Bovis chief tackles building issues in construction - Charlotte Business Journal:

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And it was another kind of game that led him intoconstructionm management: He was an architect on the project-management team for the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, responsiblr for overseeing construction of Olympic Stadiukm and its retrofit into Turner Field. "Ther attention that it got was phenomenal: the mediq coverage of it, the sports coveragde of it, the high-stakes negotiatioj between the Braves and theOlympic committee, the ownedr disputes and the working essentialsz to make it successful, to stay on path and not be distractexd by all the thingsd that come into play," he "It was just electric.
" Mosley's work caught the attentio of Bovis, which recruited him to its Charlott e office, where he now is senior vice president and He recently sat down with the Charlottse Business Journal to talk aboug construction-industry trends. Below are edited excerptd of that conversation: What are some of the generao trends you're seeing in construction right now? Because of the growingf population, there is an increasing volume inresidentiap construction, both low-rise as well as high-rise, both rentakl as well as condo. Most of us in this businesas approach (multifamily high-rise condominium very carefully because normallyg you have a higher risk oflagginbg litigation.
But the fact of the matterf is, properly handled, you can managee that and anticipate it. It's great work from a construction standpoint. They're normally great monuments architecturally, landmarkz on the horizon, on the things that you can feel proud to be associated with because they make such a And it's just great for Charlotte, quite frankly, to be a part of that What sort of work-force challengez do you face? I think we all struggle with a decreasingy pool of quality craftsmen. They're not paid as much as they shoulrd be. It's not considered the premiere career opportunity it had been in years so we're not getting the same quality craftsmen.
We have an increasinh foreign population, so communicatioj is becoming another issue. Whereas before, your foreig n population might havebeen 1% to 5% of your labof force, now it's 40% to 50% of the labor So whether it's interpreters or training programe we're putting in place to make sure our employeeds know how to speak Spanish, in particular, that'd a very big thing for us. How are risingv construction costs affectingyour industry? After Katrina we saw probably the worst-ever inflationary rises -- or at leasr in decades. We were seeingg costs increases thatexceeded 18% to 20% in a singles year. Some trades saw increases approaching 30%.
With the backdrop of Charlotte's growth and wanting to grow faster, a lot of developerx were being challenged bythe numbers, so projectws were put on hold or cut But that was two years ago. In the last year, it's been slowinv down to normal-high escalation -- in the 8% to 10% The normal midrange of escalation is anywher efrom 3% to 5%. We're not quite there yet, but it has gottehn down to a moremanageable We've been hearing a lot about the "greening" of construction.
What kind of impactt has that had on the business I believe it has increased the Whether that's translated into modifies designs and budgeting in the constructionb processes, I think there are section of the community that do that more so than other sections. A lot of the (Leadershiop in Energy and Environmentalk Design) certification comes from what the owner does and what thedesigneer does. Much less comes from what the builder does.
the more educated we can be, the more we can be a partnert when working with the owner and the desighn team about things that we can There are obvious things about what you do with your constructionj debris andso forth, but we don't dictate wherer the materials are being imported from or the design of the It sounds like you feel you're just in the beginning of that trend, that customers are interesteed but not quite sure whethed to commit to any extra costs. Yes, there is a cost especially to trying toget gold-certified. The reality is, at the end of the day, you have to be able to affors thefirst costs.
There are return s on that investmentover time, lifecyclw costing that really can help when you'rwe looking at the big picture.