President Obama will propose a three-year freeze at current levels on total "non-security" spending--the budget sector that includes most federal construction programs--beginning in fiscal year 2011, senior administration officials say. But within that total, budgets for individual departments and agencies and specific line-item programs that are Obama priorities could rise, officials say. Details will be disclosed Feb. 1, when the President transmits his 2011 budget proposal to Congress. Rob Nabors, the Office of Management and Budget's deputy director, told reporters Jan. 26 that the proposed spending cap would apply to overall non-security funding, and hold it for three year's at
The housing market is limping toward recovery. For planners, engineers and contractors whose business is driven by residential construction, the pace is painfully slow. That was a key message that emerged at the homebuilding industry’s largest trade show, Jan. 19-22 in Las Vegas. Predictably, attendance is about half of what it was in 2006 at the International Builders’ Show. One economist termed the builders that did attend “survivors.” The housing industry remains weighed down by foreclosures, unemployment, tightened lending standards and pricing instability. There were 3.95 million foreclosure filings nationwide at the end of 2009, with an additional 2.8 million
Cost estimating by the U.S. Energy Dept. on its construction and cleanup projects needs revamping to keep overruns under control, says a new report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office. Outdated estimating guidelines have caused the agency to sometimes request too little money from Congress to complete work, adds GAO. Contractors do almost all DOE’s site construction and waste-cleanup projects. Some jobs will take decades; cost estimates total hundreds of billions of dollars. “Without a way to ensure that its contractors use best practices in generating cost estimates” and without adequate federal oversight, “DOE has effectively ceded a significant portion
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics School Building Costs Once thought to be virtually recession-proof, the school construction market is starting to falter, undercutting building costs associated with that market. Since the beginning of last year, the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ producer price index for new school building construction costs has fallen 2.3%, according to the BLS November 2009 index. The cost index is still up 2.2% from a year ago, but this is well below the year-to-year increases of 7.5% in 2008, 9.9% in 2007 and 8.3% in 2006. Through the first eleven months of 2009, public school construction was
Building costs are responding to the recession in nonresidential construction. In November 2009, the cost index for office building construction from the Bureau of Labor Statistics was down 4.2% from the beginning of the year, which in turn was down 2.8% from the level of November 2008. The decline in building costs reflects a steep drop in construction activity. Through the first 10 months of last year, total construction put-in-place for private office building work was down 27% from a year ago, according to the U.S. Dept. of Commerce. Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics
With statistics in for November, it looks pretty certain that construction markets will come in well below 2008’s level. The dollar value of construction starts through the first eleven months of this year was $381 billion, which was 28% below the same period a year ago, according to McGraw-Hill Construction (MHC), of which ENR is part. The annual declines were broad based, including 34% declines for both residential and non-residential buildings and a 12% drop for non-building construction. The non-residential building market was sapped by year-to-year declines of 39% for office buildings, 44% for stores, 63% for warehouses and 66%
Financier Carl Icahn is moving forward with plans to buy the troubled Fontaine- bleau project in Las Vegas by offering $156.2 million in cash and financing at a Jan. 27 bankruptcy court auction. The 737-ft-tall, 4,000-room Fontainebleau, which owes more than $1 billion to its lenders, needs another $1.5 billion to complete construction. There are 342 contractors and subcontractors that are owed an estimated $467 million for work at the stalled job. They have been pressing for the right to take over the project for what they are owed. Lenders, headed by Bank of America, meanwhile charge that the liens
As Congress headed for its year-end recess, the House delivered encouraging news to the construction industry, approving a jobs-producing, $154-billion economic-stimulus measure that includes about $47 billion for infrastructure work in several market sectors. The bill, approved on Dec. 16 by a slim 217-212 margin, would be a follow-on to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. But the Senate, enmeshed in protracted action on major health-care legislation, will not even take up a jobs bill until it returns in January from its break. Senate Assistant Majority Leader Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) and Democratic Policy Committee Chairman Byron Dorgan (N.D.) are gathering
The global economic recession undercut construction costs worldwide, according to London-based international project and cost-management firm Gardiner & Theobald Inc. in its eighteenth annual survey of international costs conducted exclusively for ENR. G&T’s survey covered 50 countries. Related Links: Forecast: Inflation Stalls As Recession Undercuts Nonresidential Building Markets Markets: Major Firms Are Pessimistic About A Fast Industry Recovery China: The New Driver Of International Costs Has Troubles Of Its Own Thailand: Construction Costs Bounce Up As The Recession Bottoms Out Canada: Cool Forecast Keeps Costs In The Deep Freeze Complete 4th Quarterly Cost Report with Data and Analysis In Europe,
Acautious optimism prevails as the year ends in Thailand, with materials indexes in flux. As in the U.S., local construction industry analysts believe the Thai recession has reached bottom and that small price increases now surfacing are a positive sign. + Image Source: FAITHFUL + GOULD Thailand Price-Change Movement Related Links: Forecast: Inflation Stalls As Recession Undercuts Nonresidential Building Markets Markets: Major Firms Are Pessimistic About A Fast Industry Recovery International: Global Recession Pushes Down Inflation China: The New Driver Of International Costs Has Troubles Of Its Own Canada: Cool Forecast Keeps Costs In The Deep Freeze Complete 4th Quarterly
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