December 2022 City Scoop: Lake Charles
City Grill
William Lemoine
President
LEMOINE
As is the case around the country, Lemoine reports that in the Lake Charles area, supply chain-related increases in materials prices and workforce shortages are causing some pain for contractors and project owners alike. “It’s difficult to align the project budgets right now with the actual cost,” Lemoine says. While he notes that the firm has “a significant amount of backlog,” the ability to move forward with some contracts has been a challenge. “In some of the awards over the past year, we’ll get through one iteration of design [and] we think we have aligned the budget with the scope” only to find that price and budgets go out of alignment again.
And while, overall, private-sector projects have slowed, others are moving forward. “There’s still quite a bit of activity,” Lemoine says. “We’re starting to see increased activity in the LNG plant sector and petrochemical market.”
Increased federal funding is “reaching the region in different ways,” he adds. One major project keeping LEMOINE busy is the federally funded recovery work related to 2020 hurricanes Laura and Delta, which remains ongoing.
