Orders for construction equipment nationally showed a marked increase during the first six months of this year, according to a new report issued by the Milwaukee-based Association of Equipment Manufacturers. Even though those orders may have leveled off somewhat in the summer weeks, the overall increase is expected to be in the area of 15% once all the numbers are added up. Those orders, according to Mark Killion, economics and finance research director at Oxford Economics, are expected to remain on the upside next year, although with a less dramatic projected 4% increase. Just over 70% of equipment manufacturers in a survey conducted by the Association of Equipment Manufacturers said they had experienced an increase in orders during the first quarter of this year. But at the same time, a strong 85% of those respondents said they are expecting to see yet more increases in equipment orders between now and 2022. Earthmoving and utility machinery equipment has seen the biggest increase so far this year at anywhere from 11% to 15%. Concrete equipment and lifting equipment, meanwhile, was up by as much as 10%. Only in the lighting equipment segment were orders reported as being flat, although manufacturers say they are expecting a 1% to 5% gain by early next year. By Garry Boulard
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In a teeming city that has seen its population increase by more than 130,000 in the last two decades to its present 679,000, the need to keep up with basic infrastructure is unending. Now, members of the El Paso City Council, in passing a fiscal year 2022 budget, have responded to that need by approving a $476 million budget that will include a hefty $20 million to be used strictly for street resurfacing projects throughout the city. The new budget also allots $3 million for a new traffic intersection safety program as well as any number of Americans with Disabilities Act-compliant projects. Another $13 million will go for enhanced sports complex maintenance work, planned recreation and senior center upgrading projects, and facility improvements to the city’s libraries and museums. The city in recent years has embraced an ambitious infrastructure improvement agenda that has seen the completion of more than 150 individual projects. Priorities in the new budget in some ways reflect public sentiment. A survey conducted by the City of El Paso earlier this year indicated that respondents were most interested in seeing ongoing funding for street, community safety, and public health projects. In a statement, City Manager Tommy Gonzalez said the new budget “does not change the property tax rate due to savings like the $21 million we refinanced in old debt.” Gonzalez added that by not raising El Paso’s property tax rate, “the city aims to ease some of the pressure on taxpayers because of the ongoing financial uncertainty created by the pandemic.” By Garry Boulard New spaces will be built out in more than four hundred of the 512 Macy’s department store locations across the country to make way for updated Toys “R” Us outlets. The children’s clothing and toy store chain, which once had more than 800 locations, entered into bankruptcy proceedings in the fall of 2017, before closing all of its outlets in the U.S. the following summer. Despite that end of an era that started in 1948 when the company’s first store was opened, Toys “R” Us in the last three years has operated as Tru Kids, a brand purchased by the New York-based company WHP Global. In a statement, Yehuda Shmidman, chief executive officer of WHP Global, said the new Toys “R” Us/Macy’s locations will change the retail landscape by “combining two beloved retail brands together for consumers across the nation in a completely innovative way.” Exactly which Macy’s stores will house the new Toys “R” Us spaces, and how much square footage they will take up, is expected to be announced later this fall. But in a joint statement released by Macy’s and WHP Global, it was stated that new Toys “R” Us stores will be up and running sometime next year. By Garry Boulard One of the most popular exhibits housed by the Albuquerque Biopark may soon see the construction of a new and modern holding facility.
The city-owned facility’s Shark Tank houses nearly two dozen large fish, including sand tigers, sandbar sharks, nurse sharks, and zebra sharks. Now plans are underway for the construction of a roughly 7,000 square foot building that will serve as an aquatics/shark quarantine facility. Biopark officials have identified three potential sites for the new facility and is in the process of hiring an architectural service that will provide site selection guidance as well as completing and submitting a utility study and traffic study for the new proposed facility. The architectural service is also being tasked with providing a schematic design for the quarantine facility, as well as a construction estimate. The Biopark has received national notice for its Shark Reef Café which allows patrons to dine while enjoying the views of a 285,000-gallon shark tank. A timeframe for when the new shark quarantine facility will be built has not yet been announced. When the $22 million aquarium was opened in 1996, it was noted that the shark tank’s 14 foot high and 48 foot long curved glass was the largest of its kind in the country. By Garry Boulard Talks are underway regarding the possible creation of a large entertainment district that could include a new arena for the Arizona Coyotes hockey team in Tempe. City officials have long wanted to develop a 46-acre site near the banks of the Salt River at the intersection of Priest Drive and Rio Salado Parkway. That property, currently used as a solid waste compost yard, could be turned into a large walkable space with up to 200,000 square feet of restaurant and retail space, as well as a large shaded plaza, surrounding the new hockey stadium. The project could also see the construction of some 1,000 residential units. A preliminary report looking at the project has suggested that the Coyotes would need around $70 million for the project, which will also include the cost of relocating the compost yard. The team presently plays at in the Gila River Arena in Glendale, but has announced that it will not renew its operating agreement with the City of Glendale at the end of the 2021-2022 season. In originally issuing a request for proposals regarding the project, the City of Tempe said it had “determined that the 46 acres of land is underutilized,” and was simply looking for ideas on how to develop the site. The deadline for the RFP is September 2. According to sources, if the RFP Coyotes’ submission is accepted by Tempe, work on the new big stadium and entertainment district would most likely not start until the summer of 2024. By Garry Boulard Plans have now been announced for the construction on the southwest side of Denver of 75 apartment units especially designated for seniors. The project will belong to the nonprofit Catholic Charities of Denver and will be built on land owned and leased to the group by the Archdiocese of Denver. To spur development of the project, Catholic Charities has applied for both federal and state tax credits. If an application for a property rezoning is approved by the Denver City Council, the complex will have a height limitation of five stories. As proposed, the complex, for residents 62 years or age or older, will include a shared laundry facility, exercise room, and rooms designated for both noisy and quiet activities. Project designer for the complex at 2559 S. Federal Boulevard, in a neighborhood of both residential and retail development, is the Crushing Terrell architecture firm of Austin, Texas. The Catholic Charities of Denver provides shelter, food, and counseling, among other services, for residents throughout northern Colorado, and currently owns just under 300 homes geared for seniors. By Garry Boulard In a sign of a still-robust market, housing starts were up by 2.5% last month over July of 2020, according to a new combined Census Bureau and U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development survey.
The growth has proven particularly explosive in single-family starts, which recorded a 27% increase over last July. Multi-family starts, too, were up significantly, by nearly 10% compared with last summer. Not surprisingly, residential permits have additionally seen an increase with a 26% jump from July of last year to July of this year. In the single-family category, permits saw a 29% jump, with a slightly lower 19% increase in permits for multifamily work. Altogether, in July the country saw just under 1.4 million housing completions, just over 1.5 million housing starts, and in excess of 1.6 million issued building permits. Despite the strong year-to-year numbers, the report also noted that the July numbers were “7.0% below the revised June estimate,” with housing completions 5.6% up over the month previous. The ongoing increase in overall permits, according to the publication Barron’s, is a sign that “builders intend to construct more housing—even as the rate of new homes authorized but not yet started remains near all-time highs.” In an interview with the publication Builder, Odeta Kushi, chief economist at First American Financial Corporation, said of the latest numbers: “Inventory has been increasing in recent months, but we have underbuilt for a decade.” Kushi added that the June to July 2021 decline in housing starts “isn’t welcome news.” By Garry Boulard A growing Albuquerque company that specializes in fuel cell and electrolizer applications, among other things, will soon be adding to its facility footprint. Pajarito Powder, which was launched nearly a decade ago, developing an iron-nitrogen carbon catalyst, currently has an up and running 6,000 square-foot facility located at 3600 Osuna Road. But according to reports, the company wants new production space that could be up to three times as large as the one-story Osuna Road location. Where exactly that new location will be has not yet been revealed by the company. Pajarito, with products designed to extend the working life of fuel cells, has an impressive track record attracting backers, having previously received investments from the Shakopee, Minnesota-based Omphalos Venture Partners, as well as the Verge Fund in Albuquerque. Now automobile giant Hyundai Motor Company, headquartered in Seoul, South Korean, is Pajarito’s latest backer, providing a Series-B investment needed for the upcoming expansion. In a statement, Thomas Stephenson, chief executive officer of Pajarito, remarked: “With one of the most successful fuel cell programs in the world, Hyundai’s investment and backing adds high-level credibility to our work and accelerates our ability to bring high-performance catalyst products to the rapidly growing green-hydrogen market.” With the new facility, notes Albuquerque Business First, “Pajarito will be able to fulfill multi-ton orders for catalyst materials—much more than what it can currently deliver.” Pajarito saw a doubling of its commercial catalyst product sales last year, enjoying expanding markets both in Asia and North America. By Garry Boulard A processing plant designed to remove the salt from seawater in the Sea of Cortez off the Mexican coastline before that seawater is transported to the metro Tucson area is the subject of a new study released by Pima County officials. Conducted by the Pima County Regional Wastewater Reclamation Department, the study estimates that the new plant will cost around $4.1 billion to build, a cost that will include construction of the nearly 200 miles of underground pipeline needed to ship the water. The project is animated by projections showing that Pima County’s current 1 million population is expected to reach the 1.5 million mark by the end of the century and will be in need of new water sources. Already water coming from the Central Arizona Projects, which draws on the Colorado River, is showing its limitations, with the Bureau of Reclamation recently announcing that the supply will be reduced by about a third next year. Further cuts may be expected in 2023, sources say. Pima County officials contend that now is the time to give serious consideration to the desalination plant and pipeline, as it would most likely take anywhere from 20 to 40 years for the project to go through what is expected to be a complicated approval process. Where the funding for the project would come from, meanwhile, currently remains a question mark. Suggestions have been made that the construction could be done through a public/private partnership. At the same time, the Wastewater Reclamation Department study said that the average homeowner’s monthly water bill could see a $60 to $90 increase in order to underwrite the project. By Garry Boulard In the face of a trend that has seen the decline of bricks-and-mortar retail space, online giant Amazon has announced plans for the opening of a series of department store-like facilities across the country. According to sources, the stores are expected to measure around 30,000 square feet, with the first spaces set for locations in both Ohio and California. Although Amazon already has smaller store outlets, the new department store concept will be larger than any of those spaces and will have, according to the Wall Street Journal, a footprint “similar to scaled-down formats that Bloomingdale’s Inc., Nordstrom Inc., and other department store chains have begun opening.” The move comes as Amazon has emerged as the largest seller of clothing in the country, representing around 12% of the total U.S. clothing market, and generating 2020 sales in the neighborhood of $41 billion. Where exactly the new Amazon stores will be located, and whether they will be in newly-built structures or in repurposed existing department store space, has yet to be disclosed by the company. Some analysts have suggested that because the new Amazon stores will be 30,000 square feet or perhaps less, far smaller than a typical 100,000 square foot department store, they will most likely be opened in shopping malls. Although competition from Amazon is often cited as one of the reasons why many existing clothes chains in recent years have closed, the company itself has embraced physical retail space previously with its bookstores and the $13.7 billion acquisition of the grocery chain Whole Foods in 2017. By Garry Boulard |
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