THE MAGAZINE OF THE MASTER BUILDERS’ ASSOCIATION OF WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2014 THE NEW AIRPORT CORRIDOR Assessing Act 89 Mechanics Lien Revised Again Third Quarter Results Build with a leader. Be proud of the results. On the surface, you see a magnifi cent building, highway or bridge. What you may not see are the leadership and values that constructed the building and paved the highway, or the commitment to safety that guided those projects to successful completion. Visit pjdick. com to learn how our dedication to sustainable building, innovative technology, quality construction and safety can bring your next project to life. Together let’s safely build a project we can all be proud of. @PJDickinc | facebook.com/PJDickinc A Drug Free Equal Opportunity Employer PJD_Ad_Build_with_7_3.indd 1 7/3/14 11:03 AM Pantone CMYK Web Safe (RGB) 3308 143 5773 Cool Gray 6 100:0:60:72.16 0:35:85:0 9:0:43:38 0:0:0:31 01:48:3A FB:B0:40 9E:A3:74 BA:BC:BE CONTENTS 2014 About the Cover: PUBLISHER I-376 Airport Corridor Tall Timber Group Photo by www.talltimbergroup.com BreakingGround EDITOR Jeff Burd 412-366-1857 [email protected] PRODUCTION Carson Publishing, Inc. Kevin J. Gordon ART DIRECTOR/GRAPHIC DESIGN Carson Publishing, Inc. Jaimee D. Greenawalt CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Anna Burd CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHY Next Architecture Mascaro Construction ADVERTISING DIRECTOR Karen Kukish 412-837-6971 07 REGIONAL MARKET 49 MBE/WBE [email protected] COMPANY SPOTLIGHT 13 NATIONAL MARKET RWIW Construction LLC MORE INFORMATION: BreakingGround is published by 17 WHAT’S IT COST? 52 TREND TO WATCH Tall Timber Group for the Master Assessing the impact of Act 89. Builders’ Association of Western 20 FEATURE Pennsylvania, 412-922-3912 or New industries are driving a new 55 INDUSTRY www.mbawpa.org airport corridor. & COMMUNITY NEWS Archive copies of 32 PROJECT PROFILE 61 AWARDS & CONTRACTS BreakingGround can be viewed Park West One at www.mbawpa.org 64 FACES & NEW PLACES 39 FIRM PROFILE No part of this magazine may be The Gateway Engineers reproduced without written permission 68 CLOSING OUT by the Publisher. All rights reserved. The airport is the center of 44 FINANCIAL PERSPECTIVE regional growth. This information is carefully gathered and Banks are feeling the squeeze. W. Randall Forister compiled in such a manner as to ensure maximum accuracy. We cannot, and do not, guarantee either the correctness of 46 LEGAL PERSPECTIVE all information furnished nor the complete Assessing the revised Mechanics absence of errors and omissions. Hence, Lien Law. responsibility for same neither can be, nor is, assumed. Keep up with regional construction and real estate events at www.buildingpittsburgh.com BreakingGround November/December 2014 3 An undependable supplier is like using a bent level. Sims-Lohman gives you straight answers and on-time delivery of cabinets and granite tops. If you’re having trouble finding tops in just five working days a supplier who’ll level with you or less. on delivery deadlines, talk to Sims-Lohman. We believe in To learn more about our plain talk, absolute reliability on-time delivery, quality Building on Trust. and on-time cabinet and gran- products and unmatched Delivering on Promises. ite top orders. We’re a service, or if you’re interested one-stop supplier, with nine in becoming a member of our cabinet lines and slab show- team, visit Sims-Lohman.com rooms featuring over 150 and contact us. Let us know granite colors. Plus, our what you need and we’ll do in-house fabrication facility our level best to get it done. means we can install granite Cincinnati | Cleveland | Columbus | Dayton | Greenfield | Indianapolis | Lafayette | Lexington | Louisville | Pittsburgh Publisher’s Note hat a difference a few weeks can make. the early 1980’s. I’ve often heard the conservatism attributed At the end of September, I had thrown to the nature of the immigrants that were the backbone of in the towel on 2014 and the impending the industrial boom of the previous century but that doesn’t construction boom. My research showed square up in many ways. In my mind, the decision to chuck a big decline in housing construction and the life that immigrants knew in their homeland – however Wnon-residential contracting that was even lower than 2013. miserable it may have been at the time – and get on a boat After forecasting an increase of over 20 percent for non- to start all over in America was a far greater risk than any residential construction I had no confidence that next year business decision could be. And, in fact, the very industrial was going to get better, even though it should. past that we Pittsburghers hold dear resulted from the kind of risk taking by industrial entrepreneurs that Pat Gallagher is Three weeks later, a wave of new announcements and pent- talking about today. up activity is making the prospects for 2015 look brighter. The fundamentals of supply and demand dictated that the Within the construction industry we have some enormous Pittsburgh region would have a marked increase in new opportunities and structural challenges at the moment. In a construction for more than a year but thus far there was a year when regional employment continues to break all-time missing ingredient to change hope into notice-to-proceed. high marks, there is little space to house new employees yet almost no spec office or industrial projects are being Back in February 2009, I listened to a presentation by PNC’s Stu built. New homes sell like hotcakes because there are Hoffman about the recession and the process of recovery. At fewer houses for sale than there are buyers but there is the time he made the point that from a technical perspective, a shortage of developed lots and less new construction in the recession was all but over; the recovery, he asserted, was 2014 than in 2013. A game-changing industry is investing now a matter of confidence from consumers and businesses billions in creating its infrastructure yet little has been done to begin growing again. That confidence ingredient Hoffman by government or private sector to anticipate what a full- declared as missing in the recovery “recipe” took several fledged oil and gas sector will require to thrive. years to evolve, and for the construction industry the lack of confidence by owners has held back real recovery through At the root of this risk aversion is a lack of confidence. A this year. number of major office projects have been announced with the proviso that each requires an anchor tenant to proceed. It’s interesting that new University of Pittsburgh Chancellor I can’t fault that thinking (and lenders don’t fault it either) Patrick Gallagher echoed Hoffman’s point in a completely but I offer as counterpoint this question: what would the different context during a breakfast briefing for the Pittsburgh concern be if the owners had confidence that the supply and Technology Council on October 14. Among his comments demand dynamics would provide the needed tenants when that morning, Gallagher observed that the conservative construction was completed? What is the bigger risk: having nature of Pittsburghers could be a potential stumbling block to too much space or thwarting business growth by not having reaching the full potential of the region’s technology industry. enough? Gallagher pointed out that new technology business thrives in an environment of research grants, university synergism It’s easy to offer this confidence observation from my seat. and collaboration; however technology entrepreneurs also After all, it ain’t my money that I’m talking about. Looking at need a culture where failures are embraced as part of the the burgeoning pipeline of projects and the potential need process of innovation and growth. He voiced concern that for space, I can’t begin to find a parallel in my experience the risk aversion of Pitt and the regional culture could impede to compare the slow construction activity of 2014. So many smart risk-taking and investment. things are going well in Pittsburgh’s economy that surely 2015 must be the year that the dam bursts with activity. That’s Now that’s a critique that I haven’t heard often. Within the what I felt about 2014 too and you see how that has gone. construction and real estate communities, that inherent I’d like to forecast that construction will be up over $3 billion risk-aversion is celebrated as one of the reasons that the next year but I’m gun shy after the past couple years. Pittsburgh market avoided the big problems that plagued other cities where caution was thrown to the wind in pursuit I guess I just need a bit more confidence. of big returns. I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard how Pittsburgh never gets too high or too low. No booms but no busts either. Maybe it’s time to look at that civic virtue a little differently. In many ways that aversion to risk is a by-product of the Jeff Burd trauma of the job losses that went with the loss of industry in BreakingGround November/December 2014 5 Put our people behind your plans. The right idea. The right space. The right plan. Now you just need the right partner. 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