Doug Fogel has noted a tendency to slough liability off to the general contractors. He cited immigration as a case in point.

“I will echo that,” said Rita Cortes. “You may have seen the trend in the last 18 months of very significant changes in contracts. I have a feeling they are coming out of the same one or two law firms.”

In regards to the immigration law, Straub cited an amendment to a Senate bill that would ban contractors for ten years from working on any federal project if they have an illegal working on the project. “It doesn’t give any protection to the contractors,” said Straub. “That is not a good solution to the immigration problem.” 

Right now, Fogel pointed out, ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) is enforcing the 1986 Act to the letter. Essentially, this means that every general contractor is responsible for maintaining logs of his subcontractors and getting verification from his subcontractors that they do not employ illegal aliens. “The good news about this is,” said Fogel, “is if the subcontractor fills out this affidavit, sends it to you and is lying to you, you’re off the hook.”

Fogel recommended that everyone do an I-9 audit. “Immigration law is more than just the taking of people that snuck across the border and getting them out of the country,” he added. “It is now becoming a verification process and it’s a strong one.”

Tom Whittaker agreed. “It’s something that you’ve just got to stay on top of continuously. Remind the [subcontractors] once, then go back and hit it again and again.” 

“The solution is not banning contractors from doing work,” said Straub. “It’s figuring out how to get the paperwork to where we can, as an industry, verify whether the workers are really compliant and in the country legally.”

 

Greening the Industry

On a more positive note, Ernie Straub asked whether “green” building practices were affecting the local market.

“Yes,” answered Bob Gould, “and it’s really exciting. It’s taken a long time.”  His firm has been seeing the trend much more heavily in its other offices, specifically in Arizona and California. In fact, in California, some of the bigger cities are accelerating the permitting process for more ecologically-sensitive projects.

Locally, as Jim Calcara noted, the Sunset Office Building, a Johnson County office, has been certified by the US Green Building Council. “It’s a very intense process of picking the right materials, the right processing system, looking at all aspects of the building,” said Calcara.

“We’re past the tipping point,” added Calcara of the green building movement. “It’s absolutely here. When venture capitalists discovered the greening of America and sustainability, you know that you passed the tipping point, and that’s where we are.”

As Tom Manning noted, the Olathe Municipal Services Center is also a certified building. “If it’s not too cost-prohibitive,” said Manning of green building techniques, “school districts will start to use it.”

Doug Fogel observed that all of the Kansas City Power and Light service centers in the Kansas City area have some green elements. “One of the things that private investors are going to discover is that there now is a Federal tax abatement for efficient design,” he added.

Asked whether there was a natural economic logic to going green, Fogel suggested not yet, at least not in the building phase. As Greg Nook clarified, however, the negative impact was only from a “first cost” point of view. “If you’re going to hold the building for any appreciable period of time,” he added, “it’s a positive.”

Curiously, as Steve McDowell pointed out, the whole sustainable movement started with AIA Kansas City in 1989. McDowell noted too that the reasons that corporations like Applebee’s in Kansas City and some other market leaders are going green is because they look at it from what’s called “a triple bottom line philosophy.” 

That includes not just the environmental costs of a building, but also the economic value it brings to an organization. “It’s the impact on the people, the environment and the economy of an organization,” said McDowell.

“Sounds like it’s coming our way and here to stay,” said Straub, “and it’s going to be a good thing for our industry.”

“Whatever makes the city more competitive” agreed McDowell.