Pushing into the second half of 2018, the nation’s construction industry continues to show job growth across the country, according to a new report released by the Associated General Contractors of America. Comparing statistics from September of 2017 to September of this year, AGC notes that 45 states, as well as the District of Columbia, added new construction jobs in the last 12 months. Only two states, Missouri and Maryland, recorded no changes in their job outlook. “Construction activity is expanding nearly everywhere, as only three states experienced a decline in construction employment over the past year,” said AGC chief economist Ken Simonson in a statement. “These results show that contractors remain upbeat about demand for projects going forward.” The AGC report, using the most recently released figures from the federal Department of Labor, ranked Florida, Georgia, and Arizona as the top three states for construction job growth, with the percentage increase varying between 10 and 14 percent. New Mexico placed number nine of the list with an 8.3 percent job jump between September of 2017 and September 2018. Colorado placed 29 on the list, with a 5.1 percent construction job increase. The three states that actually shed jobs were Mississippi, Kentucky, and New Jersey. Despite their strong numbers, both Arizona and New Mexico have still yet to surpass their pre-Great Recession construction job peaks. In Arizona that peak was reached in June of 2006, when the state posted just over 244,000 construction jobs. As of last month, it had just under 164,000. In New Mexico, the pre-Great Recession peak was also hit in June of 2006 with 59,600 construction jobs. Last month the state’s total construction employment stood at 49,700. Colorado surpassed its pre-Great Recession peak in February of this year with 172,700 construction jobs. Its latest job numbers are nearly unchanged at 172, 800. By Garry Boulard
0 Comments
In a unanimous vote, members of the Albuquerque City Council have given their approval to a deal that will provide some $4.5 million in economic incentives to entertainment giant Netflix. In return, the Los Gatos, California-based media services provider will purchase Albuquerque Studios, and in the process spend around $30 million, adding to and expanding the production facilities at 5650 University Boulevard SE. Netflix has also secured an additional $10 million in funding in Local Economic Development Act funds. Council members said they were particularly impressed by Netflix’s commitment to spend upwards of $600 million over the course of the next 5 years on production projects in both Albuquerque and New Mexico. In lauding the council decision, Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller said the rather swift vote demonstrates “to the national business community that we can get things done efficiently and on time when it’s in the best interests of our city.” The logic of approving the incentives package was buttressed by a just-released University of New Mexico study saying that, over time, having Netflix operate in Albuquerque could have a $1 billion economic impact. That study, conducted by UNM’s Bureau of Business and Economic Research, additionally said that more than 1,000 jobs would be created by Netflix in Albuquerque. The current Albuquerque Studios is a more than 170,000 square foot facility that was built in 2007 at a cost of $91 million. While reporting that spending $30 million for the acquisition and expansion of a modern production facility is a good deal for Netflix, the entertainment trade magazine Variety notes that the company “will incur financial penalties, payable to the city and state,” if it falls short of promised spending goals before the end of 2023. By Garry Boulard A New Mexico State University program that, according to a recent independent study, has a more than $266 million annual state economic impact, may soon see the construction of three modern research and learning facilities. “The need here is really great,” says Rolando Flores, the dean of NMSU’s College of Agriculture, Consumer and Environmental Sciences. “You can’t imagine the condition of the facilities we are right now working in,” continues Flores, noting that those structures are more than 30 years old and have outlived their usefulness. “We have actually lost students because we don’t have the modern facilities we need to compete,” he adds. All of that may change if New Mexico voters in November approve the $128 million General Obligation Bond D, which will provide funding for a series of higher education facility projects across the state. Of that amount, $25 million will go for building a new Food Science, Security, and Safety Facility; along with a Biomedical Research Center; and Animal Nutrition and Feed Manufacturing Center. Those facilities will be built at three different locations on the busy main NMSU Las Cruces campus. In an interview this spring with the university’s Panorama magazine, NMSU System Chancellor Garrey Carruthers remarked that “after generations of use, many of our agricultural facilities are growing old and in need of repair.” Passage of Bond D, continued Carruthers, will not only provide the funding needed for new facilities, but will also “add new dimensions to our research, including food safety and security.” According to NMSU officials, a modern Food Science, Security, and Safety building will enhance the abilities of the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences to expand its work in the areas of beer and wine-making, food processing, and dairy science. The Biomedical Research Center will be built to provide research facilities for students throughout NMSU, but will also see work on cancer, obesity, and mosquito-borne virus issues. The Animal Nutrition and Feed Manufacturing Facility will house courses in animal and range sciences, with space for the investigation of new food processes and blends. “The facilities are all interconnected,” explains Flores. “In one, we are developing feeds for growing protein in this state, and I am talking about beef or any other kind of animal.” “Then we go to the Food Science, Security, and Safety facility—and the major goal there is to increase value added,” Flores continues. “Finally, the biomedical center is where we can actually work with science, which is looking at how food affects you.” The bond-funded work, says Flores, is more important than simply building improved facilities for NMSU students and faculty members, although it clearly means more modern and high-tech lab and classroom space. It is also a response to the university’s role in the larger challenge of providing food for a growing world. “We are at a point in the history of agriculture in New Mexico where we cannot just do remedial stuff,” says Flores, “we need to get ready for big changes, retake control of our agriculture, and position it in New Mexico for the future.” In September the Columbus, Ohio-based TEConomy Partners, a management consulting company, evaluated NMSU’s overall College of Agricultural, Consumer, and Environmental Services and judged the institution as a “unique and valuable resource for the state.” The report also noted that the continuing number of students who study and graduate at the college “helps ensure the agbioscience industry in New Mexico remains globally competitive, and that the education of students provides a broad range of benefits to the individual, to society at large, and to the State of New Mexico.” Through the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences, NMSU also partners with any number of government agencies, private industry, and the surrounding community both in conducting research as well as providing tomorrow’s workforce. This means, according to the TEConomy report, that the “hard work of ranchers, farmers, and processors,” is both supported and enhanced by the school’s “agbioscience research, developing new technologies and practice innovations.” Passage of the general bond will also provide additional funding to the tune of $1.4 million for facility construction, renovations, and upgrades on the NMSU campus in Alamogordo; $1.6 million for the Carlsbad campus; $1.5 million for the Grants campus; along with $1.7 million for a variety of projects at Dona Ana Community College. By Garry Boulard By any measure, the Columbia Elementary School at 4555 Elks Drive on the north side of Las Cruces is an attractive and sleekly designed structure that has served the needs of nearly 500 pre-K to fifth grade students. But Las Cruces Public Schools officials say the structure, built at a cost of $8.5 million, has been plagued with a series of structural issues, not the least of which is mold infestation. It has also been subject to flooding, with parts of its foundation cracked. The problem has become severe enough for the district in early September to transfer students to the nearby Vista Middle School, as officials try to decide what to do with a building that is only 15 years old. Among the proposals under review by the district is remodeling and updating the current building, correcting in the process, its infestation issues; demolishing the building and putting up a new one at the same site; or building a new school somewhere else. The remodeling option is clearly the least expensive route, at an estimated cost of $3 million; while building an entirely new school could cost as much as $25 million. It is not known when the Las Cruces Public Schools board of education will make a final decision in the matter. By Garry Boulard The Senate has overwhelmingly passed the Water Infrastructure Act of 2018, a massive piece of legislation that will provide funding for hundreds of dam, hydropower, and water storage projects across the country. The legislation has won the praise of the National Hydropower Association, whose president, Linda Church Ciocci, said the bill provides the country “an opportunity to more efficiently develop new projects that add generation to non-powered dams, closed-loop storage, and conduit power projects.” An important part of the new legislation, also known as Senate Bill 3021, is an updated Water Resources Development Act, which will set in place some $3.7 billion in federal funds for Corps of Engineers flood protection projects. The bill will also provide funding for drinking water sustainability projects, as well as money for sewer overflow control grants. Funding authorized by the legislation will go to all 50 states, and additionally will support port, inland waterway and irrigation system upgrades, along with increased water storage capacity projects. Passed unanimously in the House in September and now in the Senate on a 99 to 1 vote, the legislation also uniquely will put in motion a process de-authorizing some $4 billion in what are classified as “unnecessary projects,” or projects that earlier secured funding but never became reality. The legislation is now on its way to President Trump for his signature. By Garry Boulard Plans have been announced to give a new look to a nearly 60 year-old hotel in downtown Denver that was designed by the legendary architect I.M. Pei. The Sheraton Denver Downtown Hotel is expected to see interior upgrades as a result of its purchase by a combination of the Eagle Four Partners of Newport Beach, California, a private equity firm, and the Atlanta-based High Street Real Estate Partners. The combined ownership is now operating under the name of Denver HS-EF Court Place LLC. Located on Denver’s famous 16th Street Mall, the more than 1,200-room hotel was unveiled in 1960 and celebrated for Pei’s sleek modernistic vision. Upon its opening, Rose Marie Turk of the Los Angeles Times lauded the structure’s “warm woods, marble, sheets and sheets of glass (in some cases stained glass), and bright modern furniture.” Originally branded as a Hilton Hotel, the building became a Sheraton property in 2008, and is the largest hotel in Denver with 130,000 square feet of functional space, a 28,000 square-foot ballroom, and both a fitness center and outdoor rooftop pool. Made up of two structures, one at 8 stories, and the other 22 stories, the hotel has long been praised: “Few modern buildings have achieved the dramatic intensity that this soaring palisade affords,” notes author Francis Pierson in her 2006 book Getting to Know Denver. Now, the new owners, according to sources, are promising to keep the structure’s design intact, while bringing up to date other aspects of a building that was completed when Dwight Eisenhower was president. Renovations will include all of the hotel’s rooms, as well as its public space. In a statement, Eric Tupler, the senior managing director of Holliday Fenoglio Fowler, the real estate firm that brokered the purchase of the hotel, said its sale demonstrates the “continued growth of the downtown Denver hotel market and the upside available for a new owner through renovation.” By Garry Boulard In an effort to reduce the number of large, mansion-style residences being built within the boundaries of Boulder, Colorado, a move is on to temporarily ban their construction. That idea is being reviewed by members of the Boulder City Council, who have earlier promoted the idea of building smaller homes as being more environmentally sensitive. A separate bid to reduce big home construction may come with a council move to impose a fee of $100 per square foot on any new residential structure measuring more than 3500 square feet. Such large homes have been derisively characterized as “McMansions,” a term that gained currency in the 1990s when homes of more than 3,000 square feet were built in a mass produced fashion. Many of those homes were also put up in newly carved-out exurban neighborhoods. The council vote follows a study session held late last month that, according to city documents, said such homes “may be incompatible with the existing neighborhood character, and the city’s energy efficiency and affordability goals.” By Garry Boulard Despite advances in workplace sensitivity training, an overwhelming 66 percent of respondents in a recent survey indicate that they have been the victim of either gender bias or sexual harassment, or both, in the construction industry. The survey conducted by the Engineering News-Record took in the comments of exactly 1,248 respondents who were asked a series of questions regarding workplace gender conditions. The publication, conducting the study in conjunction with Architectural Record magazine, revealed that besides those who said they have faced some form of bias or harassment in the workplace, nearly 60 percent of respondents also indicated they witnessed such activity firsthand. Respondents included those working in craft, technical, business, and management positions in construction companies of varying sizes in the U.S., Canada, and Europe. Nearly two-thirds of respondents who said they had experienced sexual harassment at the workplace pointed to “inappropriate personal requests, questions, jokes or innuendo.” At the same time, many respondents, notes the Engineering News-Record, “voiced confusion in definitions of and responses to gender bias and sexual harassment.” One Midwest male respondent suggested that in certain instances, an “accusation seems enough to convict without full investigation.” Although many companies have established anti-gender harassment policies in an effort to combat such problems, some 25 percent of respondents said their employers had no such policies in place. Among those indicating the existence of such policies, 35 percent said they were effective, while 20 percent said they were not. An even larger 39 percent reported that their employers do not require acceptable workplace behavior training, while 41 percent said such training is required for new and existing employees. Overall, notes the Engineering News-Record, “the majority of survey respondents says the construction industry still has its work cut out in understanding and resolving sexual harassment and gender bias issues, with nearly 63 percent concluding that sector-wide efforts are moving too slowly.” By Garry Boulard A proposal to build what could be the biggest wind farm in the history of New Mexico has won the unanimous approval of the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission. As planned, the Corona Wind Project will be a 2.2 gigawatt facility that will belong to the San Francisco-based Pattern Energy Group. According to reports, the new farm, upon completion, would have the ability to generate power equivalent to a medium-sized nuclear power plant. The project will encompass in excess of 300,000 aces in east central New Mexico and will see the construction of around 950 wind turbines, as well as just under 80 miles of 345-kilovolt transmission lines stretching across three counties. The Corona Wind Project is actually a collection of some six individual wind projects that will be connected to the still-to-be developed Sun Zia Southwest Transmission Project at a substation near the village of Corona. As presented to members of the commission, a completed Sun Zia project would transmit energy from the combined Corona projects. That energy would then be sold to a growing consumer market in both Arizona and California. Altogether, the Corona Wind Project will pass through property belonging to some 40 individual land owners who have already agreed to leases or option contracts. In a statement, Mike Garland, chief executive officer of Pattern Development, said the Corona Wind Project will create “over a thousand new construction jobs,” while “generating billions of dollars in economic impact.” The Pattern Energy Group is an affiliate of Pattern Development. One obstacle standing in the way of the project is the Public Regulation Commission vote in September prohibiting the Sun Zia Project from moving forward until the exact location of its transmission line route is clearly defined. Sun Zia is expected to file an amended application to the commission soon that will more than likely provide a clear route for transmission lines running around 520 miles between central New Mexico and southern Arizona. By Garry Boulard Plans are now in the talking stage to transform a popular and upscale shopping mall in Tucson into a mixed-use site. The Foothills Mall is located on the north side of the city at the intersection of West Ina Road and La Cholla Boulevard and has served as a popular retail destination since it was first opened more than 35 year ago. But now, the Tucson-based Bourn Companies has announced plans to transform the site into a town center with restaurants, entertainment venues, walking and biking paths, and perhaps several hotels. According to Pima County documents submitted by Bourn, the mall will be transformed into a “unique, exciting, regional destination and living environment with existing infrastructure to support the multi-dimensional development.” The estimated $500 million project, which may be done in phases over a 10-year period, will see large parts of the existing 560,000 square foot mall upgraded, while other structures on the site will be demolished. Sitting on just over 68 acres, the mall was mostly full in the 1980s and 90s, but saw increasing vacant space in more recent years with the opening of the Tucson Premium Outlets shopping center, some 8 miles to the northeast. By Garry Boulard |
Get stories like these right to your inbox.
|