Southwest Roundup: Sandia Contracts; Raiders Stadium; Flamingo Gets New Feathers; Light Rail Expands In Phoenix Metro

New Mexico companies will provide $135 million in general, electrical, mechanical and civil construction work at Sandia National Laboratories, a spokesperson said.

 

The 14 companies, most of them small businesses, are subcontractors for the labs and will compete for individual construction projects as they occur, said Krista Smith, senior manager of Sandia’s Procurement Operations Department.

 

“These construction partnership agreements demonstrate and reinforce our commitment to New Mexico’s small business community,” Smith said.

 

Subcontractors selected for projects are Applied Construction Technologies 2, Engineering Constructors Inc., H+P Construction Services, SDV Construction, Summit Construction Co. and TEF Construction.

 

Electrical contractors are Applied Construction Technologies 2, Del Rio Enterprises Inc., Enterprise Electrical Services and U.S. Electrical Corp.

 

Mechanical contractors are HDL&M Construction Services, H+P Construction Services, Rupert Plumbing and Heating Co. and Scoggin Mechanical Industries Inc. The civil contractors are RMCI Inc., Summit Construction Co., and TLC Plumbing and Utility.

 

Neither the Las Vegas Raiders nor subcontractors have released many details on a massive stadium project for the city, according to a recently Las Vegas Review-Journal article.

 

Earlier this spring, announced that Mortenson Construction would oversee building the 65,000-seat domed stadium on 63 acres near the famed Las Vegas strip.

 

“The Raiders want to go low-profile in the project until planning is a little further along,” according to the Review-Journal.

 

The agreement, which National Football League owners approved, “was conditioned on final approval of a checklist of 14 other approvals that will be sought between now and September,” according to the Review-Journal.

 

According to Stadium Authority, a preliminary project timeline draft showed a 30-month construction period after bonds are issued. Site work on the land, which the Raiders purchased for $77.5 million on May 1, is targeted by December. Kansas City-based Manica Architecture is overseeing design.

 

Caesars Entertainment plans to invest $90 million to upgrade the Flamingo Las Vegas hotel, according to company officials in late June.  

The Flamingo project is part of an overall plan to revamp its Las Vegas properties.

 

All rooms will be finished in the second quarter of 2018, Caesers said in a statement.

 

The Las Vegas-based hospitality company is investing hundreds of millions of dollars to upgrade properties, as its main operating unit, Caesars Entertainment Operating Co., exits bankruptcy later this year and as Las Vegas tourism industry thrives.

 

Caesars has upgraded more than 4,800 rooms at four of its Las Vegas resorts, including Caesars Palace, Planet Hollywood, Paris Las Vegas and Harrah’s Las Vegas. The company said it will finish upgrading 2,000 rooms at Planet Hollywood by summer. By the end of the year, Caesars will have upgraded more than 50 percent of its rooms since 2014.

 

The city of Mesa, Ariz. will sacrifice some improvements at a series of intersections to help finance its share of Valley Metro light rail’s two-mile extension to Gilbert Road, according to the East Valley Tribune.

 

Regional sales tax revenues earmarked for widening projects at five northeast Mesa intersections will be repurposed to pay for the city’s 5.7 percent share of the $186 million project, the Tribune reported. Mesa’s share for the extension increased $1.3 million to $10.6 million, as the result of higher construction costs and other factors, including improvements to make the area greener and more appealing for pedestrians.

 

According to the article, there will be no additional amount needed from Mesa’s general fund. The city’s share mostly will be paid in regional sales tax revenues from Proposition 400, which is used for highway and transit improvements.