An appeal filed by the National Labor Relations Board in the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans may profoundly impact the fortunes of franchise businesses across the country, say sources.

Earlier this year the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas struck down what is popularly called the Joint Employer Rule, which by the NLRA’s definition pertains to franchise operations doing business in the name of a given company, such as the fast-food giant McDonald’s.

The rule will require, among other things, franchise operations to bargain with labor unions regarding workers’ rights and salaries, much as if they were the company they have received their franchise licenses from.

In a letter sent to President Biden in April by more than 5,300 franchise operators it was stated that the Joint Employer Rule threatens to make life miserable for franchisees through the creation of an “atmosphere of uncertainty and unlimited liability and litigation risk.”

In a vote supporting the franchisees, the U.S. House of Representatives signaled its disapproval of the Joint Employer Rule, an action that was followed last month by the U.S. Senate, which also voted in favor of repealing the rule.

For his part, President Biden has maintained that the Joint Employer Rule promises to “prevent companies from evading their bargaining obligations or liability when they control a worker’s working conditions, even if they reserve such control or exercise it indirectly through a subcontractor of other intermediary.”

There are today more than 806,000 franchise operations in the U.S., up from 697,000 a decade ago. Such operations include everything from ACE Hardware stores to Red Lion restaurants and the roughly 300 Woof Gang Baker & Grooming pet grooming stores.

By far the most prominent franchise success story is McDonald’s, which has around 42,000 restaurants, with more than 90% of those stores operating as a franchise. The company launched its first franchise outlet in 1955.
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It is not known when the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will issue a ruling in the matter. 

​By Garry Boulard

Planning is underway for the construction of 172 residential units in Longmont that will go up on the southwest side of the city.

The project is being undertaken by the Boulder-based company Chanin Development and will be built in an unincorporated portion of Boulder County on a site that is currently populated with a one-story single-family home, barn, and two cattle sheds.

That nearly 10-acre site, at 8809 Nelson Road, is currently zoned for agricultural and rural residential use. Chanin wants to build both residential units and what is described in city documents as “associated amenity spaces.”

A developer of custom homes and multi-family housing, Channin, which was launched in 1993, has to date developed a variety of projects regionally, including the infill Poplar Pointe subdivision in Boulder, and The Hive, which combines 138 residential units with some retail space, also in Boulder.
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The 8809 Nelson Road site is in a part of Longmont dotted with older 1960s ranch-style residences and more recent upscale apartment complexes. 

The process for getting the project off the ground appears necessarily complex, with the project applicant required to hold at least one neighborhood public input meeting, while also submitting a formal application to be reviewed by City of Longmont staff, as well as the city’s planning and zoning commission.

With a population that nearly doubled in the last three decades, Longmont, which is roughly 37 miles to the north of Denver, has seen an explosion in new apartment construction in recent years. The website RentCafe has put Longmont in its top 20 “booming suburbs for renters.”

​By Garry Boulard

Image Credit: Courtesy of Pixabay 

Exactly $500,000 in funding has been secured for a project that will see the building of a new shelter and various amenities at the Chaparral Park in the southeast New Mexico city of Lovington.

The funding is coming through the Outdoor Recreation Division of the New Mexico Economic Development Department.

The 80-acre park, located at 1005 S. Commercial Street on the southeast side of the city, has long been known for its 20-acre lake as well as softball, basketball, and volleyball facilities. But city leaders for some time have wanted to replace an aging shelter in the park with a larger facility.

According to a press release issued by the City of Lovington, what is being called the Chaparral Park Revitalization project will see the upgrading of “aging and dilapidated park amenities” in an effort to enhance a “gathering place for the hard-working families in Lea County.”

The Outdoor Recreation Division grant for the Chaparral Park work is one of thirteen projects statewide receiving a total of nearly $2 million in funding for outdoor recreation facility work.
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In a statement, Karina Armijo, director of the Division, said the grant awards are not “just an investment in infrastructure,” but rather “an investment in community well-being, economic development, and the preservation of our natural heritage for future generations.”

By Garry Boulard

Image:  Courtesy of the City of Lovington

An increasing number of Hispanic women say their financial situation is better today than it was a decade ago, according to a survey just released by the Pew Research Center’s National Survey of Latinos.

A solid 50% of Hispanic woman respondents said their economic fortunes are improved over where things stood in 2014, while another large 52% in a separate question expressed optimism that matters will only get better in the next 10 years.

Despite this optimism, the survey also indicated that a big 66% of respondents said the gender pay gap issue, with men earning more money for the same kind of work than women, is a real concern for them.

But the positive outlook of the respondents is the tale of an American demographic group’s success, with 69% of Hispanic women now actively participating in the country’s labor force, up from 65% a decade ago. At the same time, the median hourly wage of Hispanic women has seen a 17% rise, for an average of $19.23 today.

Particularly impressive: 23% of Hispanic women today have a bachelor’s degree, compared to 16% ten years ago.

According to a narrative accompanying the survey, the number of Hispanics in general enrolled in a postsecondary institution “has grown substantially, a trend driven more by women than men.”

“As a result,” continues the narrative, “the share of Hispanics ages 25 and older with a bachelor’s degree, both women and men, almost doubled.”

The narrative additionally notes that Hispanic women have “taken on larger shares of the economic responsibility in their relationships over time.” In the last 15 or so years, the number of Hispanic women involved in what is described as a “financially egalitarian relationship” has increased from 24% to 28%.

Simultaneously, the number of Hispanic women saying their husbands are the primary family breadwinners has declined from 66% to 59%.

​By Garry Boulard

​Image Credit: Courtesy of Pixabay 

Funding has been secured for an unusual project in Phoenix that will see the restoration of a historic structure that for decades served as a Chinese grocery store.

Located at the corner of Tonto Street and 4th Avenue, the one-time Yuan Ah Gim Groceries was a mainstay of the city’s Chinese community until at least the late 1970s, with the building itself finally being boarded up in 2006.

The one-story concrete block structure was built in or around the year 1920. According to documents submitted to the National Register of Historic Places the building housed a “residential duplex that was added to the south side of the store” around 1925, as well as a residential fourplex that was “built at the same time to the west of the grocery.”

The store was an important part of a growing Chinatown section of Phoenix, first established in the late 19th century, that included residences, laundries, and various retail operations, all supporting a Chinese population that was not much larger than 400 people.

The Yuan Ah Gim Groceries building was purchased last year by investor Omar Fabian who, working with the city’s Historic Property Register office, has sought a rezoning of the site as an official historic property.

A staff report submitted earlier this year by the Historic Preservation Office operating within the city’s Planning & Development Department described the building as retaining “sufficient integrity of location, setting, materials, design, workmanship, feeling, and association to convey its significance as a corner grocery store.”

Noting that the doors and window openings of the structure are still intact, the report added: “Examples of this type of construction and property type” are becoming increasingly rare.

A $200,000 grant approved for the project by the Historic Preservation Office, matched by the owner, is expected to see the creation of new housing and community space at the property.

​By Garry Boulard

​Image Credit: Courtesy of City of Phoenix 

Work could begin later this year on the building of a new data center set to be larger than an average-sized Walmart store.

The data center development company Flexential, which has offices in Denver and Charlotte, North Carolina, wants to build a new facility in the Denver neighborhood of Parker, some 20 miles to the southeast of the Mile High City.

The building, which will go up on 17 acres, will measure exactly 249,000 square feet, and will represent the company’s fifth data center in the metro area.

In a statement, Flexential chief executive officer Chris Downie said the company is currently “expanding its data center presence across the nation,” adding that growth in the Denver market “highlights our role in leading industry innovation and meeting market needs.”

Flexential has long been active in the southeast but has also made a name for itself in such Western enclaves as Las Vegas, Phoenix, Portland, and Salt Lake City. Last fall the site Data Center Frontier reported on Flexential’s latest national expansion plans, seeing its presence “in a total of 41 data centers in 19 markets.”
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The company specializes in a wide variety of data center facility services including colocation, and private, public, and hybrid cloud solutions, as well as data protection, among other things.

​By Garry Boulard

Most of the southwestern states saw construction job increases between April of last year and this most recent April of anywhere from 1.2% to 3.7%, while the booming mountain states boomed some more with job gains of 5.5% to 8.5%.

Those figures, just compiled in a report by the Associated General Contractors of America, show that the vast majority of states realized construction job increases in the last year, with only 11 states, along with the District of Columbia, recording losses.

The greatest gains were all to the west of the Mississippi River with Nevada seeing an 8.5% increase and South Dakota up by 10.5% By far the greatest jump came out of the nation’s geographically largest state, Alaska, posting a historic gain of exactly 18%.

Alaska’s strong numbers, says analysts, has been fueled by oil and gas development projects, as well as infrastructure work.

Looking at things from the opposite perspective, the AGC report shows general construction job declines in most of the Middle Atlantic states and parts of the Midwest, with New York off by 1.8%; Pennsylvania down by 0.2%; Maryland, dropping 4%; Ohio, down by 2.8%; and Illinois with a 0.3% decline.

The only other Western states seeing construction job losses were North Dakota with a 0.4% drop; Colorado, off by 2.8%; Oregon, showing a 0.6% decline; and Washington off by 1.8%.

New Mexico posted a 1.2% gain, followed by Arizona at 2.7%, and Texas with a strong 3.7% jump. Colorado’s construction job decline, meanwhile, has been variously attributed to a drop in private hiring, as well as the onerous effects of increased interest rates.
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Looking at things from a month-to-month basis, said the AGC report, showed that “construction employment rose in 29 states, declined in 18 states and the District of Columbia, and was unchanged in Mississippi, Rhode Island, and South Carolina.”

By Garry Boulard

Image Credit: Courtesy of Pixabay 


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Preliminary studies are underway regarding the possible construction of an airpark on the north side of Peoria, Arizona.

Center of the airpark would be an anticipated new general aviation airport that could cost as much as $150 million to build.

The project has been long discussed as a means for continued economic development and employment growth in a city that has seen its population nearly double in the last two decades to its current 191,000.

According to a study put together by the Tempe-based Rounds Consulting Group the proposed airpark, once completely built out, could spur an annual regional economic impact of around $1 billion.

Published reports have indicated that the project, referenced as the Peoria Airpark, will ultimately see the construction of some 1.5 million square feet of industrial space, along with another 900,000 square feet of office space.

Retail space at the site would comprise around 400,000 square feet.

According to city documents, the Peoria Airpark has been envisioned as a marriage between a general aviation airport operating within the borders of an industrial and commercial park.

As proposed, the Airpark would not be built to include a commercial airport, nor would it be able to facilitate large commercial and cargo operations.  An admitted model for the project is the Scottsdale Airpark, some 25 miles to the southeast, which measures around 2,900 acres and has 17 million square feet of facility space.

Now that the Rounds Consulting Group study has been completed and presented to the Peoria City Council, the next step in the process will see the completion of a site selection study.

That study will be tasked with evaluating multiple location options in the vicinity, before putting together a recommended site.

Peoria has been thinking about building an airport for well over two decades, an idea that through the year has attracted varying levels of support from the public.
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Some residents have said that they think the project as proposed may prove too large and intrusive. A petition on the site Change.org has thus far received more than 1,000 signatures from those opposed to the idea.

By Garry Boulard

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Upcoming work throughout the geographically diverse Canutillo Independent School District, which takes in a portion of El Paso, is expected to see the building of new schools as well as the renovation of a number of existing facilities.

What is slated to be a wide variety of projects will be fueled by the early May passage of a $387 million bond, which was approved by district voters by the close margin of 51% to 49%.

Among some of the most notable projects will be upgrades to the Canutillo High School, which is located at 6675 S. Desert Boulevard and will see just over $16.5 million targeting heating cooling system upgrades, and safety and security campus improvements.

The existing Canutillo Middle School at 7311 Bosque Road, will be replaced with a new $107 million facility, to go up at a site in the district’s Upper Valley; while the Jose Alderete Middle School, currently located at 801 Talbot Avenue, will be built in a new location in the subdivision of Enchanted Hill, also at a cost of $107 million.

The Deanna Davenport Elementary School at 8401 Remington Drive will also be moved to the fast-growing Enchanted Hills subdivision with construction of a new $74 million facility.

Heating and cooling system upgrades, as well as safety and security upgrades ranging from $2.2 million to $16.5 million, are slated for Canutillo Elementary School, Childress Elementary School, Damian Elementary School, Gonzalo & Sofia Garcia Elementary School, and Reyes Elementary School.
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Launched in the spring of 1959, the Canutillo Independent School District encompasses around 70 square miles that takes in, besides El Paso, the town of Canutillo and the villages of Vinton, Prado Verde, and Westway.

​By Garry Boulard

A big plan for a big city has been announced with Denver preparing to substantially invest in new business development in its downtown sector.

Mayor Mike Johnston has said that upwards of $500 million may ultimately be spent in the effort to “restore downtown vibrancy and stimulate economic growth.”

The plan, holistic in nature, will see the City over the course of the next decade investing in new housing construction and attractive public spaces, while also trying to encourage businesses to set up shop in the area.

The housing aspect of the Mayor’s plan could also include a proposal that in recent months has gained currency in the Mile High City: reconverting into residential space commercial and office structures that have been largely vacant in the past few years.

Funding for the ambitious plan will largely come from the City’s Downtown Development Authority, which is tasked with economic development in the core of the city.

That Authority uses revenue generated by incremental taxes to fund transportation projects at the city’s historic Union Station. But the Mayor said he hopes to expand the scope of the group’s mission, an effort that will ultimately require the approval of the Denver City Council.

Earlier this year, Johnston announced that one of his goals for 2024 was to focus on downtown revitalization, remarking in a public address: “I think cities across America are facing a shared crisis as offices and downtowns have struggled to recover post-pandemic.”

Proposing a question “Will our downtowns ever recover again?” Johnston answered his own question by remarking: “We cannot have a thriving Denver without a thriving downtown. We cannot have a thriving Colorado without a thriving Denver.”

City officials have also wondered if Denver’s population loss of around 1,000 in the last three years has negatively impacted business in the downtown area. If so, that decline looks almost anemic compared to a decline of 8,000 people in Chicago and 6,000 in St. Louis during that same period of time.

By Garry Boulard

Photo Image:  Courtesy of Pixabay