters in Albuquerque this fall will be tasked with deciding on a bond proposal that could provide funding for a large homeless shelter as well as a museum education center. The projects are among those that will be included in the $200 million bond just approved by members of the Albuquerque City Council. Exactly $5 million is slated to go for the Gibson Health Hub, a campus formerly known as the Gibson Medical Center. Two years ago, the campus, already home to medical, behavioral health, and vocational services, was acquired by the City of Albuquerque with plans to provide temporary shelter for those without homes. Two more $5 million projects: the North Domingo Baca swimming pool on the northeast side of the city at 7521 Carmel Avenue NE; and several flood control projects in southeast Albuquerque. Some $4 million will go for setting up the Unser Museum, which celebrates the careers of the race car driving Unser family, moving the facility from Rio Rancho to within the borders of Albuquerque. Continuing work on the Cibola Loop Multigenerational Center, located at the intersection of Cuba Road and Cibola Loop, is slated for $3 million in bond funding. Another $2.5 million will be dedicated to the building of an education center belonging to the Albuquerque Museum, which is located at 2000 Mountain Road NW. The bond will also provide a combined $9 million for various street and roadway improvement projects, as well as $2 million for sidewalk improvements in keeping with the Americans with Disabilities Act. By Garry Boulard |
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