White House issues guidebook for communities to access infrastructure funding

 The White House on Monday released a guidebook to help state and local governments access funding from the bipartisan infrastructure law.

The guidebook is a “one-stop-shop” for information about the law, according to the White House, and provides current materials about the more than 375 programs the law will fund for state, local, tribal and territorial governments.

The guidebook was released as Biden welcomed governors to the White House on Monday while they are in Washington for the National Governors Association's winter meeting.

“Our primary goal is to empower people across the country with information, so they know what to apply for, who to contact, and how to get ready to rebuild,” Mitch Landrieu, senior adviser and infrastructure implementation coordinator, said in a statement.

The more than 460-page guidebook is made up of 12 chapters that group the law’s programs by issue area, and it provides explainers for governments to prepare to receive the funding. It is available online, with information about projects broken up by transportation, climate and energy, and broadband. 

The White House also published data for people to sort programs funded under the law by fields such as agency, amount, recipient and program name.

Governors received a letter earlier this month with recommendations about preparing to receive the funding from the law, which the president signed in November.

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/592101-white-house-issues-guidebook-for-communities-to-access-infrastructure

Adams hints at more homeless shelters in NYC

 Mayor Eric Adams on Sunday hinted at opening more homeless shelters throughout the Big Apple — as he took aim at some “sacred cow” neighborhoods whose residents have waged war against the facilities.

Adams called out areas that haven’t “had their share of shelters” though stopped short of offering any specifics for how to get vagrants off the streets amid the city’s surging crisis.

“Homelessness is a New York problem,” Hizzoner said at a press conference at Jacobi Hospital in the Bronx.

“We can’t have any sacred cows where some communities believe they are not going to shoulder the burden. That is not going to happen.”

Adams made the comments after being asked about a proposal to have three homeless shelters — which would house up to 540 single adult men — set up in the Bronx’s Community Board 11 region.

Mayor Eric Adams suggested that the city might open more homeless shelters at a press conference in the Bronx on January 30, 2022.

Gregory P. Mango

“I’m going to look at this particular issue. Find out what’s happening. I’m going to communicate with [Department of Homeless Services] and see exactly what’s taking place here,” the mayor insisted.

“I don’t want to overburden certain communities with shelters,” he added.

“You know, I lived on the verge of homelessness as a child. I know what it is not to have a home, I know that. And I also know what it is to oversaturate certain communities with shelters.”  

Adams claimed that some neighborhoods haven’t “had their share of shelters.”

Stephen Yang

While Adams didn’t name the specific neighborhoods that he says have failed to share the burden, outraged residents have protested planned shelters in their neighborhood in recent years.

Upper East Side residents rallied last year in a bid to stop an 88-bed “safe haven” shelter from being run on East 91st St because they argued it would be too close to schools and recreation sites.

And protests were held on the Upper West Side a year earlier when Mayor Bill de Blasio pushed to relocate homeless residents from an emergency hotel shelter to a permanent facility in their neighborhood amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Adams also said that he doesn’t want to “overburden certain communities with shelters.”

Paul Martinka

“We all have to shoulder the burden of our fellow New Yorkers, because that homeless person is someone’s son or daughter, family member and they need the support,” Adams said.

“Now I would love for my shelters to be in communities that are stable, so that they can have access to transportation, access to medical health, access to employment, access to good healthy food. We can’t overburden communities.

“We need to make sure that we have homeless shelters throughout this entire city, but we also want to cycle out of congregate shelters. We want to move in another direction. But I cannot say it enough, we need help to get this done right.”

Adams announced that Jessica Katz has been appointed chief housing officer.

Gregory P. Mango

Adams appointed Adolfo Carrion Jr. as commissioner of the Department of Housing Preservation and Development.

Gregory P. Mango

Adams’ push comes amid a spate of attacks — some deadly — carried out by mentally ill homeless men on the streets and in subway stations.

His comments on the homeless shelters came right before he officially announced his picks to head the city’s housing department on Sunday afternoon.

Jessica Katz was named chief housing officer and Adolfo Carrion Jr. was appointed commissioner of New York City’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development.

https://nypost.com/2022/01/30/mayor-eric-adams-hints-at-more-homeless-shelters-in-nyc/

Shoplifting kills a Rite Aid — and maybe Manhattan’s comeback chances

 Of all the burdens Manhattan has borne this January, the imminent closing of the 24-hour Midtown West Rite Aid hardly qualifies as a tragedy. But the fact that an otherwise-thriving major corporation is giving up on core Manhattan matters for our decaying borough. 

The pharmacy, on 8th Avenue and 50th Street, will close Feb. 8. Last week, it was effectively already shuttered, with most of the store cordoned off with gates. Just a small, strange assortment — children’s coloring books jumbled with vitamins — was marooned on front shelves on “clearance.” 

The clearance prices were ironic — because the reason the Rite Aid is closing is mass-scale shoplifting. As The Post reported last week, the shop lost $200,000 in goods in two months. 

This store’s workers have had a rough two years. In June 2020 — the summer of “peaceful protests” — the shop suffered looting. The windows were broken and $60,000 worth of drugs stolen.

The Rite Aid was then completely covered in plywood for days.

Since then, the store’s workers — mostly people of color — have suffered the strain of constant disorder.

A popular Rite Aid location in Manhattan has closed due to rampant shoplifting.

Michael Nagle/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Shoplifting is traumatizing to employees not just because they must contend with the implied threat of violence that goes along with brazen all-day theft. Shoplifting without consequences also attracts people you don’t want to spend time around.

Oh, yes, you can say that the thieves need help and deserve our compassion — if you ignore the fact that they’re mostly selling the stuff they steal for drug money and if you’re not bumping into them at your workplace. 

NYPD at the scene of where an off-duty officer shot a man who was attacking people with a knife at a Manhattan Duane Reade on January 28, 2022.

William Farrington

The disorder spills outside. Until two years ago, this street corner never featured aggressive beggars or drug-addled people fighting on the sidewalk. But that’s who your “customers” become when the goods are “free.” Last week, an off-duty cop shot a knife-wielding assailant just outside an uptown Duane Reade. 

Now the Midtown Rite Aid’s chronic shoplifters have claimed collateral damage in people’s livelihoods. Yes, Rite Aid says that employees at this store can work at another one. But as the company isn’t opening any new store to replace this one, Manhattan is losing employment for people who don’t have a job yet but might like one.

As of December, New York City was missing 13% of its pre-pandemic retail jobs, compared with 1% for the nation as a whole. 

Manhattan has fared worse. The data aren’t as current, but as of 2021’s second quarter, the borough was missing 28 percent of its retail jobs, while the city was missing 17 percent. 

This is a dizzying turnaround. When Rite Aid opened this location nearly 25 years ago, it correctly bet on the future of Midtown West and Hell’s Kitchen. It was the anchor store of a new apartment building, replacing a parking lot in an iffy neighborhood. Until 2020, the area thrived.

The company is betting now that the future will be dimmer.

And no, the culprit isn’t online shopping. Until two years ago, this store was packed, and it retained its local customers during the pandemic. I was there once a week for laundry detergent, shampoo and the like — and I was never alone.

The store has lost tourist and office-worker customers, sure. But the city has made this surmountable challenge worse. We all know by now that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg will treat violent robberies as mere shoplifting — which means that shoplifting won’t be prosecuted at all.

The closing Rite Aid is a bad omen for Manhattan’s post-pandemic comeback.

Michael Nagle/Bloomberg via Getty Images

The Rite Aid’s disappearance is a result of our urban failures, but it will also contribute to them. A big, bright, all-night store attracts people to live in the neighborhood and corporate tenants to rent office space at the kitty-corner Worldwide Plaza skyscraper. Babies need diapers in the middle of the night, and office workers need prescriptions filled in the afternoon. 

Now, potential tenants will see an empty hulk — one that will almost certainly be boarded up after vagrants smash the windows. 

This half-block being empty will also harm neighborhood safety, such as it is. If you’re inclined to go out after dark, which is unwise lately, it’s better to walk by a well-populated store than by a half-block vacant space. 

Urbanist Jane Jacobs once called this kind of thing “eyes on the street,” keeping people safe without police. The eyes of unsentimental corporate investors now don’t like what they see. 

Nicole Gelinas is a contributing editor to the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal.

https://nypost.com/2022/01/30/shoplifting-kills-a-rite-aid-and-maybe-manhattans-comeback-chances/

5 ways your NYC co-op building can boost prices for sellers

 Many New York City co-op buildings—infamous for their many rules—actually loosened a few of their restrictions during the doldrums of the pandemic in order to spur sales. And now, even though the market has swung back to favor sellers, those many of those changes remain in place, brokers tell Brick, because they work.

If you’re on the board of your co-op and looking for ways to help sellers achieve higher prices in your building, consider following suit in order to broaden your pool of buyers and better compete with condo buildings.

Of course, some of these options will be off limits—a lot of older buildings with finicky plumbing will not be able to handle washer/dryers in every unit, for example, and some buildings don’t have the people power or the will to handle the tax considerations for a pied-à-terre.

Read on to see if there’s something your co-op building could be doing to get prices higher in the building.

1. Allow washer/dryers in the units

This is a big one—something that buyers are inclined to spend more on and can ultimately raise value for a building’s apartments, says Cindy Chen, a broker at Compass.

She worked with clients at 300 East 54th St., the Connaught Tower, which permits each unit to have a washer/dryer. Apartments here typically sell for 10-15 percent higher than units with the same condition and size across the street at 245 East 54th St. (which has a laundry room on the second floor) even though Connaught Tower has a more restrictive sublet policy, Chen says.

“They both are full-service, pet-friendly co-ops with exactly the same location, and even though there is a slight difference in their amenity offerings, the washer/dryer policy is an important factor for buyers these days,” Chen says.

2. Approve pieds-à-terre

Some buildings say they don’t allow pieds-à-terre, when in fact shareholders are actually ignoring the rule. In that case it makes sense to officially update the policy in order to attract buyers willing to spend more for the ability to live part-time in the city.

Daniel Blatman, a broker at Triplement, had clients that wanted to buy in a building on the Upper East Side. They were told the building didn’t allow pieds-à-terre—but thanks to some careful sleuthing, Blatman found out that a majority of the owners in fact had primary residences elsewhere.

“So the policy was outdated and we were able to make a case for why this client would be an outstanding addition to the building,” he says.

Why are pieds-à-terre a problem for co-op buildings? Why would a board have an issue with part-time residents who use the building less?

Blatman explains that some buildings may not have the infrastructure to process the separate tax payments that pied- à-terre owners would owe.

Another reason, he says, is that some buildings want owners to be involved with the community—for example participate on the board and be a presence in the building.

But with more New Yorkers having greater flexibility to work remotely, buyers are really interested in splitting their time between a residence in the city and vacation home, says Nicole Beauchamp, a real estate advisor at Engel & Völkers.

“So a building that does not allow pieds-à-terre at all could be missing out on buyers,” Beauchamp says.

“I have had many conversations around this topic with clients who own outside of the city and would love an apartment here.” She says clients are interested in splitting their time 50/50 but that still constitutes a pied-à-terre.

3. Accept smaller down payments

One of the barriers to buying in a co-op is the down payment. Putting down 20 percent is standard, but many buildings require much more—from 30 to 40 or even 50 percent.

It’s a tall order, one that can stifle sales, so it makes sense that during the pandemic, Blatman says even white-glove co-ops on Park Avenue decreased down payments from 50 percent to 40 or 30 percent, which reinvigorated sales.

Another option is to accept a lower down payment in exchange for proportionally increasing the post-closing liquidity requirement, Beauchamp says

That has an added advantage as well—it provides insight into what can be very murky process.

“Buyers want more clarity around what the financial requirements are, so that they can make informed and educated decisions” about whether or not to pursue an apartment, Beauchamp says.

4. Upgrade common areas if they’re stale

Consider a makeover for your common areas, say Ari Harkov, a broker at Brown Harris Stevens. New carpeting, paint, and lights in hallways can upgrade the feel of a building at a relatively low cost, he says.

Also look for ways to add storage by reclaiming unused space in the basement. Don’t have a doorman? Install a virtual doorman or upgrade to a video intercom system to better handle the delivery volume of modern New Yorkers.

5. Say yes to pets (and really mean it)

A very high percentage of NYC co-ops are already pet friendly—and co-op and condo buildings that allow pets tend to see higher prices than co-op and condo buildings that don’t.

Jonathan Miller, president and CEO of appraisal firm Miller Samuel. says 93.8 percent of Manhattan transactions in the first quarter of 2021 were in pet-friendly co-op and condo buildings, and the average sales price was $2.2 million, compared to $911,304 in Manhattan buildings that don’t allow pets. (Note: prices are so much higher in pet-friendly buildings because they represent the majority of sales in a very pricey market.)

Still, lots of co-op buildings say they are pet-friendly when they really aren’t—they forbid dogs in the lobby or other communal spaces, and they put subjective restrictions on size and breeds—some of these don’t seem very fair to owners of docile German shepherd and pit bull terriers—when biting Chihuahuas are welcome.

Every building is a bit different—some will require references and photos, others will want to interview a pet. Some want vaccination history and information on dog walkers.

Revisiting a pet policy to see where it can be broadened—while implementing protections like requiring additional insurance—could be one way to throw more buyers a bone.

https://www.brickunderground.com/sell/how-co-ops-can-increase-sales-prices-washer-dryer-pied-a-terre-pets-down-payment-nyc

Private Management Of Public Housing Led To Erosion Of Tenants’ Rights: Report

 Five years after the New York City Housing Authority turned over thousands of public housing apartments to for-profit operators, tenants living in the privately-run developments in Queens and the Bronx were evicted at an average rate that was three times higher than under authority management, according to a report released Thursday, prompting a promise of greater oversight.

Out of the six public housing complexes that NYCHA outsourced to private companies to manage between December 2016 and February of 2020, removal of tenants in the two large developments “significantly” increased after the takeover, according to the report by the advocacy group Human Rights Watch.

Newly elected Councilmember Alexa Avilés, who took over this month as chair of the City’s Council’s Committee on Public Housing, which oversees NYCHA, called the report’s findings alarming and promised increased scrutiny.

“Families in our district and across the city are still experiencing housing insecurity and suffering from the devastating effects of this pandemic. Yet we now confirm what tenants have long suspected,” Avilés said.

One of those complexes was Ocean Bay Apartments in Far Rockaway, Queens, home to 3,700 people. Residents told Human Rights Watch that the new property manager, Wavecrest Management Group, was “more aggressive” in evicting them.

They “put you out faster,” one tenant told the advocacy group, according to the report.

Under a controversial program, NYCHA plans to outsource the management of one-third of its public housing inventory to for-profit operators in an effort to attract private funding to help pay for building repairs and maintenance. The program was created in 2012 under a federal effort known as the Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD).

Currently, there are 9,500 public housing apartments under private management and an additional 28,000 apartments are in “active pre-development” to be turned over to private operators, according to NYCHA’s website.

Ocean Bay Apartments, with 1,395 units across 24 buildings, was the first group of public housing in New York City converted to private management in December 2016.

Between January of 2017 to August of 2019, there were roughly 50 households evicted from Ocean Bay Apartments, according to the report. Of those, 18 households were kicked out for non-payment of rent and 26 others lost their homes because they didn’t sign the lease or broke a provision in the contract for reasons other than a failure to pay rent. The report said the remaining six households left without notifying management.

The permanent eviction rate for NYCHA-managed buildings was 0.3% from 2017 to 2019 while the permanent eviction rates at Ocean Bay Apartments were 1.4% in 2017 and 1.2% in 2018 and 2019, according to Jackson Gandour, a fellow at Human Rights Watch and an author of the report.

The group also determined there had been an erosion of residents’ rights in public housing developments under private management and a lack of oversight by NYCHA and the federal housing authority of the city’s privatization program known as Permanent Affordability Commitment Together (PACT).

“What’s worrying is that, you know, because this program basically involves a whole host of new actors, and it seems like the city isn’t sufficiently keeping track of what’s going on,” Gandour said in an interview.

Wavecrest Management Group, which also manages Betances, a group of 10 public housing buildings in the Bronx that also saw a higher eviction rate, declined to be interviewed.

"Our first and most important priority will always be the well-being of our residents and keeping them affordably in their homes; and through the RAD program, we are able to provide thousands of homes across New York City with critical and vastly overdue improvements," Susan Camerata, the company’s chief financial officer, said in an email.

Barbara Brancaccio, a spokeswoman for NYCHA, said conditions at public housing developments have suffered due to long-term federal disinvestment, but added that the authority will use “innovative” strategies to raise capital, make improvements and protect tenant rights.

NYCHA cooperated with Human Rights Watch on the report but Brancaccio said it contains “numerous” unsubstantiated claims about the housing authority’s PACT program. She did not elaborate.

Councilmember Avilés said she would use her role as chair of the City Council’s public housing committee to scrutinize NYCHA’s private management program.

“I will ensure tenants of PACT developments are protected and informed of their rights and that private management entities are held accountable,” Avilés said. “As long as tenants lack full protections in RAD/PACT developments, I am opposed to any future conversions. Not one more.”

While tenants in some privately-run NYCHA buildings have seen improvements, other issues such as mold, lead paint, and extended periods of time without heat have persisted.

Anthony Sanchez, 39, a schoolteacher whose family lives at Hope Gardens in Bushwick, Brooklyn, said tenants didn’t have heat or hot water for nearly a week in January 2019 after Pinnacle City Living took over the management of the public housing building.

“We were literally taking birdbaths. I had to heat water on the stove for my daughters,” said Sanchez, who added that Pinnacle did not make repairs until he called his state senator, Julia Salazar.

According to Sanchez, a neighbor in her 70s, who spoke limited English and suffered from a variety of medical conditions that left her essentially homebound, was unable to get to the management office to certify that she was eligible to remain in her apartment. Sanchez said he and other neighbors notified Pinnacle employees of the elderly woman’s predicament, but Pinnacle sent her a letter threatening eviction anyway.

“She’s panicking. She’s crying,” Sanchez told Human Rights Watch, which said it reviewed the eviction notice sent by the company.

Sanchez said he called and emailed Pinnacle, asking the company to send an employee to the elderly woman’s apartment with the necessary forms, but he said nothing happened.

Sanchez again went to Senator Salazar for help, and said his elderly neighbor was not kicked out of her apartment as a result.

Pinnacle declined to comment.

https://gothamist.com/news/private-management-of-public-housing-led-to-erosion-of-tenants-rights-report-finds

Cold Weather Markets Seeing Severe Shortages Of Precast Concrete, And Not Many Options

 Supply chain hiccups, rising material costs and shortages have plagued the industrial construction market throughout much of the pandemic. And although some of these problems cleared up in 2021, a new shortage arose in the past few months that could set back the expansion of many product distributors.

In cold weather markets such as Chicago, new warehouses and distribution centers need insulated precast concrete panels. As the cost of transporting the massive panels is prohibitive, builders must depend on local producers, but the escalating demand for consumer products delivered through e-commerce means demand for new warehouses is also hitting a historic high, outstripping the capacity of local precast manufacturers.

Courtesy of ATMI Precast

“Typically, there was a four-to-six-week lead time for precast panels, and now the lead time is 14 to 16 months,” Cresa Chicago Managing Principal Ed Lowenbaum said. “Anybody who needs to put something up can’t do it until mid- or late next year.”

Markets in warmer climates like Dallas still suffer from the nationwide skilled labor shortage, along with shortages of roofing materials, electrical supplies and many other commodities, but builders there don’t need insulated panels, so the pieces can be poured on-site and then tilted up into place.

Industrial buildings in cold places, by contrast, need walls that include an internal layer of polystyrene insulation built by specialist manufacturers in their own factories. These panels are typically 12 feet by 37 feet, can weigh 5 to 6 tons and are shipped by trucks to the development sites. The cost of shipping these behemoths is prohibitive, so developers typically depend on local manufacturers.

“Precast wall panels are the most obvious of the [delays] in the industry, because without a building envelope, you can’t do much else,” Opus Design Build Regional Vice President Jim Caesar said.

The Minneapolis-based firm has projects underway across the Midwest, including the Chicago area, southeast Wisconsin and Michigan.

“We’re seeing precast lead times pushing past historic norms in every Midwest market,” Caesar said.

And precast firms can’t accept orders due more than 14 to 16 months away, Caesar added, because there’s too much risk such deals would fall apart due to market shifts or financing falling through.

“There’s a lot of risk for the precast builders that they haven’t had to deal with before,” he said. “We’ve had precast manufacturers say, ‘We can’t take your order.’”

Solving this problem won’t be easy. The demand for spec warehouses continues to soar, and expanding capacity isn't easy for precast producers. It would cost millions to do so, and such a capital investment could go to waste if warehouse demand returns to normal in 2023. That will force users to simply put their plans on hold and wait for space or go out on the marketplace to buy up available warehouses at premium prices.

There are four major precast producers for the Chicago region. Together, they typically fabricate and deliver about 10M SF of wall panels in a typical year, enough to handle the number of new warehouses that rise annually in Chicagoland.

“We’ve been chugging along, doing that year in and year out,” ATMI Precast Vice President of Development Mike Walsh said.

The Aurora, Illinois-based company produces about 60% of the precast panels needed in the Chicago region, he said.

Courtesy of JLL

Industrial space supply and demand for the Chicago region

But that 10M SF of wall panels is no longer enough. Even as the amount of new supply remained relatively steady, Chicagoland users set a new record in 2021, absorbing almost 46M SF, according to statistics from JLL.

“That’s more than 2019 and 2020 combined,” JLL senior associate Kate Coxworth said.

With spaces getting occupied as soon as they receive the finishing touches, it is a landlord’s market, with soaring rents and few choices for tenants, she said. The vacancy rate for the Chicago region sank to just 3.5% by the end of 2021, another record, and average asking rents rose 37 cents last year to $5.65 per SF, with new spec spaces near O’Hare International Airport garnering rents of up to $9. Prices like those have some users that normally use Class-A warehouses seeking out older Class-B and even Class-C buildings.

“We’re seeing rent hikes across the board,” Coxworth said. “And as long as somebody is willing to pay it, this will keep going.”

What's more, household names like Best Buy, LG Electronics, Home Depot and Walgreens, as well as parcel delivery companies such as FedEx, United Parcel Service and DHL, are planning further expansion.

Developers are doing their best to grow the region’s inventory. After several years when deliveries totaled between 20M SF and about 23M SF, nearly 29M SF are now underway across Chicagoland, according to Coxworth, and about 68% of that is on a speculative basis, meaning buildings that don’t have a signed tenant.

With so much construction material going toward spec projects, private companies that want to own their own buildings, or need to construct a customized building for complex uses such as food manufacturing rather than renting a simple box, may find it especially hard to line up deals, Lowenbaum said. The longest lead times for wall panels that he can remember were during the industrial boom in the early 2000s when it could take eight or nine months, instead of today’s 14 to 16 months.

“It’s been a long time since we’ve seen anything like this,” Lowenbaum said. “They’ve always had the capacity to serve the market.”

Walsh said his firm can manufacture several dozen panels every day. And a typical distribution building of 250K SF needs hundreds of precast concrete panels, each with several inches of insulation, which ATMI can complete in about 10 days.

“We can pour a panel on a Monday, and it’s ready to go to storage on a Tuesday,” he said. “There’s nothing off the shelf; everything is custom-made.”  

He estimates Chicago-area precasters would need to produce about 17M SF of wall panels each year instead of the usual 10M SF to meet current demand. But ATMI is already producing as much as it can. Increasing capacity even further would mean expanding its plant, a big capital expenditure that comes with real risk.

“Is this a 17M SF market or a 10M SF market?” Walsh said. “That’s the $8M question.”

Courtesy of Opus Design Build

Building B at the Tollway Corporate Center in North Aurora, under construction in December.

Companies like ATMI would get stuck with the bill if they expanded and developers returned to a construction pace closer to historical norms. Furthermore, there is still a shortage of skilled labor, Walsh added, so it isn't guaranteed that precast builders could even staff up their plants after spending millions on expansions.

Caesar agreed developers, suppliers like ATMI and tenants are in a tough bind with no easy solution.

“There’s really not any quick way to increase the capacity of a precast plant,” he said.

But Opus isn’t just sitting around waiting, Caesar added. The firm is starting to experiment with new construction methods, hopefully in ways that will speed completion.

At its Tollway Corporate Center in west suburban North Aurora, the company got a building underway last October that will offer 543K SF and a 36-foot clear height. Typically, Opus would first place a building’s precast walls as they rolled in on trucks. Once that was done, Opus would add the building’s internal steel infrastructure. But with the walls not set to arrive until February, the steel skeleton began rising over the site on Dec. 13.     

It isn't a complete solution, Caesar said. It is just one way the company discovered it can get a project started and keep it underway even in the face of critical shortages.

“The way precast lead times are going, we have to be creative,” he said.

WBS Equities CEO Wendy Berger agreed developers have to rethink their construction process. Her Chicago-based firm, which specializes in creating food manufacturing and food distribution facilities, is developing a 28-acre site in Florida and doesn’t need insulated precast walls, she said. But numerous other shortages remain, so it is also trying out new materials with shorter waiting times.

“I do think we’re all getting more creative,” Berger said.

Even though some shortages look impossible to overcome, most materials are becoming more available as supply chain kinks get worked out and builders come up with workarounds, she added. There was, for example, a 52-week wait for steel in 2021, and that has shrunk to between 30 and 40 weeks now.

“There are bottlenecks everywhere, but it seems that at the core, things are getting better and better,” Berger said. “Overall, people are excited and upbeat, and this is in part because while the supply chain issues will be here awhile, the demand for space remains incredibly strong.”

https://www.bisnow.com/chicago/news/industrial/precast-concrete-wall-story-111647