Enterprise Journal: A CONSTRUCTION ROUNDTABLE on the State of the Industry
Image provided by The Enterprise: Utah’s Business Journal
Article by The Enterprise: Utah’s Business Journal | Published on May 13, 2023
Conducted March 8, 2023 at the law offices of Babcock Scott & Babcock
Roundtable Industry PARTICIPANTS:
Shane Peterson, Corporate Attorney, BHI Construction
Glen Perry, President & CEO, COP Construction
Kyle Smith, Area Manager, Granite Construction
Pat Moffat, Construction Manager, The Boyer Company
Carl Tippets, President, Pentalon Construction
Darrin Guevara, Executive Division Manager, Hunt Electric
Rob Behunin, Director of Business Services, GWC Capital
Joe McAllister, General Counsel, Hughes General Contractors
Jerry Taylor, Owner & CEO, JT Steel
Slade Opheikens, President & CEO, R&O Construction
Mike Sowby, General Manager, Sinc Constructors Co.
Ken Hamson, V.P. over Water & Waste, Whitaker Construction
Kate Maples, Estimating Manager, Mortenson Construction
Andrew Berne, Shareholder, Babcock Scott & Babcock, PC
Jason Robinson, Shareholder and Director, Babcock Scott & Babcock PC, Moderator
Jason Robinson: Welcome to this roundtable on the status of the construction industry. Thank you all for being here. Jumping into our first question, what are you seeing in the industry? What are the positive trends? And what are your biggest challenges?
Carl Tippets: Getting a project started is the biggest issue right now. Financing and getting developers who are able to commit to beginning projects. Finding developers who want to commit to general contractors who, in turn, commit to subcontractors and then have them installed.
Andrew Berne: Pat, from the owner’s perspective, how do you feel?
Pat Moffat: That’s exactly right. I’ve talked to a lot of general contractors and subcontractors. We’re bidding a lot of work, but we’ve got a lot of backlog. Deals that made sense six, 12 months ago make a lot less sense right now.
We’ve had jobs in our own portfolio that we got all the way bid out, but when we get to the bank, they said, “Well, we’ll give you this much money at this rate.” And we just say, “Well, we’re going to hit pause on this.” Hopefully, as an owner, we’ve communicated that and it’s not a surprise to anybody. We’re still trying to make stuff work, but it’s a lot harder to get stuff off the ground than it was six, 12 months ago.