Brandon Gee - Steamboat Pilot & Today

05-15-2009

Statistics through April from the Routt County Regional Building Department confirm what anybody associated with the building trades already knows: 2009 is shaping up to be one tough year for the construction industry.

The construction valuation for projects issued permits through April of this year is $29.1 million. The same figure stood at $53.8 million through April 2008. Building Official Carl Dunham projects the total 2009 valuation will be $137.8 million, the lowest since $128.3 million in 2003 and about $200 million less than 2008. The total construction valuation of projects issued permits in 2008 was $333.7 million.

The trend is confirmed by state employment data. State­wide, construction employment usually increases in March with the temperatures, but the industry lost 2,100 jobs that month. The construction industry is Routt County’s largest job creator, according to the 2009-10 Community Indicators Project.

“It seems like a really big, scary waiting game now,” local builder A.J. Gale said last month. “Right at the beginning of November, I’ve never seen the brakes fly on like that, ever.”

Of all the data compiled by the Building Department, Dunham said he thinks the number of plan reviews is most telling. There were only 29 plan reviews in April 2009, down from 50 in April 2008. From 2004 to 2008, the average number of plan reviews in April is 62.4.

The Building Department conducted 575 inspections last month — down from 807 in April 2008 — and Dunham said most of those are for projects that are nearing completion.

“We’re not doing a lot of foundation inspections. We’re doing a lot of drywalls and finals,” he said. “That’s kind of tell-tale.”

Revenues also are off. Through April, the Building Department has collected $131,466, down from $306,914 for the same period in 2008.

“Revenues are off, and that’s what we pay our bills with,” Dunham said. “As I’ve said all along, I think we’re going to lose some staff. … As an enterprise fund, we need to be right-sized — like any construction company. That’s a very unfortunate part about this situation. We can’t overspend.”

If there is one bright spot in the numbers, it is an uptick in activity outside of Steamboat Springs in April. The construction valuation of projects in Routt County outside city limits was $4.6 million in April, up from $1.9 million in April 2008.

“What that may mean is, some people have decided maybe we’ve reached a status where we’ve bottomed out,” Dunham said.
That increase is greatly overshadowed, however, by a huge decrease in the construction valuation of projects in Steamboat — from $10.6 million in April 2008 to $4.7 million in April 2009. With the exception of a slight increase in February in Steamboat, there also were dramatic decreases in valuation in the city and county every other month of this year when compared with 2008.

Dunham said the discrepancy between the city and county figures for April is the result of residential projects being the only ones that are going forward. Land availability for residential starts in Steamboat is scarce, and there have been no commercial starts to make up the difference.

Projects in Steamboat accounted for about three-fourths of the construction valuation of projects issued permits in 2008. So far in 2009, Steamboat building projects account for just half of the valuation.