1: Moderator Jack Cashill listened as assembly chair Rosie Privitera Biondo offered a powerful defense of the profit motive in our economic system. | 2.“I think,” said Brett Gordon, “we’ve all learned to do a little bit more with a little bit less” over the past two years. | 3. Randy Bredar noted something J.E. Dunn hadn’t seen the past two years: an increasing work backlog. | 4. Mitch Hoefer said recovery was grounded in two things: a shared sense that it was really here, and a halt to government interference in the economy.

The Recovery

As the first issue of the day, the participants were asked to assess whether recovery was pending and, if so, when they expected it to kick in.

“For us,” said Bill Iler of Design Mechanical, Inc., “the recovery is already under way.” Iler’s firm does mostly HVAC service and retrofit, so his staff is currently very busy—cold weather being good for business. They’ve also kept engaged planning for new grocery stores and remodeling old ones.

David Kendrick of the Greater Kansas City Building and Construction Trades Council will peg recovery on that time when his locals begin to see 8–10 percent unemployment, instead of 18–25 percent. Still, the trending is now at least positive. “It’s encouraging,” he said.

But “2011 is going to be about the same as 2010,” said Jeff Riesberg of CECO Concrete, “and we don’t see anything changing until third or fourth quarter of 2012.”

Scott Vath of Titan Construction tied recovery to broad-based national unemployment numbers. “With unemployment in excess of 8 or 9 percent, I don’t think recovery is real,” he observed.

“We’ve seen the end of the freefall,” said Don Greenwell of the Builders’ Association. The past two years, his association members suffered a 15-20 percent decline per year. He anticipates a recovery that will be at least twice as long as a downturn that has already lasted two to three years.

“I think we are about a year away from a really good recovery,” said Tom Vrabac of Grandbridge Real Estate Capital. He too confirmed that the trends “do look good.”

Joe Privitera of Mark One Electric concurred with Vrabac about the one-year estimate. He elaborated, however, that a real recovery means two years of positive work, and he believes that we are halfway there.

“I personally think the recovery will be real when we believe it’s real, and the government stops messing around with things,” said Mitch Hoefer of Hoefer Wysocki Architects.

Brett Gordon of McCownGordon noted that the “recovery is starting to trend.” He believes, however, that financing remains an issue, and he does not expect real recovery for another year. “On our side of the industry,” specified John Foudray of Neighbors Construction, “unless you can acquire a loan, nothing gets built.”

“We are seeing some better trends,” said Parker Young of Straub Construction, adding, “I would anticipate it would probably be another year before we really start to see something sustainable.”

Jim Delaney of Turner Construction foresaw 2012 as the first year of real or sustained growth. Happily, as he explained, “All the stable companies have enough backlogs to get through it. We will see a little weaning of the weaker folks, but that’s OK. The strong will survive.”

 

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | next»