Commerical construction and the economy

By: Michelle Carolla | SCNow
Published: October 10, 2008

Like the real estate market, the commercial building industry is a very important marker for the state of the economy. The credit crunch means banks are holding on to their money and that can spell disaster for commercial building because they live on credit lines.
Fortunately, as you drive around the Grand Strand, you can see commercial construction is still happening, although smaller scale projects are more plentiful now.
"Big projects are slowing down as well,” said Jack Doyle, co-owner of Coastal Steel and Acoustics, a subcontracting business on the Grand Strand. “We're getting more institutional types of projects coming along, government projects and churches."
Doyle spent the last 30 years in the commercial construction industry. He said this slow-down is part of the cyclical nature of the business. With less jobs, there's also a lot more competition between builders. Saving commercial clients money is a priority.
"We do a lot of shopping for them because the market is wide open right now right now,” said Anita Causey, an estimator for Baldwin Construction in North Myrtle Beach. “We don't really do a whole lot of bidding, but we're bidding on some jobs that we have to be competitive with."
Doyle and his partner Jim Shealy said their drywall and acoustics business is down about 30 percent from last year. They're now working on projects out of town and out of state.
Shealy said they are working on a project in Richmond, VA and bidding on several projects across the southeast.
"We see projects that are being designed,” said Doyle. “We talk to the architects around town and we see it coming out fairly steady still. Don't see any drop off as far as the design work that's going on."
Although they are working more out of the area, they hold out hope for the local market and believe the clients that put work on hold will start moving forward after the presidential election.

Commerical construction and the economy

Construction Industry (Added: October 10, 2008)

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