Western New Mexico University Planning for Demolition Work and New Campus Commons Project10/16/2020 As part of a larger campus-wide master plan, officials with the Silver City-based Western New Mexico University are making plans for the demolition of the aging Regents Row residence halls. At the same time, the school, with an enrollment of around 3,500 students, wants to launch what is being called the Harlan Hall/Fleming Hall Commons project which will include, among other features, a teaching and demonstration amphitheater for natural science lectures. That project, to take place on the southeast side of the campus between the existing Harlan and Fleming Halls, will also include landscaping and the upgrading of crosswalks and walkways, as well as new lighting. The effort is dependent upon the statewide passage in the November election of General Obligation Bond C, which will make available $159 million in funding for university, college, and tribal educational facility projects across New Mexico. More specifically, the bond will provide some $4 million in backing for the WNMU projects on the school’s 80-acre campus. According to school officials, the long-planned Harlan Hall/Fleming Hall Commons project will ultimately create spaces for botany and geology students in a real-world learning environment. By Garry Boulard
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Members of the House Education and Labor Committee have given their approval to a bill that will give new life, and some $3.5 billion in funding, to the National Apprenticeship Act. That Act dates back to the years of the New Deal, and was originally established as the Federal Committee on Apprenticeships. As passed in 1937, it put into place a federal oversight of apprenticeship programs, which are now administered by the Department of Labor, establishing codifying standards for any number of training opportunities and general apprenticeships. What is officially called the Registered Apprenticeship program currently offers training in more than 1,000 occupations. According to the Department of Labor, 94% of apprentices who have completed a registered apprenticeship program go on to find jobs. In asking earlier this year for the Act’s renewal, California Representative Susan Davis argued that the registered apprenticeship system has “proven essential to reach hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of American workers.” Some committee members unsuccessfully argued in favor of providing funding for Industry Recognized Apprenticeship Programs. Such programs were earlier this year made a part of a training rule issued by the Trump Administration. The White House had contended that Industry Recognized Apprenticeship Programs would give more apprenticeship oversight as well as credentialing authority to different industry groups. But ultimately a majority of the committee contended that those programs are deficient in quality standards and worker protections. The National Apprenticeship Act of 2020 now goes to the full House. By Garry Boulard The City of Grand Junction, Colorado has issued a Request for Proposals for a project that will see updates and modifications made to a more than 70 year-old area dam. That structure, to the far southeast side of the city, is a part of the Carson Lake, and was classified 5 years ago by the State of Colorado as a high hazard dam. That classification means that if the dam should someday fail, that failure could conceivably lead to a loss of human life. City officials say the proposed modifications of the dam are all regarded as preventive in nature and designed to preserve the life of the structure. The work, which will most likely begin after the traditional runoff season sometime next summer, will entail some demolition, clearing, and grubbing, as well as the installation of a new chimney filter and riprap removal and replacement. Also including in the project: some excavation, the building of an outlet pipe structure, a new trashrack structure, spillway reconstruction, and installation of a cured in-place pipe and outlet valve installation. The work will be done in conjunction with the Fort Collins-based Ayres Associates, serving as the design consultant for the project. The larger Lake Carson reservoir serves as an important part of the water supply for Grand Junction. Currently, the RFP has a general submission deadline of sometime next March or April, with a more exact timetable to be announced later. By Garry Boulard A project that could see the construction of a 26-story building in the historic Roosevelt Row neighborhood of Phoenix has won the approval of the Phoenix City Council. Members of a city workforce and economic development subcommittee in late September gave their approval to granting a tax abatement to build the mixed-use project, which will belong to the Chicago-based Hubbard Street Group. What is officially called a Government Property Lease Excise Tax transaction will allow for the 375-unit multi-family project to move forward, after Hubbard officials said they would contribute $100,000 to a city fund to build new affordable housing. In addition, the company has agreed to set aside roughly 10% of its planned units for workforce housing in what is expected to be an $87 million project. As planned, the project will go up on an 18,000 square foot site on the southeast corner of Sixth and Garfield streets, and will see the construction of units ranging in size from studios to one-bedroom units. Also included: some 7,000 square feet of retail space, an amenities deck at the top of the building, and just over 200 hundred parking spaces. According to city documents, the project will also “bring a new co-working space option into downtown near the Phoenix Biomedical Campus that will double as community space.” By agreement with the city, the Hubbard Street Group will hand over to Phoenix the title for the property, which will in turn lease the property back to the company for a period of 8 years, with no extension of the lease. The Hubbard Street Group specializes in mixed-use projects, primarily in the Midwest. By Garry Boulard The online retail giant Amazon is planning in the coming months to build at least one thousand of what it calls “small delivery hubs” across the country. Those hubs may comprise newly-built structures, or will be put into existing and upgraded warehouse space. Plans call for the hubs, which on average will measure around 200,000 square feet, to be built in both urban and suburban locations. The idea behind the hubs, which, according to reports, could eventually number more than 1,500, is to shorten the distance and time between the products purchased on Amazon’s website and the customer doing the purchasing. The new hubs are one more sign of Amazon’s explosive growth this year, which has seen a more than 43% increase in sales this spring for a total of $55 billion, up from $38 billion during the same time period last year. Amazon says the hubs are also needed in order to honor the company’s typical two-day and even less delivery schedule. Although it has been speculated that the new delivery hubs may be built in repurposed department store spaces, reports indicate that those stores would probably not work due to a lack of loading capacity. Despite that limitation, analysts believe more and more former large retail spaces that have been boarded up in recent years will be converted in the years to come to distribution and warehouse space for various companies. Where exactly the new Amazon hubs will be built has not yet been announced by the company. By Garry Boulard The City of Denver has issued a Request for Proposals for phase one of what will be a significant storm sewer improvement project on the east side of the city. The project will be built underneath East 16th Avenue and will center on expanding an existing storm system in the nine square-mile Montclair Drainage Basin. Comprising the largest watershed in Denver, the Montclair Drainage Basin has also long been regarded as the most flood-prone section of the city due to excess runoff. As planned, the new storm drain will be extended by means of a 9 foot by 9 foot drainage box running from East 17th Avenue to Colorado Boulevard. Additional work will see tunneling underneath Colorado Boulevard, the building of a trash vault, utility infrastructure reconstruction, and full roadway rebuilding. The existing sewer system at Batavia Place between Colorado Boulevard and Albion Street will also see improvements. The project is expected to cost up to $9.4 million to complete. Submission deadline for the RFP is October 27. By Garry Boulard A growing school district in south central Colorado is in the process of making plans for a variety of facility upgrades and repairs to its nearly two dozen schools. Based in the city of Pueblo, the Pueblo County School District 70, which additionally serves students in the cities of Mesa and Mountain, is looking at a number of repair and upgrading issues. Those issues include everything from cooling and heating system upgrades, to new security camera systems, roof repairs, and classroom additions. In response, the district has placed on this November’s ballot a proposal asking voters to approve a $75 million bond for the work. If passed, that bond would pay for such things as a classroom reconfiguration at the North Mesa Elementary School; a building addition to the Pueblo County High School; the renovation of a library at the Vineland Elementary School; and the building out of a classroom at the Liberty Point Elementary School. In a press release issued by the District, Superintendent Ed Smith noted that the while many school districts in Colorado have closed schools that are beyond repair, “In District 70, we have many buildings well over 50 years of age in good working order, with a great deal of life left in them because we have a history of taking care of them.” A proposed bond in the amount of $35 million was overwhelmingly defeated in the fall of 2011 by district residents with 62 percent of the vote. By Garry Boulard In an effort to streamline the process, the U.S. Small Business Administration has just put out an easier to understand application for business owners who earlier this year received a Paycheck Protection Program loan. In a statement, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said the idea behind the more simplified form is to make the “forgiveness process as simple as possible, while also protecting against fraud and misuse of funds.” The new forgiveness policy applies specifically to business owners who have received Payroll Protection Program loans of $50,000 or less. Passed as part of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, the $669 billion Payroll Protection Program has been designed from the start to help sole proprietors and small businesses, among others, pay for their payroll costs during the pandemic shutdown. The program has also provided assistance to small businesses for utility, rent, and interests costs. According to Small Business Administration figures, more than 5.2 million PPP loans, with a dollar amount of $525 billion, were approved between April and August. The average loan size was just over $100,000. In order to meet the criteria for having their loans forgiven, business owners must have applied no less than 60% of their PPP loan funds toward payroll expenses. In announcing the new loan forgiveness application process, Jovita Carranza, administrator of the Small Business Administration, said the new form “demonstrates our relentless commitment to using every tool in our tool belt to help small businesses and the banks that have participated in this program.” By Garry Boulard Bernalillo County has issued a Request for Bids for the demolition of a massive four-story building in downtown Albuquerque that formerly served as a detention center. The 150,000 square foot cement structure, located at 415 Roma Avenue, was officially closed in 2003 after inmates were transferred to a new holding facility on the west side of the city. Since then there have been various proposals to upgrade the structure, while still keeping it as a detention facility, but an earlier report estimated that it would cost around $36 million to do that. Thoughts of repurposing the building to be used as office space also proved economically prohibitive. The structure, which was built in 1976, was for a time additionally used as a federal prisoner detention facility, but, according to county officials, has been largely vacant since 2010. Instead, the building, with its ominous, aging jail cells, has sometimes been used for scenes in such popular television programs as Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul. Last year, members of the Bernalillo County Commission, noting the ongoing $85,000 in annual expenses needed to maintain the building, approved an appropriation of $2.5 million to pay for the structure’s demolition and subsequent construction of a parking lot to be used by county employees in its place. The RFB, which was issued by the county’s Procurement and Business Services Department, has a submission deadline of November 11. By Garry Boulard The City of Rio Rancho has issued a Request for Proposals for the rehabilitation of a 2.5-mile stretch of Unser Boulevard. The project, part of a larger ongoing rehabilitation of the well-travelled thoroughfare that connects Rio Rancho with Albuquerque, will see work on a segment between Southern Boulevard and the southern limits of Rio Rancho. Work on the $6.4 million project will include a mill and inlay of 2.5 inches on both the north and southbound lanes, crack pitching and sealing to be completed on the milled surface, and repairs to the existing asphalt. Work will additionally entail the building of new concrete curbs; the installation of a colored median concrete, and curb ramps built in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act. New manholes are also scheduled to be installed, as well as hot thermoplastic permanent striping, and new signage. Work rehabilitating Unser Boulevard from Abrazo Road NE to Southern Boulevard was launched earlier this year. In March, Rio Rancho voters overwhelmingly approved general obligation bonds for the Unser Boulevard work, providing up to $10.8 million in funding. One of the busiest routes in New Mexico, the 24-mile long Unser Boulevard has seen its traffic load more than double in recent years, and now serves up to 30,000 vehicles a day. By Garry Boulard |
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