Nov/Dec 2007 (PDF)
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BGNovember_December07:Layout 1 11/7/07 10:41 AM Page cov1 BGNovember_December07:Layout 1 11/7/07 10:41 AM Page cov2 BGNovember_December07:Layout 1 11/7/07 10:41 AM Page 1 Contents PUBLISHER Tall Timber Group EDITOR Jeff Burd 412-366-1857 [email protected] Cover Phase 2 of the Eastside Development PRODUCTION MANAGER Mosites Construction, Contractor Carson Publishing, Inc. The Design Alliance, Architect Quellé Diggs Mosites Company, Developer Photo by Alexander Denmarsh ART DIRECTOR/GRAPHIC DESIGN Carson Publishing, Inc. Tarence Davis COVER PHOTO Alexander Denmarsh CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHY Carson Publishing, Inc. ADVERTISING SALES Features & Departments Liz Farnham 888-366-1858 3 PUBLISHER’S NOTE 24 LEGAL PERSPECTIVE Problem projects can't always MORE INFORMATION: 4 NEWS FROM be avoided. Getting a workout BreakingGround is published by THE STREET plan together early can ease Tall Timber Group for the Master New standard contract the pain. Builders’ Association of Western documents hit the street and Pennsylvania, 412-922-3912 or create debate, green building 26 FINANCIAL PERSPECTIVE news, hand-held phones ban Cost segregation takes www.mbawpa.org fake alarm. advantage of favorable depreciation rules. No part of this magazine may be 6 REGIONAL reproduced without written permission 29 MBE/WBE by the Publisher. All rights reserved. MARKET UPDATE Housing and credit problems COMPANY SPOTLIGHT seem to be fading in Western This information is carefully gathered and Alliance Drywall Interiors Inc. PA and non-residential compiled in such a manner as to ensure contracting steams toward 30 MANAGEMENT maximum accuracy. We cannot, and do another $3 billion year. not, guarantee either the correctness of all PERSPECTIVE Is an incentive program the information furnished nor the complete 8 absence of errors and omissions. Hence, NATIONAL way you keep talent in a tight market? responsibility for same neither can be, MARKET DATA nor is, assumed. The credit crunch impacts deeper into commercial 32 TREND TO WATCH construction categories and Does all this bad news mean retailers start to cool off, the economy’s heading but nonresidential work towards recession? remains up. 34 BEST PRACTICE 10 WHAT’S IT COST? Keeping the diligence in Higher energy and renewed due diligence. global demand could be jump-starting another 36 AWARDS AND inflation cycle. CONTRACTS 12 FEATURE STORY Retail construction has 38 FACES AND developed at an accelerated NEW PLACES pace in the past decade. What’s driving retail now, and 40 THE INDUSTRY where’s the market headed? IN THE COMMUNITY 20 PROJECT PROFILE Eastside I and II. 44 CLOSING OUT Dan Onorato reflects on an 22 FIRM PROFILE eventful first term. Lubetz Architects. BreakingGround November/December 2007 1 BGNovember_December07:Layout 1 11/7/07 10:41 AM Page 2 BGNovember_December07:Layout 1 11/7/07 10:41 AM Page 3 Publisher’s Note hen I think of the the developers right on those contribution that my Now the expense projects, and in the intervening generation (I’m a late years more than 10 million square Baby Boomer) will and staleness of feet of new retail space was Wmake to the American real estate built here. landscape I fear that the legacy will that model has be either the ‘McMansion’ or the All indications are that the curtain is ‘power center.’ Other generations given way to going down on another phase built great dams, or modern of retail expansion nationally. Every skyscrapers. We shop. something more half-decade it seems the retailers need to regroup, re-brand, and then That is, of course, an overly cynical akin to the model start over again building new stores. simplification of the impact of Here, in Western PA, if a slowdown America’s largest generation, and the mall replaced, occurs it will be after another one that is completely unfair. But it handful of high profile and very is undeniable that, at the least, the the small large developments get built, prime years of this demographic adding another 3 million square feet group’s life have coincided with a town center. to the inventory. period of heavy consumption. To match that consumption As 2007 ends, a few important developers have been creating new retail building questions seem poised for answers that will give some concepts over the past 40 years. Large enclosed malls clue to where our regional economy is going. Has the caught the public fancy in the 1960’s and 1970’s. decline in housing construction ended in Pittsburgh? Has As business cycles changed the makeup of the malls that happened because our ‘new economy’ is stronger went from many small specialty stores linked to anchor than other regions? Can regional government really department stores, to fewer and larger specialty stores create new economic opportunities by getting out of the (still linked to anchors), and back again. Now the expense way? And will the next administrations of our city and and staleness of that model has given way to something county executives bring us to a more streamlined, or more akin to the model the mall replaced, the small merged, local government? Will the Christmas stockings town center. be more or less full this year? Retail shopping and development have undergone quite It has been a heckuva commercial construction market a bit of transformation in the past generation in our the past two years, and the fourth quarter of the year is region, in some ways parroting the ebb and flow of the shaping up to be more of the same. There may be a national retailers, but also in moving from mostly little more of the ‘haves and have-nots’ than a year ago, mainstream shopping experiences to more upscale for example, but the near term future still bodes well. I shopping than was thought to have support in talked to a lot of architects at the AIA Design Gala in Western PA. October who had still more work, which isn’t a bad sign. So pop an extra cork for 2007 this holiday season. We This edition focuses on the retail construction market in may be recovering before the hangover sets in. Pittsburgh. Unlike some of the previous BreakingGround editions, this one isn’t aimed at trying to examine a hot Sincerely, sector so much as to give a little depth of coverage to what has been a steadily increasing share of the regional construction pie. When I started the Pittsburgh Construction News in 1994, the question was, ‘where are all the shoppers coming from for these new malls?’ At that time the projects that seemed a bit too extreme to work were the nutty idea that people would shop in Homestead or whatever it was that Damian Soffer was going on about in South Side. Time would prove Jeff Burd BreakingGround November/December 2007 3 BGNovember_December07:Layout 1 11/7/07 10:41 AM Page 4 News From The Street Contract Document The Committee compiled and published these guidelines for local architects, general contractors, and Debate Heats Up owners in 1967, as the AIA-MBA Yellow Book of On parallel tracks, two sets of standard contract Recommended Construction Practices, also known as the documents have been developed over the past few years Yellow Book. and released this fall, the AIA A201 General Terms and Conditions (2007) and the ConsensusDOCS. The recent The use and recognition of the Yellow Book as a decision by the Associated General Contractors of reference has increased since its inception, as the need America (AGC) not to endorse the 2007 AIA A201 for documented, impartial recommended construction documents underlines the difficulty in developing practices grew. Today, the Yellow Book serves as a standard contract forms that will address the rapidly respected, valid source of information, substantiating changing forms of agreements and delivery systems that positions taken on related issues to the construction are evolving, and to assess risk allocation accordingly. industry. The Committee continues to update the recommendations, to accommodate changing job site In their decision to withhold endorsement the AGC cited conditions and construction procedures. The following a philosophical difference with a shifting of risk to those sections are in the process of being updated: Sharing of outside the design team in the A201 documents, and Electronic Documents; Release of Liens; and Unit Prices. with the “architect’s authoritative role and mandated linear process.” As one of the 21 industry groups that The Committee would like to hear from BreakingGround helped draft ConsensusDOCS, the AGC expressed readers: which sections of the Yellow Book do you think concern that the AIA A201 did not address the trend the Committee should target to update and do you have toward more collaborative project delivery methods and suggestions for new sections. Please send comments to: innovative technology. [email protected]. Note: A link to the Yellow Book can be found on the MBA The AIA A201 General Terms and Conditions is the basis homepage (www.mbawpa.org). for the lion’s share of the construction contracts written nationally, and the 2007 version was a routine update such as has been done every decade. Revisions made to the A201 were part of a series of updates aimed at Green Building News better defining the architect/owner contractual Phipps Chooses Design Team relationship, clarifying the scope and responsibilities of Phipps Conservatory has selected the team of the architect, and allocating risk within the separate The Design Alliance & CJL Engineering to design a set two-party agreements between owner, architect of buildings to serve Phipps’ administrative, education and contractors. and maintenance needs. The intention of the project, which is estimated to cost $6 million, is to create a living building that will be self-sustaining, capable of Yellow Book Update operating ‘off the grid.’ & Input Request Richard V.