How to Build the Construction Workforce Through School Partnerships

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In an effort to meet the growing demand for skilled construction labor, Mortenson Construction Corporation has forged partnerships with local high schools to provide career guidance, job training, and educational experiences for youths attending schools located near its regional offices. These partnerships are vital to ending the drastic skilled labor shortages currently faced by the construction industry.

Mortenson Construction executive Joanna Slominski has spent years building partnerships between her company and the local schools. Slominski has been a personal mentor to several students, organized familiarization trips to construction sites, created hands-on learning opportunities for students, and facilitaed job-shadowing opportunities for students who are interested in the skilled trades. In her article for Prairie Business, Slominski says that ensuring positive, productive partnerships has meant developing a strong, 5-point outreach and implementation strategy.

The first step is to analyze what your business can offer the school and what they need/want in order to formulate a mutually beneficial goal. If you have technological expertise, willing mentors on staff, or an acute sense of what your industry demands from entry-level employees, look for ways to incorporate those assets into the educational curriculum. Introducing students to the building trades is a good start, but helping them understand that cutting-edge technology and universally-sought management skills are part of the business is also important. For example, Mortenson shows students how Oculus Rift technology, usually identified with video games, is used in the design and project management aspects of construction technology.

After you discover what your company has to offer, it’s time to locate schools to partner with. Decide which institutions would benefit from your business’ strengths. Do you work with high schools or focus primarily on the local trade schools? Examine the school’s mission statement and goals to make sure that they align with your company’s core values.

Thirdly, fostering direct, honest communication with potential partners from the outset will help establish mutual objectives and expectations. Before you begin, each party should understand what obligations must be met. Be clear about how much human capital, time, and materials your business can spare for the partnership. In forging the partnership, understand that it entails sharing your business’ intellectual property with the next generation of skilled trades people, to help them learn the business. Have clear guidelines about mutual goals and the resources you are contributing to the schools, and understand your company’s ability to make the necessary assessments and readjustments that may periodically be required.

After that, build a system for getting and incorporating feedback from students and instructors into your partnership from the outset. The school’s leadership may be responsible for committing to the partnership, but the students you are teaching and the instructors you are collaborating with should also be heard. Take their feedback as seriously as you do the administration’s. If students aren’t engaging with your program, be willing to reassess what you are offering and how it is being presented.

Finally, integrate these educational partnerships into your working culture. In order to succeed, educational partnerships must have the support of the entire company. Your employees should know about your organization’s various partnerships, and that they might be called upon to interact with students in an educational support role. This might range from key executives making presentations to student groups, to staff participation in a “career day” even hosted at your company.

Partnerships with educational institutions are a responsibility and a privilege for businesses that choose to create them, but the benefits for the company and the industry are enormous. Investing the time and resources to partner with schools will ensure that the construction trades workforce has well-trained, strong, leadership in years to come.

Construction Boom Soon to Hit Palm Beach County

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Biz Journal’s Brian Bandell reports that two residential projects and one commercial venture are up for review with the Palm Beach County planning and zoning board. The largest proposal has a 37-acre site at the northeast corner of Lake Worth Road and Lyons Road being rezoned for 184 homes. The Diocese of Palm Beach, Herbert F Kahlert, and Lyons Petroleum currently own the four parcels comprising the site. A lone gas station is the only structure currently occupying the space.

Approval for a 75,280-square-foot retail complex and 3,820-square-foot financial building has already been secured. The current application indicates that the developer hopes to take advantage of the current residential market conditions and wishes to increase the allowable residential density from two units per acre to five.

The Miami Beach-based Woodwind 2007 LLC, managed by Grant T. Cardone, filed an application to expand the Wellington Club apartment complex. They will construct two additional buildings of 24 units apiece on the last vacant part of the community’s lot. The community already has 202 units, a clubhouse, and a daycare center on its 36.3 acre property.

The Hardail Sibia-managed HDRS LLC, based in Boca Raton, seeks to construct a commercial project at Woolbright Road, slightly west of Jog Road. HRDS has proposed 20,00 square feet of medical office space and 19,530 square feet of general commercial space. They acquired the 3.6 acres out of foreclosure in 2013, for $1.14 million. Ths project will join the two other medical facilities Sibia owns in the area.

Subcontractors seeking residential or commercial construction job leads on these project should check out HBW’s building permit activity reports to learn more. HBW serves builders in Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Texas, and Oklahoma. In addition to our Building Trend Activity for Residential Construction Reports, HBW can create a number of custom reports for any need you might have. We also offer exclusive White Paper Reports to help you market your business. White papers start by giving an overview of the trends in your area and then advice on how to turn your weekly building permit information subscription into successful business leads. To show you how we can help your business succeed, HBW is glad to provide you with complementary building data report or one of our specialized White Paper Reports. Contact us today and start making your business more profitable!

Huntsville’s Torch Remains Bright Through $10 Million Expansion

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Huntsville-based IT & Engineering giant Torch Technologies will be expanding their property and their operations through 2016. CEO Bill Roark says that Torch has wanted to expand for the last five years, and that the conditions are finally right to act upon those plans. In an interview with AL.com and WHNT News 19, Torch announced a 9-18 month long construction project to renovate existing facilities, and develop a new headquarters plus conference center.

“With the wires running across the floor and the dated facilities that we have, it’ll be nice to have a new modern facility that we can have meeting rooms and host those customer meetings in,” says Roark, “It will help us attract employees to be a part of the company and help with our image in the community and with the customer base.”

Torch Technologies, along with the newly-formed affiliate Freedom Real Estate & Capital recently acquired office buildings at 4090 South Memorial Parkway and 4035 Chris Drive, along with 12 acres of surrounding property. The companies hired Matheny Goldmon Architects, Turner Construction, and 4 Site to develop their expansion project.

The 40,000-square-foot vacant facilities at South Memorial Pkwy and Chris Drive will be renovated. A 10-000 square-foot conference center will be built interconnecting the two facilities, and the combined property will be called The Freedom Center. After renovations, a portion of the Chris Drive facility will be leased to area businesses, with the rest occupied by Torch and Freedom. The accompanying acreage has enough room to build a three-story, 54,600-square-foot facility in the none-too-distant future.

The decision to stay at the Chris Drive location was not a foregone conclusion. “By staying here in south Huntsville, we’ll be keeping this campus from going dark,” admits Roark. “If we had moved to Research Park, this building (on Chris Drive), the building next door and a large portion of the building across the street would be empty and essentially not operating.”

Torch was compelled to stay by the nearly $2.1 million incentive package granted to the project by the city of Huntsville, the State of Alabama, and the Tennessee Valley Authority. Tax abatements and grants will aid the further development of the property.

Torch president John Watson says this expansion is a milestone for Torch’s business growth goals. “We felt like this is really going to meet all of our needs, gives us the best location we can get in terms of the customer, has nice proximity to downtown Huntsville for those folks that are coming outside of town,” he said. “And we are doing it for a discount below where we could do it in other areas in town.”

The formal groundbreaking for this $10-$12 million project took place on Friday, March 20, at 4035 Chris Drive, the location that the 12-year-old employee-owned company has occupied for over a decade. Along with the expansion comes 150 new jobs.

Subcontractors seeking commercial construction job leads on the Torch Technologies project should check out HBW’s building permit activity reports to learn more. HBW serves builders in Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Texas, and Oklahoma. In addition to our Building Trend Activity for Residential Construction Reports, HBW can create a number of custom reports for any need you might have. We also offer exclusive White Paper Reports to help you market your business. White papers start by giving an overview of the trends in your area and then advice on how to turn your weekly building permit information subscription into successful business leads. To show you how we can help your business succeed, HBW is glad to provide you with complementary building data report or one of our specialized White Paper Reports. Contact us today and start making your business more profitable!

Skyscraper Design that Casts No Shadow

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As urbanization intensifies and the liveable spaces in cities become smaller and smaller, the only option developers have is to build upwards. Each time a building rises higher, the ground below becomes more and more overcast, making for a light-deprived and unhappy populace.

London, for example will become home to a staggering 250 new skyscrapers within the next five years. Pondering this scenario, NBBJ architects in London wondered whether they couldn’t find a way to build skyscrapers that cast smaller shadows. As Wired reports, the firm successfully discovered a building design that cuts a building’s shadow footprint by 60%.

Through the wonders of computer modeling, NBBJ stumbled upon a design which uses a pair of buildings, “one of which works like a gigantic, curved mirror. The glass surface of the northernmost building reflects light down into the shadow cast by its southern partner.” The curvature allows the sun to follow the shadow throughout the day.

“The relationship between the sun and shadow is the relationship between the two buildings,” says Christian Coop, NBBJ’s design director. This reflected light will be baffled and diffused, unlike the concentrated “walkie scorchie” beams cast by 20 Fenchurch Street that torment passersby and are powerful enough to fry an egg.

NBBJ, one of Fast Company’s 10 most innovative architectural firms, used the powerful Rhinoceros modeling program to come up with this design. Coop’s team plugged the footprints for offices and living space into the program and then told it to maximize the amount of light reflected onto the ground. The software analyzes each shape and then generates a series of preferred options. “Some are bonkers,” admits Coop, whose team adjusted the requirements for living space on the lower levels to arrive at the current design.

The design calls for buildings that are narrower on the lower level but widen and curve out as the stories rise higher. The design, which the firm has proposed for the Greenwich Peninsular site, reduces the shadow between the buildings by 60%, which will allow for a bright, green space between the buildings where city residents can congregate.

According to Coop, NBBJ’s ultimate design goal is “improving the quality of our urban environment… finding a way in which we can have the tall buildings we need without losing natural light on the areas below. The design ensures that the area between the towers is bright and pleasant, so is more likely to be used as a public space.” NBBJ’s design innovation might even be useful in cities like New York and Chicago, which have resisted building more skyscrapers for fear that they would severely overshadow Central Park.

Viirt Revolutionizes the Roofing Industry

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Imagine a streamlined roofing process that saves homeowners thousands in labor and materials costs, cuts project completion time by at least 20%, gives clients insider access to project review, and can be managed remotely via the internet. Ryan Pendell of Silicon Prairie News reports that this dream-like scenario has been made a reality by career roofing contractor and tech entrepreneur Josh Davis through the Viirt online project management platform. Viirt has just gained $900,000 in venture capital from Dundee Venture Capital and a small group of angel investors.

According to Digital Journal, “Viirt is an online project management company that will generate a formal roofing bid in one minute or less that is within 5% accuracy.” Viirt will “streamline the overall process from start to finish and introduce ‘roofing insider’ tools to homeowners that have previously not been available to the public.”

Viirt accomplishes this amazing feat by leveraging the internet and aerial satellite technology. Viirt locates the client’s home and pinpoints precise roof measurements, which process happens much more quickly than the customary manual roof estimation process. Viirt also takes advantage of bulk materials pricing and passes those savings on to homeowners. Projects ordinarily costing $13,000 can be done for $3,000-$4,000 less.

Davis, Viirt’s current CEO, explains that current communications technology enables Viirt to “execute most project management functions remotely and automatically, especially on the front end…I’ve been in the roofing industry all my life and have done every job possible. Now, I’m excited to modernize the industry by adding a little bit of today’s technology to it.”

Marketing expenses, huge commissions for salespeople, and expensive materials significantly increase the roofing costs homeowners typically pay. The Viirt platform’s lower materials prices, quick and efficient roof estimate process, and efficient real-time communication saves homeowners 20%-30% per job. Because they use a formal vetting process when signing up local contractors, Viirt also guarantees the contractor’s work and secures payments until the roof installation is completed.

All of which means that Viirt’s virtues go beyond the nuts-and-bolts of the roofing process. According to Davis, Viirt is “creating much needed transparency in the roofing industry by putting the homeowner back in control of the entire roofing process. We’re boosting consumer confidence.”

Design-Build: A Quick Explanation

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The process for residential remodeling has evolved significantly over the last decade. One major effect of this change has been the rise of the more cost-conscious design-build firms that are as involved in the actual construction as they are in the designing and planning of the remodels.  Residential construction professionals looking to branch out into the remodeling business should keep in mind that these days, they are as likely to be hired by an architect or design firm as by a general contractor.

Design-Bid-Build

Prior to the housing bubble crash of 2007-2009, residential remodeling was an involved yet leisurely process of drawing up the plans, submitting them for bids to three or four contractors, and then doing the build. This model allowed homeowners to dream big and worry about negotiating more reasonable prices later. But it also often led to seriously over-budget bids,which were usually handled one of two ways: phone the bank to arrange a higher credit line—which is what most people did, or have the designer scale back the plan and draw up another expensive set of documents—which rarely happened. The design-bid-build process worked well until the days of easy credit were ended by the housing crash. At this point, homeowners started looking for a more cost-effective process.

Design-Build

Today, homeowners are likely to begin with a firm budget and a few ideas. Their next step is to contact a company that offers both the design and the contracting services in-house. Homeowners then collaborate with the designer to craft a remodel that fits their needs, fulfills, their hopes, and stays under budget. Because there is no bidding and re-planning phase, construction can begin as soon as the plans are drawn up. Design-build projects tend to move more quickly and project completion takes much less time.

When money’s no object, homeowners gladly opt for the design-bid-build process. But for the majority of budget-conscious clients, the design-build process is their preferred option. Residential construction subcontractors seeking jobs in the lucrative remodeling market need to network with the designers and architects who have spearheaded the design-build revolution.

San Antonio Home Sales Stay Strong Through March

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The 1,700 homes sold during February provide another bellwether that the San Antonio housing market is on the upswing. Katie Burke reports in the San Antonio Business Journal that “following a February housing boom, the San Antonio Board of Realtors recorded a 14 percent year-over-year increase in homes sold…Inventory remained low at 3.6 months and days on market dipped to 74 days.” As of March 1st, almost 2,000 sales were still pending, an increase of 21.5 percent over 2014, which provided a very strong lead-in for the month.

Mary Ann Jeffers, chairman of the board for SABOR, says that “We continue to see unprecedented growth in the San Antonio housing market in just about every area…Nationally, improved buyer demand at the beginning of 2015 pushed pending home sales in January up and buyers closed on homes at a swift pace despite tight inventory.”

A 6.4 percent jump in existing home sales—roughly 5.26 million homes—is expected for 2015. This increase runs parallel to the rise in the national median existing-home price, which is projected to gain a 5 percent increase. The past few monts have seen San Antonio’s housing market gain traction. Low interest rates, economic growth, and high job availability have set the stage for a real estate renaissance. with the market picking up, home prices have risen. The current average-per-square-foot cost of $101 is an increase of 5 percent over 2013’s cost.

The economic and job growth experienced in San Antonio has also driven the construction of mid-and-upper-range homes. Sales of homes costing between $200k and $500k rose 7 percent over 2014, and averaged 40.7 percent of February’s sales. Just over half of the market was comprised of homes priced lower than $200k. Although homes costing more than $500k only accounted for 3.5 percent of home sales for February, sales of higher-end properties have begun to pick up steam. Key to this momentum is the spike in residential developement happening in downtown San Antonio. As income and employment availability increase, so too has the demand for walkable, mixed-use urban living in the urban core.

Open-Source Solutions for Energy Efficiency in Affordable Housing Construction

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Affordable housing stands to gain tremendously from energy conservation and green building efforts, but acquiring the means to precisely measure the efficiency and eco-friendliness of public housing has been very cost-prohibitive. Until now. Andrew Berger of Triple Pundit reports that an East Coast startup is offering an open-source platform for building performance and construction data analytics that will provide developers and property managers the means they need to reduce their buildings’ environmental impact. WegoWise, a Boston-based software company, is leveraging the cloud and high-powered data analytics, rendered from an open-source framework, solve the affordability problem.

On March 10, WegoWise announced the deployment of its software “as the first step in an unprecedented energy efficiency program” taking place in seven U.S. states. The Free State Energy Benchmarking Program, as the project is called, “aims to deliver meaningful efficiency savings to the under-served affordable housing sector through data-driven projects.” The software is designed to track energy and water use, operations expenses, and maintenance costs, which information will allow property owners and builders the information they need to make enhance energy efficiency. WegoWise envisions the FSEBP as “one-stop shop for multifamily affordable housing owners and managers interested in efficiency retrofits.”

Department of Energy’s 2011 Buildings Energy Data Book shows that nearly 41 percent of U.S. energy consumption and 40 percent of domestic carbon dioxide emissions are generated by multifamily residential and commercial buildings. When the water consumption level and garbage generation rates are factored in, the environmental impact stretches much farther. As urbanization intensifies the destruction of free-flowing waterways, and undeveloped watersheds are leveled and built upon, sustainable design becomes increasingly urgent.

A study in 2013 released by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) and CNT Energy reports that “the multifamily housing sector represents a sizable opportunity” for improvements in energy efficiency. The ACEEE estimated $3.4 billion per year could be saved through strategic retrofits in the U.S.’s stock of affordable housing. As of this year, the FSEBP will begin to deliver those savings.

March 31 is the deadline for applying to the program. In addition to the FSEBP, select program participants will be awarded no-cost energy efficiency consulting services from program partners New Ecology and Elevate Energy. Both firms have gained strong reputations for designing and implementing energy efficiency programs in residential and multifamily buildings.

Ed Connelly, president of New Ecology, says that “both energy efficiency programs and the multifamily real estate sector are experiencing unprecedented growth, yet the multifamily market still lags behind the rest of the market in implementing efficiency projects.” Connelly adds that the partnership between WegoWise, New Ecology, and Elevate Energy “solves that conundrum by packaging veteran expertise with advanced technology to deliver hands-on assistance that is affordable, easy to use, and proven to deliver impressive results.”

Multifamily Housing Boosts Birmingham’s Economy by Billions

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The multifamily housing boom in Birmingham has brought billions into the Alabama state economy, and the trend is set to continue through 2015. Bryan Davis of the Birmingham Business Journal reports that “the area has had significant impact from the multifamily industry for the past couple of years.” Citing a study from the National Multifamily Housing Council and the National Apartment Association, Davis says that, “Birmingham had an economic contribution of $2 billion in 2013 from the multifamily market.”

According the report, this is a significant departure from the city’s standard residential composition. The study says that Birmingham’s metro economy has historically had “one of the nation’s lowest multifamily occupancy rates because of its aging population and weak employment growth,” but that The University of Alabama at Birmingham “supports rental demand and helps backstop the area economy.”

Yet the Birmingham metro’s economy has slowly strengthened over the past five years, making for a stronger job market that has been drawing Millennials to the city. The abundance of opportunity has drawn so many young professionals that the city ranked #2 in the nation for Millennial home buyers in 2014.

More than $58 million was spent on multifamily construction in 2013, which supported 375 jobs. Until 2014, the Birmingham metro area had 120,000 residents living in 64 apartment homes, supporting nearly 23,00 jobs in the metro area. 1,300 of those jobs came from the apartment management field, which are supported from the $186 million in operating costs paid by the multifamily properties.

Rental demand has increased along with the city’s economic upturn, leading to the absorption of 1,200 rental units during 2014, a 380 percent increase over the 10-year average of 250 per year. There is currently more than $100 million in apartment construction taking place in the downtown area. Nearly 2,000 units are set to be opened in downtown within the next two years. In mid-2015, the Bomasada Group’s $40 million complex, The Metropolitan, will be the first of these projects to come online.

Mid-state Georgia Residential Sales Trending Upward

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Last year’s consolidation of Macon and Bibb Counties hasn’t dampened the recovery of the residential real estate markets in the area. Houston County has also been experiencing a market resurgence. The gains aren’t enormous or flashy; rather they are the slow, steady bankable gains that signal continuing market recovery. Home sales in both counties have trended upward since their low point in 2010.

2014 was typical of the market growth for the area, according to Fickling & Co VP of sales Guy Gunn. “It followed previous years’ trends pretty much in terms of month-by-month activity,” says Gunn. “The bottom of the market in Macon was 2010, and it has been picking up slowly, but steadily since 2010.”

Senior Fickling VP Elaine Lee, who works in the Warner Robins office, agrees with Gunn’s assessment, saying, “We had an increase in the market and overall not huge adjustments in sales prices, but we did see some increase in sale prices.”

Fickling Co, a Macon-based multiple listing service for Macon-Bibb, Monroe, and Jones counties, showed $216.7 million in the sales of 1,850 properties in 2014. This in an increase of 8.7% from the 2013 sales, which totaled $199.3 million for 1,859 properties. The Houston County MLS showed 1,816 sales valued at $274.6 million for 2014, an increase of 7.3% from the 1,718 home sales totaling $255.9 million in 2013. Home sales in all four counties remain steady, with median home prices on a definite upswing.

While the mid-state Georgia real estate market has not always conformed to national trends, the current market is fairly close to national averages and expectations. Oxford Economics lead economist Gregory Daco explains that the housing market “continues to move slowly forward, but at a modest pace … We’re expecting the different drivers of the housing sector to get in place. That’s an environment of low rates, reduced home price inflation, accelerating wage growth and rising or strong confidence.”

Macon-based builder Klassix Home Designs reports that business increased in 2014. Troy Moxley, co-owner of Klassix, says that, “People started turning loose of their money, and we started remodeling more and building more,” and that when the bank lending standards relaxed, “it got a lot better last year. It’s been steadily picking up … More people are calling, and I’m getting more work.” Klassix has six houses currently under construction. All of the firm’s current projects are are being custom-built for buyers, but they expect to build one or two spec homes to model Klassix’s work once the market picks up steam.