MidAtlantic City Scoop: Construction Starts in Richmond
Before COVID-19, value of new contracts was expected to decline by nearly 30%
Residential and non-building sectors had been projected to be flat, but nonresidential was expected to tumble.
City Grill
Curtis Elswick
Senior Vice President, Regional Executive
Skanska USA Building Inc.
President,
Central Virginia Chapter of CMAA
During the past two months, 60% of Skanska’s trade partners in Virginia have seen workflow and backlog affected by the pandemic. But Elswick says the impact in Virginia has been slightly less than the national average largely because the state “did not fully shut down construction sites as some other markets did.”
The American Institute of Architects’ architectural billings index’s drop from a reading of 58 pre-COVID to 30.6 in the May report “presents a bleak prospect for construction activity projected for two to three years from now,” he says. But he expects the industry to quickly rebound after a “viable” vaccine is implemented, “given ongoing population growth and the need for essential services.” He adds, “We are encouraging our clients to proceed with design and planning to the extent possible in order to get their projects shovel ready.”
Elswick says COVID-19 forced Skanska to better integrate mobile technologies on project sites that “put information directly in the hands of the tradespeople installing the work in real time.”
