A new study released by the National Association of State Budget Officers shows that across the country individual states are putting away money in anticipation of an economic downturn. The states’ actions are in many ways a hangover from their experiences during the Great Recession when what are known as rainy day funds were tapped to make up for a loss of revenue from other sources. Those funds were then used government initiatives, including some infrastructure work. According to the study, while the average rainy day fund - as a percentage of general fund spending in the states - stood at 4.8 percent before the Great Recession, today that figure has increased to 7.5 percent. Some states have even gone so far as to pass legislation that automatically deposits a share of forecasted general revenue funds into a rainy day fund account. The study also indicated that a majority of fiscal officers felt that their states currently had large enough rainy day funds to survive, at the very least, a moderate recession. Writing for the publication State Net Capitol Journal, veteran reporter Lou Cannon noted that many states in the process of expanding their budgets and hiring new workers in the summer of 2008 ended up being surprised by the downturn of the next three or so years. “Today, it’s encouraging that so many states are putting money away to see them through the next fiscal crisis,” writes Cannon. “Unprepared states should get the message.” According to the National Association of State Budget Officers’ study, current total state rainy days funds stand at around $68.2 billion, with estimates that that figure will increase to $74.7 billion by next year. A report published earlier this year by the Pew Charitable Trusts indicated that Arizona had more than $900 million in rainy day funds, while Colorado had over $1.2 million, and New Mexico $1.1 million. By Garry Boulard
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Work to build access roads, walking trails, and a visitors’ center is expected to soon get underway in and near a new state park in Colorado. Located near the town of Trinidad in southern Colorado, the 19,000-acre park will also include a sanctioned habitat for such wildlife as mountain lions, black bears, elk, and mule deer. In announcing the creation of the park, Colorado Governor Jared Polis said that it will serve to ease pressure on the other already designated 41 parks in Colorado that are experiencing record levels of visitors. “In the last five years alone, we’ve gone from 11.9 million visitor days to 15 million visitor days,” said Polis. The new park, which does not yet have an official name, will be situated near the 9,633 foot-tall Fishers Peak, the tallest such peak in the country to the east of Interstate 25. Currently only accessible by roads coming up from New Mexico, the park will see the construction of new roads making it easier for visitors to reach the park from such cities as Colorado Springs, 20 miles to the east; and Denver, 100 miles to the north. The $25 million purchase of the land comprising the new park was made by two conservation groups, as well as two Colorado public entities: the Great Outdoors Colorado and the Colorado Parks and Wildlife department. The planning process for the new park is now underway, with infrastructure work expected to begin either later this year or early next year. It is anticipated that the new park will open no later than January of 2021. By Garry Boulard With more than 1,000 new people being hired on an annual basis, and more to come, the need for a variety of new facilities and upgraded infrastructure at the Los Alamos National Laboratory is great. LANL officials have recently disclosed plans, still in the talking stage, to build more housing at the complex, as well as new lab space and up to two new garages. Those plans are in many ways animated by an announcement in the spring of 2018 by the federal Nuclear Security Administration, which is pushing for the production of 30 plutonium pits a year at LANL. Those pits comprise the core of a nuclear weapon. After the plutonium pit agenda was released, Terry C. Wallace, LANL’s director, said that the government mandate “not only secures Los Alamos’ long-term security future, but our growing employment base and key weapons funding needs, which will translate in the immediate future to more infrastructure, more equipment, and more staff.” Established in the middle of World War II for the design of nuclear weapons as part of the federal government’s Manhattan Project, LANL’s new building costs could come in at nearly $5 billion in the next 5 years. According to reports, that figure could increase to around $13 billion between now and the year 2030. The most imaginative infrastructure project could see the construction of a bridge that would provide a more convenient link between Los Alamos and the cities of Santa Fe and Albuquerque. The bridge spanning the Rio Grande would, according to earlier studies done by LANL, have a height of more than 1,000 feet, making it the tallest such bridge in the country. That bridge is seen as essential not only due to the large number of LANL employees who live in Santa Fe and Albuquerque, but also for facilitating economic development and other collaborative projects between LANL and those cities. LANL officials say the mammoth bridge project would first require the participation and approval of both the Department of Energy, as well as the New Mexico Department of Transportation. By Garry Boulard While it may be hard to duplicate the growth rates of the last 5 years, real estate investment is expected to remain strong in all regions of the country, according to a new report released by the Urban Land Institute. “Long-term economic growth is probably going to be slower,” remarked Andrew Warren, one of the report’s authors, in a press release from the UBI. Warren added that the potential is there for “two percent growth over the foreseeable future—five to ten years.” Surveying more than 1,500 realtors, developers, bank lenders, and investment managers, among others in the industry, the report also revealed that well over 75 percent of respondents categorized business prospects for 2020 as good to excellent, while just over 20 percent thought those prospects would be fair. In 2011, during the depths of the Great Recession, under 40 percent of respondents categorized prospects as good to excellent, while around 60 percent said things were fair. The report, Emerging Trends in Real Estate 2020 done in conjunction with the accounting firm of PricewaterhouseCoopers, additionally notes that new investment has been particularly strong in Texas, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Massachusetts. But new suburban markets for the new home-buying Millennial Generation have also appeared everywhere from New Jersey to Illinois. Undergirding both the current and future real estate trends, said Warren, is the availability of capital, the signal ingredient that will “smooth the road as we go toward more sustainable growth going forward.” By Garry Boulard The main campus of Arizona State University in downtown Phoenix will soon see the construction of new and sorely-needed dormitory space. Members of the Arizona Board of Regents have given their approval to what will be a $50 million project that will go up at the southwest corner of Fillmore Street and N. 1st Avenue. The dorm will be a part of the school’s larger entrepreneurial center, and will house collaborative space, as well as both design and fabrication labs. The sleekly designed building will have sixteen floors, and a combination of both two- and four-bedroom units, not to mention studios. Altogether, the new dorm will house up to 532 beds. ASU has announced plans to purchase for around $1 million the property for the project. That site is currently the home of a Bank of America outlet, which will be demolished. Construction of the dorm building could begin either late this year, or early next year, with a fall 2021 completion date. There are currently more than 12,000 ASU students in downtown Phoenix, with projections that that number could rise to around 20,000 in the not-too-distant future. Last year, ASU President Michael Crow said he thought that ultimately the school will need two new dorms to accommodate its epic growth. By Garry Boulard The site of the former Tibbetts Middle School may soon be redeveloped and turned into a recreational park especially geared for children with disabilities. Members of the Farmington City Council have given the go-ahead to a feasibility study that will look at how such a park would be built, the number and kind of recreational stations it would contain, and how its construction would be funded. A new Tibbets Middle School was opened in the fall of 2013, with the older school subsequently being used by students from nearby Hermosa Junior High. The old school building, located at 312 E. Apache Street, was finally demolished in the fall of 2017. In recent months, officials with both the Farmington Municipal School District and City of Farmington have been informally discussing the possibility of an agreement to use the old Tibbetts site for a park. According to the Farmington Daily Times, City Manager Rob Mayes said, “We are very close to a deal where the schools would make the property available for this project and, in turn, we would almost immediately take over the maintenance of that property and the open space.” The all-abilities park movement has been gradually picking up steam around the country. Such parks typically feature unitary surfacing amenable to wheelchairs and other mobility devices, extra wide pathways and ramps, fenced-in play areas, and quiet spaces. By Garry Boulard Texas, California, Florida, and Arizona continue to lead the way in new construction jobs during the last year, says a new report just released by the Washington-based Associated General Contractors. Between August of 2018 and August of this year, Texas saw the addition of roughly 43,900 jobs, followed by California at 34,300, Florida at 20,900 and Arizona with 15,400 new construction jobs. Those numbers are all the more remarkable, given the population rankings of the states. While California, Texas, and Florida are currently the nation’s top three populous states, Arizona is ranked at 14th. Much of the new construction activity in the Grand Canyon State has been driven by large high-tech data center projects. In terms of the percentage increase in construction employment in the last year, six of the ten top states were located in the West. At the same time, Louisiana, Ohio, Maryland, Vermont, and Connecticut all shed construction jobs between August of last year and August of this year. Construction employment in Colorado posted a modest gain of 300 new jobs, from a total of 174,100 in August 2018 to 174,400 this August. In New Mexico the numbers increased from 46,800 to 51,100. In a statement, Ken Simonson, chief economist with the Associated General Contractors, speculated that “even more states probably would have posted gains in construction employment if firms could find enough people to hire.” By Garry Boulard The board of the Regional Transportation District in Denver has decided to take a second look at leasing out a 20,000 square foot gravel lot it owns for the proposed National Medal of Honor Museum. The lot is located on the south side of the city’s Civic Center Station and would be used as an entryway to the planned $150 million museum. As proposed, the museum would give to the RTD around $123,000 annually to lease the lot. The museum itself is proposed for the corner of East Colfax Avenue and Lincoln Street, directly across the street from the Colorado State Capitol. The board’s decision follows an earlier tie vote, which essentially killed the gravel lot proposal. In response, Colorado Governor Jared Polis, an enthusiast of the museum idea, asked the board to reconsider it again. The RTD has since issued a statement saying that the matter will be taken up once again during its upcoming September 24 meeting. Earlier this summer, officials with the National Medal of Honor Museum Foundation announced that two cities - Denver and Arlington, Texas - were being considered for the new facility. The Financial Administration & Audit Committee, operating under the auspices of the RTD board, had earlier voiced its approval of the project. RTD board members have long said that they wanted to find a revenue-producing means for the gravel lot, and have at various times entertained the idea of it being used for art installations, a food truck site, and even a new hotel. The upcoming board vote regarding the Medal of Honor museum proposes to authorize David Genova, RTD’s General Manager, to “negotiate and execute all documents necessary for a sub-lease of the vacant portion of the real property” adjacent to the station. By Garry Boulard A move to upgrade and modernize an existing building in southeast Albuquerque for a growing and diversified business owned by a Florida-based corporation is receiving some $36 million in economic incentives. Earlier this summer, Nypro Healthcare Baja, based in Carson City, Nevada, announced plans to enhance a structure located at 3801 University Boulevard. The company, a subsidiary of the St. Petersburg, Florida-based Jabil Incorporated, manufactures everything from telecommunications equipment, computing hardware, and electronics specifically geared for the aerospace, energy, and medical sectors. The building on University Boulevard will be used to expand Nypro’s 3-D printing technology, an effort that Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller, in a statement, said would help to strengthen the city’s “foothold in key technologies and builds on our assets as a technology hub.” Winning the support last month of the Albuquerque Development Commission, the project has now been approved for $36 million in industrial revenue bonds, along with another $250,000 in Local Economic Development Act funds for the building project. Nypro expects to invest up to $3.6 million of its own money in renovating and improving the University Boulevard structure. By the requirements of the ordinance authorizing the bonds, Nypro will hire up to 120 employees, while also agreeing to operate the University Boulevard facility for a minimum of ten years. By Garry Boulard A new industry survey suggests that one of the most difficult things about running a construction company is estimating project costs. The survey, conducted by the Eagle, Idaho-based TSheets by Quick Books, indicated that roughly 20 percent of respondents regarded such estimates as their most troublesome financial activity. Meanwhile, another 38 percent said their most challenging estimate was figuring out how much to pay workers. Despite those numbers, some 46 percent of respondents revealed that they now use accounting software to help them come up with realistic estimate figures. According to Dottie Chong, a writer for TSheets by Quick Books, even though 19 percent of respondents additionally indicated they are using technology to keep track of labor costs, “half of the businesses surveyed are tracking time manually.” Chong noted that a large number of companies still have managers keeping track of employee hours, or continue to use either a punch clock or paper time cards. An embrace of new and available record-keeping technology, Chong added, could save time for companies, letting “users track work hours automatically, with location-aware features for added accuracy,” she added. Even with the continued embrace of older cost-estimating methods, a report released late last year by the publication Fortune indicated that, nationally, construction companies are increasingly “leveraging technologies like artificial intelligence, cloud-based data analytics, and mobile computing to drive efficiency and boost margins.” The report added that in the last 5 years, more than $18 billion has been invested by venture capital firms focusing on an array of new technology for what is seen as a growing construction market. By Garry Boulard |
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