Showing posts from category: architecture jobs
The American Institute of Architects Latest from The Business Journals Architecture index back in black, reverse surprises economistArchitecture index back in black, reverse surprises economist Ripken bringing his baseball ‘Experience’ to local youth Follow this company ’ Architecture Billings Index rose in August after four straight monthly declines.
The national index was 51.4 in August, following a very weak score of 45.1 in July. Any number above 50 indicates an increase in billings. The new projects inquiry index, which represents the number of inquiries from clients about new projects, was 56.9, a sharp increase over the 53.7 posted in July.
“Based on the poor economic conditions over the last several months, this turnaround in demand for design services is a surprise,” said the AIA’s chief economist, Kermit Baker, in a news release. “Many firms are still struggling and continue to report that clients are having difficulty getting financing for viable projects, but it’s possible we’ve reached the bottom of the down cycle.”
The regional billings indexes for August were 49.0 in the Midwest, 47.4 in the South, 47.4 in the West and 46.5 in the Northeast.
Watch inspirational video of Richard Meier talk about things that make architecture so exciting….(5:31 long)
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPDHq7qgXXU&feature=player_embedded]
Source: Architects Talk
Latest US billings index and employment figures also gloomy
US architects’ pay is “stagnant,” according to a new American Institute of Architects (AIA) survey.
The average salary for senior design or project management staff is $94,900 (£58,773), compared with $98,800 in 2008 and $85,800 in 2005.
The average salary for architects/designers is $71,600, unchanged from three years ago but up from $57,700 in 2005, the survey found.
AIA chief economist Kermit Baker said: “In addition to reducing benefits offered to employees, architecture firms have been faced with devastating conditions and had to make difficult reductions in expenses. Salary freezes or reductions, scaled-back hours, the conversion of full-time to part-time or contract employees and mandatory furloughs have all taken a toll on the compensation of architects.”
The AIA noted that the architecture profession had been “hit especially hard” as the construction industry continued to suffer the effects of the prolonged economic downturn.
The survey comes on the back of disappointing employment figures in the States. The construction industry added 24,000 jobs nationally in the first three months of the year – the first quarterly gain since 2006 – before returning to contraction by losing 9,000 jobs overall in the second quarter.
Meanwhile, the latest architecture billings index showed a fall for the third month in a row, reversing nearly all of the improvement generated during late 2010 and spring 2011 when there were five straight months of positive conditions.
Source: BD Online.co.uk
While the economy has stabilized in some regards, architects are still suffering.
Just when it seemed that the architecture industry might be pulling out of its tailspin, some key economic indicators are suggesting that a recovery might take longer than expected.
The Architecture Billings Index, a measure of the industry’s health compiled by the American Institute of Architects, has dipped below 50 for three consecutive months, posting scores of 47.6 (April), 47.2 (May), and 46.3 (June). Those dips came after five straight months of the ABI hovering at or above 50, a sign of increased activity.
Moreover, Engineering News-Record’s Construction Industry Confidence Index—based on surveys sent to contractors, subcontractors, engineers and architects—fell five points in the second quarter of 2011, from 51 to 46.
That data doesn’t surprise architect Charles Dalluge of the Omaha-based firm Leo A. Daly, which has 31 offices around the world. Even though some architects were publicly predicting that “it would be heaven in 2011,” he says, a lot of firms are still suffering.
And he might know. In June, his firm laid off 50 employees from various offices, including architects and engineers. Dalluge defends the move as part of a “strategic repositioning” that will result in the hiring of 50 workers with specialties in areas of growth, such as healthcare. The firm now has 900 employees.
But even a healthcare focus may not be enough to keep some firms alive. In June, Karlsberger, a Columbus, Ohio-based healthcare-focused firm, closed after 83 years in business. None of the firm’s managers would comment on the shuttering, which is believed to have resulted in 40 job cuts. A statement on its website, however, blamed the state of the market for its woes. “Our level of revenues are insufficient for us to meet our ongoing obligations,” it says.
Karlsberger’s former president, Mitchel Levitt, who resigned in April 2010 after 31 years, told RECORD that the firm lost a major lawsuit that made it difficult to go on. The suit was brought against Ohio State University, one of Karlsberger’s largest clients, over the school’s termination of a contract for a $1 billion medical center expansion; the lawsuit was dismissed in December. “It probably hurt them,” Levitt said in an interview conducted in June. “But I thought they had done what they needed to do to continue to operate.”
While the new office building market may show few signs of turnaround, especially while jobs are scarce, a bright spot appears to be college work. Many schools’ endowments were wiped out in the recession but are now being replenished by a robust stock market, which means that many stalled university projects are back on track.
Indeed, the economic downturn suspended a renovation of Yale’s 1928 Swartwout Building, designed by Egerton Swartout. But that project recently resumed, says Richard Olcott, partner at New York-based Ennead Architects, which is overseeing the renovation. Olcott adds that his firm didn’t lay off any workers during the recession; in fact, it hired 40 people in the last year, including architects, for a grand total of 160 employees.
Even public universities, once hurt by dwindling tax-collection revenues, are restarting projects, according to Ayers Saint Gross, a Baltimore design firm at work on a once-stalled science building for the University of Delaware.
The firm added 18 people last year and is now looking to hire five more, including architects. It now has 130 employees, its highest-ever headcount, said Adam Gross, a principal. “I think the indicators are pretty serious,” he said, referring to the ABI and other worrisome data, “but not as serious as we experienced” in the fall of 2008.
Source Architectural Record
aia, architect, architects, architecture, architecture jobs, buildings, construction, Design, Hiring trends, jobs, recession, starting a business, unemployed architects
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* June ABI 46.3 vs. May 47.2
* Project inquiries index rises to 58.1
* Institutional sector weakest amid tight govt. budgets
* Analyst: Construction recovery in 2012 or later (Adds analyst comment)
NEW YORK, July 20 (Reuters) – A leading indicator of U.S. non-residential construction activity fell for the third consecutive month in June, suggesting an anticipated construction recovery was still several months away.
The Architecture Billings Index fell 0.9 point to 46.3 points in June, according the American Institute of Architects (AIA). Any reading below 50 indicates contraction in demand for architects’ services, whose revenue predicts construction activity nine to 12 months in the future.
A separate index of project inquiries rose, however, to 58.1 from 52.6 in May. This measure is typically higher as multiple architecture firms compete for the same work.
“While a modest turnaround appeared to be on the way earlier in the year, the overall concern about both domestic and global economies is seeping into design and construction industry and adding yet another element that is preventing recovery,” AIA chief economist Kermit Baker said.
Demand is weakest in the institutional sector that includes government buildings, reflecting depressed government budgets, according to the monthly survey of architecture firms.
“The threat of the federal government failing to resolve the debt ceiling issue is leading to higher borrowing rates for real estate projects,” Baker said. “Should there actually be a default, we are likely looking at a catastrophic situation for a sector that accounts for more than 10 percent of overall GDP.”
Commercial property values fell to new lows in April and office vacancy rates are well above pre-recession lows, JPMorgan analyst Ann Duignan said in a note to clients.
“The recovery has yet to find solid ground and that the non-residential construction environment remains challenging,” she said. “We believe it is more likely that non-residential construction will not recover until 2012+.”
A depressed construction market has been a headwind for manufacturers of construction machinery and components that make up buildings’ infrastructure, such as electrical, cooling and security systems.
Most diversified industrial companies get at least some revenue from the non-residential construction sector, which includes office buildings, retail and warehouse space, and institutional buildings such as schools and hospitals.
Companies exposed to the sector include Honeywell International Inc (HON.N), Tyco International Ltd (TYC.N), Ingersoll Rand (IR.N), Johnson Controls (JCI.N), Eaton Corp (ETN.N), Caterpillar Inc (CAT.N), Deere & Co (DE.N) and Terex Corp (TEX.N).
European companies such as Siemens AG (SIEGn.DE), Schneider Electric SA (SCHN.PA) and lock maker Assa Abloy (ASSAb.ST) are also big players in the sector. (Reporting by Nick Zieminski, editing by Maureen Bavdek and Derek Caney)
RMW Architecture and Interiors of San Francisco earns $813,864 contract; threat looms of possible voter referendum to fight construction.
The site on Machin Avenue where the City Council has approved construction of a new city office building.Credit Brent Ainsworth
Two months after deciding to build a new downtown administrative office to house city of Novato employees, an architectural firm has been hired to get started with drawings and computer mockups.
A building of approximately 23,000 square feet is to be constructed at the existing parking lot on Machin Avenue at Cain Lane, across from the Novato Police Department. About 60 employees would work there, from planners and engineers to parks officials and the city manager, Michael Frank. The cost is expected to be about $15 million, and the bulk of money comes from funds formerly owed to the city’s general fund by the Novato Redevelopment Agency. A bond sale this spring was deemed successful, allowing for the financing of the new building.
Several people at Tuesday’s Novato City Council meeting acknowledged the stiff cost of those architectural services — $813,846 — and one businessman threatened to get a voter referendum going to put the city offices before a public vote. But the five-member council voted unanimously to award the contract to RMW Architecture and Interiors of San Francisco and expressed excitement about taking another step toward consolidating city assets in a “civic center” atmosphere.
“It will really have a lot of synergy and makes a lot of sense,” Mayor Madeline Kellner said after the vote, mentioning the proximity of the city offices to Novato City Hall and the Novato Police Department.
RMW emerged atop a list of 10 firms vying for the job, and three finalists were interviewed on June 13.
“It’s a great opportunity we see here, and we’re anxious to get started working on it,” said RMW Principal Bart McClelland. “We understand there are a lot of issues to get into very quickly.”
Most city employees have worked at 75 Rowland Way since the downtown cluster of bungalows were deemed unusable in 2006. The lease at Rowland costs the city about $750,000 a year, and that figure was a driving force in prompting the staff and council to move forward with finding a new permanent home.
Councilwoman Pat Eklund requested that story poles be installed to give Novato residents an idea about the mass and height of the building. McClelland said story poles are useful to a point, but computer imagery — including 3D animation — also can be an effective way to give people and idea what it’s like to walk around a new building. How to distribute such computer models is still to be determined.
Longtime Novato resident and business owner Henry Hautau said a group is considering a gathering of signatures to place a referendum on the ballot that would take the issue to a public vote. The owner of Finnegan’s Marin, Hautau said spending $15 million to $16 million on the building is irresponsible at a time when the city is laying off employees and cutting back services. He said taking downtown parking spaces away does not make any sense.
“I am greatly offended and confused by your decision to build offices downtown,” he said. “… It’s financially wasteful.”
Gail Wilhelm, a former Novato City Council member, counterattacked after Hautau’s comments, which she described as “a last-minute Hail Mary that is offensive, disrespectful and frankly dishonest.” She said centralizing city employees in a new Old Town complex has been in the works for 25 years and was “thoroughly aired and thoroughly investigated.” She said there is a list of 600 signatures in support of downtown offices.
In their comments, the council members agreed with Wilhelm’s stance. Jeanne MacLeamy reminded that the city employees used to work in 11 buildings, many of which were red-tagged by the fire marshal after “they were held together by termites holding their hands.” Carole Dillon-Knutson said it was the fourth or fifth time a proposal for a downtown office building had come before the City Council.
“This was the only site, after looking at so many sites, that worked,” Denise Athas said.
Kellner said it was not an overnight decision and due diligence took place.
“It’s Novato’s time,” Kellner said.
Activity in first half of year soars 40% over 2010 level and in May and June sets a new record; in good news for tenants, rent increases are still seen as modest.
Leasing activity in Manhattan in the first half of the year totaled 17.6 million square feet, the best six-month performance in 13 years and a 40% surge from the corresponding period of 2010, according to Cushman & Wakefield Inc. Meanwhile, activity in the last two months of the quarter was the strongest on record.
In yet another bullish sign, absorption—which measures the net change of occupied space in a given time—was a positive 3.2 million square feet. That marked the first time that measure has been positive for the first six months of the year since 2007.
“Leasing activity has been pretty impressive,” said Joseph Harbert, Cushman & Wakefield’s chief operating officer for he New York metro region.
All that activity helped shrink the overall average vacancy rate to 9.4% by the end of last month from 10.8% in the same period last year.
The surprising news for landlords—and the good news for tenants–was that despite the surge in deal volumes, the overall asking rents grew a mere 2% to an average of $55.52 a square foot.
“Increases are modest compared to the activity,” said Mr. Harbert. “This is still a relatively good [leasing] opportunity for tenants.”
Brokers at Cushman’s quarterly press briefing suggested several reasons for the disparity. One noted that the 9.4% vacancy rate still favors tenants and that once it hits 8%, which is widely considered a point where there is negotiating equilibrium between landlords and tenants, rents should shoot higher.
Another suggested some landlords were keeping quality space off the market, waiting for the market to further improve so they could fetch even richer numbers. Yet, a third suggested that the economy was still shaky enough where landlords didn’t want to quibble over price, especially not with credit-worthy tenants looking to lease significant blocks of space.
Some sub-markets in Manhattan are already seeing major increases. Mr. Harbert said rents in the Plaza District, the tony enclave favored by hedge funds and financial firms, were growing at twice the pace of the average, up 20% from the market trough.
Rents in the downtown market advanced more than in the other two business districts–midtown and midtown south. They jumped 4.2% to $39.38 a square foot. The market got a big boost from Condé Nast signing a 1 million square foot deal at 1 World Trade Center.
Source: Crain’s New York Business
Opens discussions with Westfield, which successfully ran retailing at original trade center; seeks plan for 360,000 square feet of shop and restaurant space that will be built.
In the last few weeks, the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey has started negotiations with The Westfield Group to try to finalize an agreement reached in 2008 to jointly develop the retail space at the World Trade Center site, sources close to the discussions said.
These sources said the Port wants to know by mid-fall if it can seal a deal with Westfield. That would give the agency enough time to either find another partner or move forward by itself in developing a plan for the approximately 360,000 square feet of retail space that will be initially built at the site. Roughly 200,000 square feet of that space is in the Calatrava transit hub, which is slated to open in 2014.
In 2008, the Port Authority and Westfield signed a letter of intent whereby the Port agreed to provide approximately $825 million toward the $1.45 billion project, with Westfield providing the other $625 million. However, that deal was based on projections of about 488,000 square feet of retail space. That total has shrunk, in part because there are no immediate plans to build one of Larry Silverstein’s three towers.
These sources said the two parties were discussing various economic issues but declined to be specific. A spokesman for the Port Authority declined to comment, and a spokeswoman for Australia-based Westfield didn’t return a call. Westfield has interests in and operates one of the world’s largest shopping center portfolios valued in excess of $58 billion with 119 properties in Australia, New Zealand, the United States and the United Kingdom.
Real estate experts said it made sense for the Port to focus on the retail portion of the site now that commercial tenant interest in the buildings is growing. Last month, the Port signed a 1 million-square-foot deal with Cond´ Nast for 1 World Trade Center. Meanwhile, published reports said Swiss financial giant UBS was considering moving into one of Mr. Silverstein’s towers.
Additionally, the Port doesn’t want to lose any significant retail tenants to its neighbor across West Street, the World Financial Center. There, owner Brookfield Office Properties plans a $250 million renovation of the retail space, which is slated to begin in October and run through 2013.
Prior to Sept. 11, 2001, Westfield had net leased the World Trade Center retail components, one of the highest-grossing shopping areas in the nation, which consisted of 427,000 square feet. In December 2003, to accelerate the rebuilding at the World Trade Center site, the Port acquired the retail net lease from Westfield.
Reduction of 20% pledged for construction of over 500 affordable-housing units at planned block-long project on Eleventh Avenue; similar deal eyed for Brooklyn’s Atlantic Yards.
New York construction unions have reached an agreement to cut the wages of members working on a massive residential project on the far West Side by 20%, sources said. The project, which will include more than 500 units of affordable housing, is being developed by the Gotham Organization Inc.
Meanwhile, Forest City Ratner Cos. has applied to the unions for similar wage cuts as it prepares to begin construction of its first residential tower at the long-planned Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn. There, at least 50% of the approximately 400 residential units will be affordable.
The unions, in conjunction with contractors, began cutting wages and changing work rules for certain projects back in 2009 as part of an effort to lower construction costs and jumpstart projects brought to a standstill by the recession. It was just such an agreement that was a critical element to moving forward with Forest City’s Frank Gehry-designed residential tower downtown. At one point, the developer had proposed capping the 76-story tower at roughly half its height, but that never happened. It opened earlier this year.
Typically, the union offers concessions that lower labor costs by 10% to 15%. However, unions make steeper cuts for developers building affordable housing or residential projects in the outer boroughs because they tend to command lower sale prices and rents. Additionally, non-union labor has made greater inroads into those sectors than in major commercial projects in Manhattan.
Spokesmen for the Building & Construction Trades Council of Greater New York, a union trade group, and Forest City declined to comment. Gotham President David Picket couldn’t immediately be reached.
In the last several weeks, Gotham has reached a deal to secure a $530 million construction loan from a group led by Wells Fargo to build what is known as Gotham West. The four-building complex will consist of about 1,240 residential units and take up almost an entire city block bounded by West 44th and West 45th streets and Tenth and Eleventh avenues. Construction on the project, which will also include a parking garage and 17,000 square feet of retail, is expected to begin in the third quarter of this year, according to the company’s website.
The Gotham development will include a 31-story tower located on Eleventh Avenue with about 700 units. Adjacent to the tower, another mid-rise building will house 297 affordable-housing units available to low-, moderate- and middle-income families. Further east, toward Tenth Avenue, two 14-story buildings will be situated atop a platform over the Amtrak tracks and will include an additional 243 units of affordable housing.
The loan would be another sign of improvement for the beleaguered construction industry, which suffered horribly as development came to a virtual standstill during the recession. Lately there have been numerous signs of life in the industry. Just last month, Boston Properties announced it had secured law firm Morrison & Foerster as an anchor tenant for an office building on West 55th Street and would resume construction on the property, which was halted during the recession.
Source: Crain’s New York Business
Demand for architectural design fell in April to the lowest point of the year.
The Architecture Billings Index, which indicates construction volume, decreased marginally to 47.6 in April from 50.5 in March, according to American Institute of Architects data released Wednesday.
The benchmark for the index is 50. Anything above that indicates an increase in architectural billings and anything below indicates a decrease. The AIA surveys a panel of member firms monthly, asking if billings increased, decreased, or stayed the same. The national association then weighs the responses for the index.
April was the first month in 2011 the index swung below 50.
The sharp decline in demand for architectural services has analysts scratching their heads. Kermit Baker, chief economist at AIA, said he is unsure whether to attribute the drop to an industry-wide reversal in demand for design or a bump in the road.
“The fact that most construction projects funded under the federal stimulus program have completed their design work, the anxiety around the possibility of a shutdown in the federal government in April, as well as the unusually severe weather in the Southeast had something to do with this falloff,” Baker said. “However, the majority of firms are reporting at least one stalled project in-house because of the continued difficulty in obtaining financing.”
Baker also echoed Redwood Trust CEO Martin Hughes’ sentiment when he said financing continues to be the main roadblock to recovery. Hughes testified before the Senate Banking Committee Wednesday.
The new projects inquiry index also experienced a sharp drop in April, falling to 55 from 58.7 a month prior, according to AIA.
The regional buildings index was highest in the Northeast at 51.2, followed by the Midwest at 51.1, the South at 48.3, and the West at 47.7. The index was the highest in the multifamily residential sector (53.9) followed by the commercial/industrial sector (49.9), the institutional sector (45.9) and the mixed practice sector (45.2).
