Early participation by subcontractors is also essential in order to get project budgets and schedules nailed down. Participation by the major trades in scheduling and budgeting will help give the project current cost feedback required to make design decisions. A competitive bidding and pricing situation can be maintained through the selection of these subcontractors and an early commitment to them gets the project on their production schedule while committing them to the labor requirements and pricing. Bringing in subcontractors from Eastern Washington or out of state has provided some relief on the production or schedule portion of current jobs, but it often comes with a cost premium. Our success using labor from another geographic market has been through the relationships we have formed working with them in their own cities and counties.
Building materials are also at issue.
They often need to be ordered early in the development process. Steel roof truss packages for warehouses and some retail projects need to be ordered well before a job starts in order to keep the project on schedule. Although the red iron is available, fabricators are as busy as every one else and need to be scheduled well in advance. Real estate forecasts predict a mild slowdown in development activity, however, there are so many long-term projects, public as well as private, starting in the next 12 months that our current situation will be with us for the next couple of years. The construction development team approach will bring to light the difficulties unique to each project and provide solutions and schedules for permitting, construction starts and final delivery.