Austin Tiny Home Auctioned to Benefit Green Construction Education

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For the next 2 days, Austin area tiny house fans will have a chance to bid on a beautiful tiny home built by the Austin Community College and the Home Builders Association of Greater Austin. Proceeds will go towards endowing the construction education program at Austin Community College. Tiny houses are single-family dwellings featuring less than 500 square feet of living space.

While most American could never see themselves living in a house smaller than 1,500 square feet, a growing number of people are drawn to tiny house living. Within the last decade, the tiny house movement has really taken off. Increased mobility, low environmental impact, energy saving features, miniscule utility bills, liberation from the power grid, and the desire to downsize to property which is owned outright are just a few of the reasons tiny house fans say they embrace living the small life.

The Building Technology Department at Austin Community College sees the tiny home as a way for students to gain valuable experience while helping their department grow financially. The home was designed and built by students enrolled in the Building Technology Department of ACC’s Red Rock campus. A number of Austin organizations and businesses helped in the venture, especially the Austin Energy Green Building Program and Barley Pfeiffer Architecture.

The tiny home is very much a work of sustainable architecture, featureing certifiedgreen build cabinets and floors, Energy Star appliances and windows, foam insulation, water efficient plumbing and fixtures, all of which are maximized by the home’s passive solar design. Bidding in the eBay auction for the 288-square foot modular home starts at $37,800, with a buy-it-now price of $49,800. Students will begin a new project next term.

The project benefited from the incredible generosity of many Austin businesses. Mary Dewalt Design Group, Architectural Tile & Stone, Stan’s Heating and Air Conditioning, BMC Building Materials, Ferguson Enterprises, Kidd Roofing, PSW Real Estate, Spring Builders, McCoy’s Building Supply, Executive Cabinetry, Buffalo Framing, Circle RB Drywall,Legend Lighting, Tri-Supply, ProSource, Dupont Tyvek/Weatherization Partners, Tex Truss, Valspar, In-Charge Electric, TreeHouse, David Weekley Homes, Casa Plumbing, MLAW Engineering, Robert Madden Industries, Sappington Construction, and BLS Painting also participated in the project.

Five Things Clients Want from a Contractor

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Knowing your stuff isn’t the only vital part of a contractor’s job skills. Unless a contractor knows how to sell himself or herself to potential clients and GC’s, they will never reach the level of career success they deserve. To stand out from the crowd, make sure to have the following five issues handled before clients and GC’s start calling.

1. Have Recommendations. Getting good exposure is key to getting work as a contractor. Ask your satisfied customers to post reviews on Yelp, Angie’s list, etc. Register with the local chapter of your local trades specialty to make sure you are included on all of the association’s press materials. Strike up friendships with the managers of your home improvement store and lumberyard, and let them know that you’d love for them to send folks your way. Develop a positive relationship with your local code enforcement office, so that when potential clients call asking for a contractor with an excellent track record, your is the first name they mention.

2. Sharpen up your phone skills. Make sure you have solid responses to the more common questions that potential clients or GC’s might have. Know exactly what size of projects you are comfortable taking on, be able to provide a list of previous clients, be ready to provide financial references from suppliers or banks, know exactly how many other projects you wold be working on during the time period marked out by the client, and be able to vet all of your subcontractors.

3. Perfect your face-to-face pitch skills. Cultivate a confident, informative, collaborative demeanor that clients will find inviting and reassuring. Build good habits for clear and effective communication. Know exactly what you can, and cannot deliver for the client and don’t be shy with asking questions about your client’s lifestyle, finances/pay schedules, and professional life. You will be in this person’s home for hours at a time and it is crucial that you feel comfortable with each other.

4. Keep your personnel in-the-know about “drop-ins.” Many potential clients may wish to drop by one of your active job sites so they can know as much as possible about how you work. Let all of your labor, subcontractors, and personnel know what is expected of them when potential clients drop by. Keep extra safety gear around in case potential clients want a tour of your job site.

5. Contracts and legal paperwork prepped in advance. Many contractors are content to use pre-made forms from companies like Nolo and LegalZoom and the write-in the pertinent details. It’s better to have your firm’s attorney draw up forms that are specifically tailored for each client. Make sure to include the payment schedule, completion date, responsibility for clean-up, and agreed-upon materials are enumerated in the contract, as well as the names of the subcontractors hired to complete parts of the remodel.

New Commercial Construction Breaks Ground in Catoosa

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November 13, 2014 marked the groundbreaking ceremony for the new office complex of Linde Process Plants. This office complex is an expansion of the existing Linde Proces Plant and manufacturing facility at the Port of Catoosa. The new offices are a $2.4 million expansion of the existing site. Located across from the fabrication facility, the new Linde Process Plant office building will be two stories and comprising 13,000 square-feet of office space, and will include safe rooms.

This growth project includes the expansion of a trial fitting area and a new office building. The expansion is being undertaken to meet current increase in demand, but it is large enough to accommodate the future growth of Linde Processing. The facilities have an expected June 2015 completion date.

In addition to increased commercial capacity, this expansion enables Linde to add 20 more employees to its 140-member workforce by the end of this year, and another 50 more employees by the end of 2015. Job positions at Linde include welders, assemblers, and fitters, and the plant will increase the number of shifts from two to three. Currently, Linde has nearly 400 employees across Tulsa County.

According to company president Steve Bertone, “We have a tremendous growth due not only to the industry but also the dedication of our employees.” Linde’s growth over the past 15 years has tripled. Bertone adds that, “We are pleased to be at the forefront of plant modernization, and these upgrades will yield even more opportunities to develop and streamline our processes.”

Linde Process Plants serves the gas processing industry. Linde is an integrated process plant that refines and processes natural gas, petrochemicals helium, and hydrogen liquifiers. The company belongs to the Linde Group, an international industrial gas processing and engineering firm that is headquartered in Munich, Germany.

Linde is known for its quality control process of trial fitting. Before shipping the completed modules to their customers, Linde Process Plants conduct trial fitting to ensure that all models have been fabricated correctly. Having workers relocate to the expanded site will expand this trial fitting process, which increases operational efficiency and plant productivity.

Linde is only one 66 companies headquartered in Catoosa. The Tulsa Port of Catoosa, a 2,500 industrial complex, offers sites for lease to the manufacturing industries. The Catoosa Business Park, which is conveniently located just adjacent to the Port, offers property for sale. In total, the site employes nearly 4,000 workers and is a major employer in the Tulsa area.

New Building Codes Will Change the Face of Tuscaloosa

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Tuscaloosa City officials are preparing for a series of building code changes that will affect all future construction near the University of Alabama. Recently, the Planning and Zoning Commission passed a group of recommendations to improve the standards for exterior appearance of the buildings in the University Neighborhood Zone. The Council also passed amendments to relax the code for other residential structures, which will make it more cost-efficient to built multifamily arrangements in the area, including houses with multiple bedroom arrangements.

In an address to the Council’s Administration/Policy Committee, City Planning and Development Services director John McConnell said, “This is the Planning Commission’s recommendation to rewrite the entire University Area zoning text…There are no map (line) changes involved with this, there’s no new zoning involved — it’s just the text of the zoning ordinances.”

From a development standpoint, the new rules will permit developers to build town home-style row houses, as well as two-, three-, and four-unit structures well as single-family homes. But this diversity in housing types comes in exchange for sprinkler systems and other safety precautions which are currently required under the commercial building code.

Currently five-bedroom developments fall under the residential code, which has given rise to ugly, compact two-floor apartment-style buildings with five-bedroom units on each floor. Applying commercial standards to multifamily units governed by the less strict residential code allows developers more multifamily options for housing size.

Several of these welcome changes are aesthetic. Under the new rules, all future residential construction must meet certain architectural and site standards, regardless of the number of occupants. Currently, the standards are only in place for dwellings housing five or more occupants. Regardless of whether it is a single-family home, a duplex, or a small multifamily complex, the buildings must have a similar look and proper landscaping.

New materials standards require 75% of the buildings to be comprised of native stone, wood siding, shingles, brick-and-tile masonry, or other high quality materials. The allowable amount of inexpensive pre-fabricated cast stone, vinyl clapboard, split-faced or glass blocks, and pre-cast metal siding has been reduced to 25%.

Overall, McConnell says that “The original idea here was to allow some traditional density and better student housing while maintaining the neighborhood character of detached, single-family developments that were there in the original [rules].”

Naples’ Stock Development Has Record October

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HBW subscribers in the Florida area seeking residential construction job leads need look no further than Stock Development. Naples home builder Stock Development announces yet another outstanding month of sales during October. They had 38 sales totaling more than $23.7 million, bringing their year-to-date numbers up to 487 new home contracts valued at more than $357.75 million.

Stock Development’s Lely resort, located in Naples, was an especially strong performer in October. Lely’s Players Club & Spa won the award for Best Clubhouse of the Year from the Sand Dollar Awards organization. Stock’s Paseo community in South Fort Myers won Sand Dollar’s Community of the Year award for the ninth consecutive year.

According to company CEO Brian Stock, “The fall sales continue our success from this summer.” Stock adds that “sales have been incredible consistent for us. In the past four months, we sold 35, 34, 36 and 38 homes worth nearly $100 million. The Southwest Florida market is very robust and clearly not dependent on winter season sales. Locals and savvy homebuyers are taking advantage of our inventory homes program and getting settled into their new homes before the winter season.”

Stock reports that the company has sold out several of its neighborhoods already, and the several others are very close to being sold out as well. Furnished units are being permitted or already being built in communities and neighborhoods that will soon be put on the market. Currently, there are only 50 homes remaining to be sold for immediate move-in.

Stock is actively developing communities in Collier and Lee counties, with more than 300 new residences under construction in its properties across both counties. The currently under-construction inventory includes apartments, coach houses, duplex villas, casitas, town homes, single-family houses, and custom-built estate homes. Homes, beginning at $200k and ranging up to $7 million, are available at Lely Resort, The Estuary at Grey Oaks, Park Shore, Fiddler’s Creek, Bonita Bay, Quail West, The Moorings, Paseo, Twin Eagles, Hidden Harbor, and The Renaissance.

Potential buyers can peruse one of the 40 furnished, professionally-decorated, model homes currently on display. Tours offerings include everything from 1,200-foot flats, 5,000-foot estate homes, where potential buyers will no doubt note the work of over a dozen well-known interior designers.

Office Construction in Austin Picks Up Steam

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With two major office towers already underway in downtown Austin, two of the area’s biggest developers are planning to build two more. Trammell Crow Company and their partners are heading up the Block 23 Green Water Treatment Plant, and Schlosser Development Corporation is moving forward with its Shoal Creek Walk project.

Although the plans for the commercial portion of Block 23 has been kept under wraps, the multifamily residential portion is nearing completion after having been under construction for several months. The Austin Utility Location & Coordination Committee will consider applications for two tower crane permits to be erected on the office tower site by the project’s general contractors, The Beck Group. Block 23 is projected to have 492,333 square feet of office space and 6,806 square feet for retail.

The area of West Second and Nueces streets, which is bordered by San Antonio and Lamar Streets, is one of the nation’s most intensely developed sites. Numerous projects are under construction at the site, such as the Seaholm Power LLC, Austin Central Library lot, and Green Water Treatment parcel.

A $100 million, 32-story office building development is being marketed to investors by the CBRE Group. Industry insiders report that Google, Inc. is being pursued as an anchor tenant for the project, which news encouraged Trammell Crow to proceed with their office tower portion.

The Schlosser Development Corporation is also moving ahead with Shoal Creek Walk, their proposed office tower,. The site, located at 635 W. Sixth St., is currently a defunct parking lot near the flagship Whole Foods Market downtown. Although construction activity at the site has yet to commence, the lot has been closed to public access for the past several weeks. This 2-building, $52 million development is projected to include 17 floors of office space with ground-level retail. Although investors are increasingly interested in office space located in downtown Austin, Schlosser has yet to begin pre-leasing office space. Shoal Creek Walk will have 430,417 square feet of office space and 44,427 feet of retail.

Alcahua County Makes Room for Out-of-Town Builders

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HBW subscribers seeking residential construction job leads in Alcahua County have been excited about the strong upswing in construction activity in the county. Alcahua County has long been served by the local construction community, but the recession and the housing market’s recent rebound have opened the county up to outside developers. Immediately prior to the crash of 2008, regional builders from Jacksonville or Orlando had begun expanding into the area. The crash put a damper on their expansion plans at the time, but as Anthony Clark reports in the Gainsville Sun, the economic upturn has spurred those developers to renew and expand their old plans for Alcahua County.

Maronda Homes is one of the most ambitious of the bunch. Maronda, which has operations in five states and is headquartered near Pittsburgh, began building in Alcahua and Newberry in 2006. They now plan to build a combined total of 400 homes in both towns. Maronda’s projects, Baywood Hills in Alcahua and Newberry Place, Newberry Oaks, and the soon-to-be-approved Newberry Corners have already begun construction. The project is expected to last three years.

ICI Homes, a Daytona Beach developer, will finally be oving forward on plans it began ten years ago. One of the builders of the Oakmont community near Jonesville, ICI is proceeding with its decades-old plan to build a 999-home master-planned community in Alcahua County. They will share the 233-unti phase 1 of development with five local builders. One of the original builders of Gainseville’s Weschester development, ICI has teamed with New Atlantic Builders to build the next phase of 132 homes for Weschester.

The area’s lack of large national builders like Pulte, KB Homes, Meritage, and D.R. Horton meant that they hadn’t suffered as strongly during the real estate crash. Because there was no spare inventory to be dumped on the market as soon as the economy improved, new construction in Alcahua County doesn’t have to compete with now-salable foreclosures like other markets do.

The slow, steady population growth, coupled with the dearth of immense tracts of buildable land, have also left major developers less interested in Alcahua County. Even so, Bosshardt Realty Services president Arron Bosshardt, thinks that could change. With big developers increasingly taking on smaller developments and urban infill projects, they might yet come calling in Alcahua County. “Who’s going to be the next big developer?” asked Bosshardt. “There may be an opening for a big national.”

Headquartered in southern Florida, HBW also serves builders in Alabama, Georgia, 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!

Construction Cools Off in Cobb County

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Comparing this year’s numbers to last year’s, it’s clear that the number of new houses being built in Cobb is trailing by nearly 14%. Unexpectedly, county officials are not terribly concerned about the downturn. Between September and January, 1,065 permits were issued for single-family dwellings in the county, but last year there were 1,233 permits issued during the same time period.

According to community development director Rob Hosack, “the reason we don’t have a lot of concern about it is simply because we have been issuing land disturbance permits for subdivisions and we’ve probably issued more of those this year than we did in 2013,” said Hosack, adding, “We’re issuing permits now for folks to actually knock down trees, grade roads and put more lots on the ground.”

One possible reason that 2013’s numbers were higher is because there were a lot of unfinished properties left over from the recession which were taken over by new developers and quickly completed. Hosack explains that the county, “had a pretty good inventory of vacant lots on the ground already, like the old pipe farms in 2013 and a lot of that inventory was getting ate up. Whereas in 2014 less of those lots were available and I think that’s a reason the data is a little bit … for the reduction.” He adds that “there’s a lot of dirt being moved around right now,” and remains optimistic that the housing starts will pick up by year’s end.

According to building permit activity reports from HBW,129 permits were issued in September in Cobb County, with 66 of them being built in unincorporated areas. Smyrna had 26 permits issued, but Acworth saw no construction activity that month. Acworth Mayor Tommy Allegood reviewed the permits, and noted that they are down by 20%, saying, “I think there has been a general slowing this year in new home sales in general,” he said. “I just think that probably activity is down and new home sales are down somewhat in our community. I think that’s a national trend.” Like Hosack, Allegood is optimistic about his town’s new construction starts. “I don’t think we’ll be down 20 percent by the end of the year,” he says, “I think we’ll be even.”

Construction Education Builds Norman Construction Workforce

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HBW subscribers know there are more jobs for skilled construction workers in Oklahoma than can be found in most other states. The strong local economies of Tulsa and Oklahoma City have led to a steadily increasing construction boom. The only real problem is that the local workforce isn’t big enough to meet the demand. Fortunately, as Anna Trowbridge of the Oklahoman reports, the Moore Norman Technology Center has stepped up to the plate to build the area’s workforce of skilled building professionals.

According to carpentry instructor Mark Estell, their construction technology program receives dozens of calls per month seeking students skilled in the carpentry trades to fill positions on local crews. The enter can’t seem to graduate students fast enough to meet demand. Wages are good for carpentry and construction professionals in Oklahoma, but Estell says, “I can’t put them out fast enough. It’s the same with other construction trades instructors in CareerTech. There are more jobs than we can put out highly trained and qualified graduates.” Center graduates find jobs almost immediately and have strong prospects for advancement and promotion in the industry.

The gap between available construction work and the number of skilled professionals to fill those positions is continually widening. A Forbes reported last year, “53% of skilled-trade workers in the U.S. were 45 years and older…and 18.6 percent were between the ages of 55 and 64.” Much of the current labor pool is nearing retirement, and there aren’t enough people entering the industry to replace them.

The Center’s carpentry students get experience constructing a home from foundation to finishing, while earning both the OSHA 10 card and the General Induction Card (The Blue Card) during their program, all of which makes them very desirable to construction groups. Students learn about reading blueprints, framing and cabinetry, and how to work as a team member., both of which translate to $3-$5 per hour increase in starting pay. Program completion makes students eligible to be considered an apprentice carpenter.

To learn more about the Moore Norman Career Technology Center, go to www.mntc.edu or call 364-5763, ext. 7260.

Porch.com Connects Building Professionals with Contractors and Clients

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Fortune reports that Porch.com, a Seattle-based home improvement networking company that connects homeowners to building professionals, is making waves with its latest partnership. After just barely a year in business, the startup has jumped to 250 employees and 1.5 million professional listings, which was facilitated largely through their partnership with Lowe’s.

When homeowners consult with Lowe’s staff about hiring contractors, they are directed to the Porch.com site. The partnership with Lowe’s is the first thing that Porch.com’s representatives mention in each sales call. Like Yelp—which Porch shamelessly patterns itself after–Porch inquires about the marketing needs of businesses and suggests they subscribe to a “pro” account.

The partnership is a no-brainer for Porch CEO Matt Ehrlichmann, who says that, “Not every professional knows Porch, but everybody knows Lowe’s. We’ve got about 70 people right now that are out there selling to home service professionals. What these folks can do is use the Lowe’s brand to get us in the door.”

Lowe’s CDO Richard Maltsbarger’s enthusiasm about the partnership is clear. The great part about our proposition and partnership with Matt and Porch,” he says, “is that between our knowledge of home improvement, and the Porch team’s knowledge of technology, the Internet, and big data, we have total expertise.”

Another key partnership Porch has made is with Realtor.com. Realtor.com’s data pool forms the basis for the site’s “Porch Home Reports,” which are given to potential homeowners for free. Each report shows the renovation history, improvement projects, and repairs that were done over the years, as well as information about the contractors who did the work. It’s somewhat like a Carfax report for homes.

Tracy Mahnken, the senior vice president of product management for Realtor.com, recognized that there is “a really complimentary relationship” between what each company does. “If we’re focused on the 2.5 million homes that are for sale, Porch is focused on the 95 million that are not. But a homeowner that has taken that kind of time to put in all that detailed information about their home,” she says, “that home will come up for sale. It will come up for sale in a year, maybe two years. So what Porch is doing only helps us build out our database further.”

To further enhance its professional features, Porch.com has recently launched its “Pro Dashbaord,” which is offered free to building professionals. What costs will be the reports, marketing assistance, and “featured pro” status listing. While the site has significant appeal as a business listing site, it is rapidly growing into a viable social networking tool for building professionals.