With projects facing rising material costs, crunched schedules and labor shortages, project delivery firms say owners are finding themselves at a fork in the road when it comes to design-bid-build versus alternative delivery models.
“If you build it, they will come” isn’t just a version of a famous film line. For Top 400 contractors navigating markets bogged down by supply shortages and delays, it’s strategy.
As much as COVID-19 has led more firms to put a focus on digital innovation, ENR Top 500 design firms are also finding themselves having deeper discussions with clients about long-term design packages that help cut carbon emissions, execute ESG goals and meet diversity, equity and inclusion markers for stakeholders.
ENR’s Construction Industry Confidence Index remained steady in Q1, rising slightly to a rating of 61, a one-point bump from the final quarter of 2021. The index had fallen the previous two quarters.
Built to serve foster and community children and at-risk families in Chicago’s Roosevelt Square area, this 11,000-sq-ft community center was completed in just 13 months.
The Nancy and Rich Kinder Building’s roof, designed to resemble the billowing clouds of Texas—and including 23 separate structures—proved to be this museum project’s biggest challenge.
The long awaited Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act has been passed, but construction market confidence has continued to dip among industry executives.
With another year of the coronavirus pandemic nearing its end, owners have mostly moved past reactionary plans for completing stalled projects and are now actively planning new ones. Looking ahead, how will fundamental changes to market sectors lead owners to potentially reconfigure business models?