The likeliest candidates for restarts involve developers that are largely self-financed, says Sam Chandan, president and chief economist of Chandan Economics and adjunct professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School. Many smaller market and outer-borough projects remain at the mercy of a conservative lending environment. “It will constrain the resumption of development,” he adds.

For those projects that do relaunch, the hurdles are high and numerous. Pfeffer says starting from scratch is easier, because stalled jobs require added review and coordination, and often need new financing or negotiated settlements with defaulted owners. One item to review is a local market's dynamics. Chandan says other projects nearby may also be restarting, undermining economic assumptions in a still weak market.

Similarly, a stalled site's landscape may see local infrastructure upgrades and other new projects impacting site access or building foundations, says Donald Benvie, principal at Tectonic, an engineering and program management firm in Mountainville, N.Y.

Restarted jobs often feature reshaped project teams, creating potential conflicts if prior consultants and contractors did not leave on good terms or did not adequately finish their work. There could be outstanding vendor contracts, sometimes involving firms that fell into bankruptcy. It is not uncommon to encounter disputes over liability for work completed before a stoppage once new players come on board, Giunta says.

But a more fundamental issue is losing the personal and institutional knowledge of project managers and crews who may no longer be available to resume a stalled job, McNeil says.

Teams on such efforts also need to thoroughly review existing zoning and permitting to ensure that these were originally valid and remain so, Chandan says.

They must also account for building code or regulatory changes since the project stopped work, Pfeffer says. Mechanic's liens from unpaid contractors can lead to time-consuming litigation, he adds.

One of the most basic requirements is reviewing the site's physical condition, particularly because on a project abandoned in distress, “the first victim is quality,” Giunta says.

“You really have to spend the time and effort to do various tests and exploratory demolition of the existing building to determine what you can use and not use,” says Mike Kolakowski, president and CEO of KBE Building of Farmington, Conn. The biggest risk is for finished materials, but even elements like brick cavity wall systems and raw steel can face damage from moisture and ultraviolet rays.

Perhaps the best practice of all is shutting projects down cleanly. Boston Properties carefully mapped out its delay phase, with the process easing the transition for Turner, which came on board this year to replace the original contractor, Bovis Lend Lease, Selsam says. He declines to discuss details of that switch beyond saying that Boston Properties decided Turner was “the best team to get the job done for us.”

Another key move was participating in the DOB's stalled sites program, which kept the full building permit in effect, saving considerable planning time, Selsam adds.

“It made everything more predictable, which therefore means less risky,” Selsam says. “That helped us to secure Morrison & Foerster, because we—and they—have a high level of confidence about when the building will be ready for occupancy.”