Project Watch

Jan. 1, 2012
Colorado to get $400 million in military construction. According to a recent report published at www.localwireless.com, a defense bill recently signed

Colorado to get $400 million in military construction. According to a recent report published at www.localwireless.com, a defense bill recently signed by President Obama authorized $286 million for facilities at Fort Carson for a new helicopter brigade; $70 million for a National Security Agency building at Buckley Air Force Base; and a smaller project in Pueblo, Colo.

PBF Energy to spend $1 billion on refinery expansion in Delaware City, Del. The three-year project, which still needs state approvals, will install a crude oil “hydrocracker” and hydrogen plant at the 210,000 barrel-per-day refiner, according to a report posted at www.delawareonline.com.

American Transmission Co. and Duke Energy have a 950-mile power line from Wyoming to Nevada on the drawing boards. The Milwaukee-Journal Sentinel says the 500,000V line would cost approximately $3.5 billion and transport electricity generated by Wyoming's wind farms to California.

Cornell wins competition for science-research campus in Big Apple with $2 billion proposal. A recent Bloomberg report said Cornell University won a city-sponsored competition that attracted 15 universities for the construction of a 10-acre research campus on Roosevelt Island. New York wants a university with a high-tech research facility that could create local jobs, similar to what Stanford University has done for California's Silicon Valley, and it offered the 10 acres of city-owned land on Roosevelt Island and $100 million in infrastructure work for the competition.

Boston waiting on better economic conditions as $582 million in planned waterfront projects sit dormant in pipeline. The Boston Business Journal says the East Boston neighborhood along Boston's harbor may one day be home to hundreds of new residential units, but a down economy has held back construction of several massive residential projects that have been on the drawing boards over the past few years.

N.Y. Gov. Cuomo proposes $4 billion convention center complex for Queens. The neighborhood around Manhattan's Jacob K. Javits Convention Center has never fulfilled the dreams of the facility's developers, who back in the 1980s expected the area to attract hotels, restaurants and other development. A recent New York Times article says Cuomo wants the convention center site turned into mixed-used development with housing, hotels and museums, and that he supports the construction of a $4 billion convention center and hotel at the site of the Aqueduct racetrack-casino in Queens. The article said the Queens project could become the largest convention center in the country, and would be a joint venture with Malaysia-based Genting Group.