Several dozen workers - welders, carpenters and other subcontractors - were busy today converting the former manufacturing site into space for Everest College, a division of Corinthian Colleges.

“Almost every room had 25-inch pipe going through it so we’re removing it for the college — Everest College,” one welder said.

A rumored 70,000-square-foot lease has been negotiated, though the owner of the building, Los Angeles-based IRG, has so far declined to comment.

The building has sat vacant since early 2008, after Intel closed its operations.

In February, IRG said prospects for the facility were strong - and that they expected to have it 70 percent leased within three years.

IRG purchased the campus last fall for $15.1 million. The company specializes in what is known as adaptive reuse and historic preservation. It owns more than 70 million square feet of commercial property throughout the country.

IRG wasted no time in getting word out to prospective tenants, both national and local.

“We anticipate that a good portion of our tenants will come from local companies who already have a presence here, but just want to expand or add a new division,” IRG’s Bruce Haas told the Business Journal last month.

In marketing the site, IRG has met with the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, among others.

The tenant improvements currently under way are taking place in Building 1 on the four-building campus, originally built in 1999 as a chip fabrication plant by Rockwell.

The property was eventually bought by Intel, which spent almost $600 million on expansion and facility upgrades in 2004 and 2005.

Signs of distress hit Intel in 2006. Two years later, the plant closed, forcing the layoff or reassignment of more than 800 employees. Until this year, the plant remained vacant, representing one of the grimmer illustrations of the Great Recession and its impact on the region’s economy.
Officials at IRG and Corinthian Colleges could not be immediately reached.

Check back to csbj.com for updates.

The company has agreed to provide supplies, food services, transportation, public works, community service, medical, safety, environmental, fire and postal operations support at the military base. The original contract is for one year, with options for four additional years.

ITT Systems has offices in Colorado Springs and White Plains, N.Y., and provides maintenance and operations support for U.S. government facilities.

She declined to comment about the nature of her absence.

Spokesmen for the division and Gov. Bill Ritter declined to comment because it is a personnel matter.

Earlier this month, her office disclosed that American Home Funding, which employs state Sen. Ted Harvey as a broker, was under investigation for allegedly sending out advertising fliers that resembled official tax documents.

The division later clarified that the Republican was not the target of the investigation.

On Friday, the Senate approved a proposal that would strip the real estate division director’s authority to regulate mortgage brokers and replace it with a board appointed by the governor.

- Associated Press

The bipartisan 68-29 vote in the Senate sends the legislation to the White House, where President Barack Obama has promised to sign it into law.

It will be the first of several election-year jobs bills promised by Democrats to be enacted into law, though there’s plenty of skepticism that the measure will do much to actually create jobs. Optimistic estimates predict the tax break could generate perhaps 250,000 jobs through the end of the year, but that would be just a tiny fraction of the 8.4 million jobs lost since the start of the recession.

The measure is part of a campaign by Democrats to show that they are addressing the U.S. unemployment problem, but that message was overshadowed by Congress’ feverish final push to pass health care overhaul legislation by this weekend.

“It is the first of what I hope will be a series of jobs packages that help to continue to put people back to work,” Obama said after the vote.

The bill which passed Wednesday contains about $18 billion in tax breaks and a $20 billion infusion of cash into highway and transit programs. Among other things, it exempts businesses that hire the unemployed from paying the 6.2 percent Social Security payroll tax through December and gives employers an additional $1,000 credit if new workers stay on the job a full year. Taxpayers will have to reimburse Social Security for the lost revenue.

“This is just the first, certainly not the last, piece of legislation that we will put forward in relation to jobs,” said sponsor Charles Schumer, a Democrat. “If we don’t create jobs, the economy will not move forward.”

It also extends highway and mass transit programs through the end of the year and pump in $20 billion in time for the spring construction season. That money would make up for lower-than-expected gasoline tax revenues.

The measure is modest compared with last year’s $862 billion economic stimulus bill, and the bulk of the hiring tax breaks would probably go to companies that were likely to hire new workers anyway.

“Most businesses that are going to be able to take the credit were probably going to hire the worker anyway,” said Bill Rys of the National Federation of Independent Business, which lobbies for small business. “Until business picks up for small business owners, there’s not going to be a huge incentive to add new workers.”

Much of the bill is financed over the coming decade by cracking down on offshore tax havens, though it would add $13 billion to the debt in the coming three years.

“When are we going to stop spending money around here as if there’s no tomorrow?” said Sen. Judd Gregg, a Republican. “Because pretty soon there’s going to be no tomorrow for our children as we add this debt to their backs.”

In addition to the hiring tax incentives and highway funding, the bill extends a tax break for small businesses buying new equipment and modestly expands an initiative that helps state and local governments finance infrastructure projects.

- Associated Press

Clark died March 8 at age 96. He had been living in Colorado Springs.

He spent 33 months as a prisoner of war during World War II after being shot down over France. His efforts in helping 76 POWs escape from Stalag Luft III in 1944 inspired the movie “The Great Escape.”

He was superintendent of the Air Force Academy from Aug. 1, 1970, to July 31, 1974.

The is Lockheed’s second security intelligence center. The first opened in Gaithersburg, Md., in May 2008.

Lockheed Martin is headquartered in Bethesda, Md.

- Associated Press

The indictment said that Hamilton Alan Bird operated a EquityFX  Inc., based in Nevada, which sought consumers on foreign exchange currency trading investments, promising high rates of return. Bird used much of the investment money to pay other investors, to show false profits, and for personal expenses, according to AG’s office.

Bird took up to $100,000 from individual investors - in El Paso and Weld counties, and from investors in Arizona, California, Oklahoma, Texas, New Jersey and  Illinois, between January 2006 and September 2008, collecting about $690,000, according to the indictment.

“This case is remarkable not only for its breadth and the number of investors affected, but also because Mr. Bird perpetrated a portion of this fraud while criminal proceedings were pending against him in a securities fraud case brought by the Attorney General’s Office,” Attorney General John Suthers said in a statement. “We look forward to presenting our case in Colorado Springs.”

On March 14, 2008, Bird pleaded guilty to one count of securities fraud, a class-three felony, and one count of theft, a class-three felony, in the Office of the Attorney General’s case. During September 2008, an El Paso County division court sentenced him to 24 years in prison. During May 2007, a Denver District Court entered a $12.6 million judgment and injunction against Bird as a result of the Colorado Division of Securities case.

Bird is suspected of failing to make proper disclosures to investors, and he failed to disclose that the Office of the Attorney General had obtained an indictment against him alleging securities fraud on May 12, 2006, and that Colorado Division of Securities had filed a lawsuit against him on Feb. 3, 2005, for violations of the Colorado Securities Act.

The company first announced plans for the store during 2008. Since then, land has been purchase but  a site-work permit is pending.

A 415,000-square-foot store with 1,500 parking spaces is planned for a 13.5-acre site west of Interstate 25 and north of Park Meadows Mall.

The store is expected to employ about 400 people.

Also Republican Senate candidate Ken Buck, the Weld County district attorney, was in a dead heat with former Lt. Gov. Jane Norton, who had been viewed as the front-runner based on leads in fundraising, endorsements and polling.

Former Congressman Scott McInnis held a lead over Evergreen businessman and conservative Tea Party favorite Dan Maes.

Romanoff said caucus results were a “shock wave” that showed voter disaffection with Washington. He also took a shot at Bennet’s large campaign coffers, which dwarf Romanoff’s.

Bennet, the former superintendent of Denver Public Schools and chief of staff to Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, was appointed to his seat by Gov. Bill Ritter in January 2009.

Click here to see updated Democrat precinct results and here for Republican results.

On the Republican side, tea party activists are looking to show strength by backing candidates to the right of the fundraising leaders for governor and U.S. Senate.

At the same time, some left-leaning Democrats are looking to show party leadership they’re frustrated, too, by rejecting the party’s newest senator, Michael Bennet.

The front-runners aren’t sitting back. They’re also trying to tap into unhappiness with Congress. In his first ad buy starting Wednesday, Bennet says “the whole place is broken.” The television ad will air for two weeks in Denver and Colorado Springs.

Caucuses start at 7 p.m.

- Associated Press