At the beginning of 2018, construction material suppliers were raising prices in response to the pending import tariffs. Quoted prices increased 20% to 30% for steel and wood products. Some of these were passed along to Owners as change orders and others caused project redesign.
To determine the real impact one year later, I decided to review national pricing for key construction materials and was shocked by what I found.
One of the most common mistakes made by Owners is failing to provide a budget for the design team to achieve. Too often we find that an Owner has provided the designers a concept or idea of what the project is to achieve, seeking some...
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE July 13, 2018 Atlanta, GA – With the July 11, 2018 ground breaking, the Curio Hotel is under way. Located at the eastern end of the historic Chicago Navy Pier, the 222-room hotel and a 30,000-square-foot rooftop bar is being physically being constructed over...
Expert Witnesses must be able to communicate clearly. Experts are retained to make the difficult simple. Communicating their findings in a clear and straight forward manner is important. The secret for any Expert Witness is “how long” will the Judge, Jury or Arbitrators remember what...
In March, the US Government announced their intention to level new tariffs on steel and aluminum imports. Tariffs on steel were to be 25% and aluminum was to be 10%. The United States Department of Commerce indicates that the U.S. is the world’s largest importer...
The greatest common error that will bankrupt a business and cause projects to find themselves in trouble is poor communication. The overwhelming desire for a business owner is to get the message out, resulting in launching a marketing program without a clear plan. Interestingly enough,...
Learning from other's mistakes is often a valuable experience; as an Expert Witness we utilize this knowledge to guide our clients. Retaining a Project Management Consultant for a development program enables the developer to benefit from a broad range of experience learned from other projects. As...
Over the last 10 years, we have found the track record of Alan Beaulieu, a national economist with the Institute for Trend Research (ITR) to be incredibly accurate (94.7%). For 25 years, he has provided insight to thousands of business owners and executives. His January...
The new tax bill will have both positive and negative effects on the Construction industry. The obvious is the reduction of the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%. The AIA claims to have influenced the negotiations around the bill to have Architects and Engineers...
The Ongoing Concern for Skilled Laborers in the Construction Industry is Getting Worse During the last seven years, the construction market has demonstrated healthy and steady growth. The recent natural disasters across the United States, Mexico and the Caribbean can only continue to impact the ever increasing gap...
