Construction is going strong in the Cowboy State, though by standards of other, larger states the volume is low

Construction added 2,300 jobs in Wyoming during the first quarter this year, an increase of 11.2 percent over March 2006, according to figures released by the Research and Planning Section of the Wyoming Department of Employment. That made construction the fastest-growing sector in Wyoming's economy, with natural resources and mining coming in second, adding 1,900 jobs in the 12 months. At the end of March, the state's unemployment rate stood at 2.6 percent, up slightly over February but well below the national rate of 4.4 percent.
Highways

Wyoming is unique among states in Rocky Mountain Construction territory. With its total population of only 510,000, it is numerically dwarfed by its neighbors — Colorado with 4.67 million residents and Utah with 2.55 million. Consequently, with such a small population base, construction needs are generally smaller. Perhaps the biggest problem confronting highway construction in the Cowboy State is that, despite the small population, the state has over 6,800 miles of highways in the system administered by the Wyoming Department of Transportation, 914 of them in the Interstate System. By comparison, Colorado has 9,148 miles in the state system, 953 of them interstates, and Utah has a state system of just over 6,000 miles, 977 of them interstates. Clearly, the funding for maintenance and improvement of the Wyoming system must come from sources largely outside Wyoming, or the cost per resident would be an unbearable burden.

So it came as no surprise when, at the initial hearing of the Wyoming Legislature's Interim Transportation Committee, state officials voiced the opinion that the federal government must assume financial responsibility for most of the maintenance and improvement of Interstate 80 that crosses southern Wyoming from border to border. "To me, this is an issue where the federal government has to do its job," said Sen. John Barrasso (R-Casper), co-chairman of the Interim Transportation Committee. "Most of the wear and tear on major highways certainly has more to do with federal commerce than it does with people living in Wyoming." Traffic on I-80 averages more than 6,000 trucks a day and is expected to increase to about 12,000 a day by 2020. John Cox, director of the Wyoming Department of Transportation, told the legislators, "I-80 and other federal highways in the state absolutely have to remain a priority at the federal level in terms of funding ... In the highway condition and funding sense, we're literally talking about survival mode when it comes to taking care of the existing system." If federal funding remains at the current level, Cox said, Wyoming will receive about $6.2 billion over the next 30 years for the entire state. The state's needs for maintenance and improvements on I-80 alone will run between $6.4 billion and $8.8 billion over that same period, depending on the extent of work undertaken and the type of surfacing employed.

In the current fiscal year, which began last Oct. 1, WYDOT was able to budget only $192 million for construction on roughly 260 miles of highway, down from nearly $225 million spent for work on 350 miles of highway the previous year. Fortunately, the state legislature provided a one-time appropriation of $102 million in March that goes a long way to increasing the amount of work being done on Wyoming highways this year.

Obligating large chunks of the available funding as quickly as possible, the Wyoming Transportation Commission last November awarded a record $61.3 million in roadwork — the most ever in a single month — including the largest single contract ever awarded for highway work in the state: a $45.9-million contract to Upper Plains Contracting of Aberdeen, S.D., to reconstruct the five miles of I-80 that loop around Rock Springs. In addition to completely replacing the aging concrete pavement, the project includes rebuilding four sets of overpasses, reconfiguring the ramps of one interchange and rebuilding those of another, and widening a half-mile of a connecting arterial. Work on the eastbound lanes is under way this construction season, with completion scheduled for November, and the westbound lanes will be tackled next year.

Another significant project currently under way is the first in a series of contracts to reconstruct, widen and improve the safety of US-26/287 over Togwotee Pass between Dubois and Grand Teton/Yellowstone National Parks. E.H. Oftedal & Sons of Miles City, Mont., began work on the 10-mile Brooks Lake segment early last year under a $23.5-million contract and is scheduled to complete the work this November.

LeGrand Johnson Construction of Logan, Utah, has since begun work on the second Togwotee Trail project, the 4.8-mile Buffalo Fork segment at the west end of the route, under a $16.9-million contract due for completion next June.

The construction season got off to a rousing start this spring, with WYDOT awarding $32 million in work during March, $28.4 million in April and $42 million in May. The year is turning out much better for highway contractors than first expected.

Meanwhile, the head of WYDOT's aeronautics division is lamenting that, even after a one-time appropriation of $10 million this spring, increased construction costs are not allowing the division to deal with crumbling infrastructure at local airports, where runway and approach improvements are badly needed.
Energy

Transportation construction, of course, is not the only building taking place or planned in Wyoming. Even as the national emphasis moves from carbon-producing electrical generating capacity to greener methods such as wind power, Wyoming remains the coal mining leader of the world, and there is currently one coal-fired power plant under construction at the southern end of the Powder River Basin — American Power Group's $655-million plant southeast of Wright — and two more going through the permitting process before the start of construction. The start of one of those two, Basin Electric Power Cooperative's $800-million, 385-megawatt Dry Fork Station near Gillette, is now scheduled for October, with completion in January 2011. The other planned plant is the 275-megawatt first phase of an 1,100-megawatt integrated gasification combined cycle plant proposed by Buffalo Energy Partners for a site on the North Platte River just north of Glenrock.

Additionally, Medicine Bow Fuel & Power LLC, a subsidiary of DKRW Advanced Fuels LLC, plans to begin construction this year of a coal-to-liquids processing facility near Medicine Bow this year, completing it in the fourth quarter of 2010. The plant will employ General Electric's coal gasification technology to produce a synthetic gas from which nearly all the carbon dioxide and sulfur can be removed. This gas will then be liquefied using the Fischer-Tropsch technology that DKRW has licensed from Rentech Inc. of Denver. Feedstock coal will come from Arch Coal's nearby Hanna mines, and the plant will have a daily capacity of 13,000 barrels of ultra-low-sulfur diesel fuel that will be marketed by Sinclair Oil Corp.

Interline Resources Corp. of Alpine, Utah, has signed a letter of intent with Denver-based American Oil & Gas Inc. for a $15.5-million project to construct a 4,000-barrel-per-day oil topping refinery at Douglas. Plans call for an early summer construction start and an estimated seven-month completion time. The new refinery, which will operate as NorthCut Refining LLC, will be built at the previous site of the Interline Well Draw Gas Plant, operated by Interline for the past 17 years. It will produce a No. 2 off-road diesel and a specialty high-value gasoline product that is an essential blending ingredient for fuel grade ethanol.

As for "green" power, Happy Jack Windpower LLC, a subsidiary of Tierra Energy LLC, is building the 30-megawatt Happy Jack Windpower Project on 750 acres of city land west of Cheyenne. The turbines are to come online next year.

Rocky Mountain Power, a unit of PacifiCorp, has announced plans to construct a pair of 600-mile, 500-kilovolt transmission lines to connect Wyoming to electrical customers in Idaho, Oregon, Utah, and beyond. The lines are set from completion in 2014, when Wyoming is expected to host a significant portion of some 4,000 megawatts of new electrical generation the two lines will carry to customers. Both lines will begin near the company's existing coal-fired Jim Bridger plant at Rock Springs. One will extend to central Utah's Mona substation in Juab county and on into the Southwest. The other will run to southeastern Idaho and connect into Utah along an existing transmission corridor, with another segment crossing Idaho into Oregon. The mix of power the lines will carry hasn't been determined, but Wyoming energy officials say they expect wind and other renewable sources will help meet the demand for less carbon-intensive electricity, while most new generation will still come from coal.
Corrections

The biggest single building project currently under way in the state is the Wyoming Department of Corrections' new Torrington medium-security prison, being built under a fixed price contract by Layton Construction of Salt Lake City, serving as construction manager at risk. The start of work this spring was made possible by the appropriation of an additional $37.5 million for the project by the Wyoming Legislature. The facility, which will house 690 inmates and employ some 340 staff, is expected to take 26 months to complete. "It's full speed ahead," said WDOC director Dave Lampert of the project. "I hope that affordable housing starts and secondary employment markets in Torrington are gearing up now, because we'll be opening before you know it!"
Education

By far the biggest surprise in the education field this year came with the announcement this March by the National Center for Atmospheric Research and its managing organization, the University of Colorado's University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, selected Cheyenne as the site for a new supercomputing data center to be built and operated by a partnership including the state of Wyoming and the University of Wyoming. Construction of the $60-million facility will begin this year following approval of Wyoming's $21-million share of project funding by the legislature.

At the University of Wyoming campus in Laramie, more than a dozen construction projects are under way or in the pipeline. The university expects to spend an estimated $100 million this year on building or renovating 500,000 square feet of space, with a similar amount of spending again next year. Among ongoing projects are a $16-million home for the archeological and anthropological programs and a $14.6-million renovation and addition to the classroom building. The existing anthropological building will then be demolished and the William Robertson Coe Library expanded to fill the space. A new information technology building is also expected to start construction this summer. Construction will begin early next year on the $20-million, 40,000-square-foot Robert and Carol Berry Center for Natural History and Conservation of the site previously occupied by the university's old power plant on Lewis Street.

A university-related project also under way is the Hilton Garden Inn and attached University of Wyoming Convention Center on East Grand Street. Delta Construction is general contractor for the five-story, 135-room hotel and single-story conference center with a large ballroom and three smaller meeting rooms. The hotel is owned by Hotel Investment Services, while the conference center is owned by the UW Foundation but will be managed by HIS. Completion is scheduled for February 2008.

In the K-12 public education field, since its creation in 2002 the state School Facilities Commission has received legislative appropriations in excess of $990 million for capital construction and major maintenance work at public schools throughout the state. Over this period the commission has approved 517 major capital projects (including 10 entirely new schools), 920 minor capital projects and 5,177 major maintenance projects.

Among the many new school projects just bid or about to bid are LaBarge Elementary School (Groathouse Construction, Laramie, is construction manager at risk), McKinley Westwood Elementary School (Haselden Construction, Denver, is CMAR), Davey Jackson Elementary School (GE Johnson Construction, Colorado Springs, is CMAR), Lincoln Elementary School in Riverton, Poison Spider Elementary School, and new middle and elementary schools in Lander.

Laramie County School District No. 1 in Cheyenne is the state's largest, and it has $176.5 million budgeted this year alone for capital project, with $66 million worth to start construction this summer, including construction of a new Triumph High School, a new Baggs Elementary and remodeling of Cheyenne's East and Central High Schools.

With all the school construction planned and under way, there is some concern among Wyoming contractors about the use of out-of-state contractors, particularly from Colorado. Josh Carnahan, executive director of Wyoming Associated Builders and Contractors, has told the School Facilities Commission that Wyoming contractors are up to the task of building new schools all over the state. Most of the group's members, he said, build large projects, and together they can bond for more than a half-billion dollars. He expressed concern because some commission members have met with contractors from neighboring Colorado. Ken Daraie, director of the commission, said members did meet with Colorado contractors, but only because they were invited. He says 70 percent of Wyoming's public school construction boom is being handled by Wyoming contractors.
Miscellaneous

In Campbell County, where construction is proceeding with the Cam-Plex Multi-Event Center at an estimated cost of nearly $42 million, even though full funding for the 179,000-square-foot facility was not available at the start of construction, the county and the city of Gillette have committed to issuing bonds to fund construction of a recreation center estimated to cost $45 million. A property tax increase will be employed to fund half of a $37-million technical education center at Gillette College, the other $18.4 million having been appropriated by the legislature. The center will train mechanics, welders and electricians to help ease the skilled labor shortage in northeast Wyoming.


source:www.acppubs.com