Texas & SoutheastTexas & Southeast Construction News

S.C. Contracts Stumble 11% in October

McGraw-Hill Construction estimated the value of South Carolina’s October construction contracts at $474.7 million, or 11% lower than the same period of a year ago.

The nonresidential construction category experienced the steepest decline, dropping 36% compared to last October to total $122.5 million. The nonbuilding sector, which includes infrastructure work, fell 25% and totaled $72.7 million for the month. Residential contracts turned up by 14% overall, however, for a total of $279.5 million.

For the year-to-date, McGraw-Hill Construction estimates South Carolina’s overall contracts total is still positive, with its total of nearly $6 billion representing a 3% gain over the pace of a year ago.

The largest category, residential, is 6% ahead of 2010’s pace, with about $2.9 billion in new contracts for the first ten months of the year. Nonresidential, at $2 billion, is ahead of last year by 25%. The nonbuilding sector, however, estimated at nearly $1.1 billion, is 26% behind last year’s pace.

Scott Judy is ENR’s Managing Editor. His roughly 34 years as a construction journalist began with an 11-year stint visiting and writing about construction projects in the Midwest region of Missouri, Kansas, Iowa and Nebraska. Then, in 2000, Judy helped launch ENR Southeast, now known as ENR Texas & Southeast. After all these years, Judy says his favorite part of being an ENR editor is visiting job sites and learning how—and reporting on—a team’s approach to overcoming the project’s design and construction challenges. And Judy says he never turns down an invitation for a project visit.