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On February 21, 2012, the AGC announced that construction employment remains below peak levels in 329 out of 337 metro areas.

Not surprising, the hardest hit metro areas all took great advantage of the housing boom until the economic recession wiped out the demand – Phoenix-Mesa-Glendale, AZ, Lake Havasu City-Kingman, AZ, Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, CA, Las Vegas-Paradise, NV, and Chicago-Joliet-Naperville, IL experienced the greatest declines in construction employment as compared to peak levels. Although it appears that the housing industry is finally on the rebound, there are so many available homes and condominiums in these areas that a return to heavy residential construction is still years away.

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The construction industry is abuzz with talk of alternative funding mechanisms, specifically Public-Private Partnerships, aka PPP, aka P3s. The AGC PPP Task Force recently developed a White Paper to outline issues that contractors will confront with PPPs.  Contractors should be knowledgeable about PPPs – not just from a contractor’s perspective – but also from an entrepreneurial perspective.

As noted recently by our colleagues in Pillsbury’s Global Sourcing group:

“PPPs, if managed well by both SLGs [State and Local Governments] and service providers, can offer significant benefits to both parties, and ultimately the public-at-large. Realizing this potential will require changes in paradigms and behaviors on both sides of the table (SLGs acting more like businesses; service providers acting more like entrepreneurs). Those who are ready to embrace the future will be well-positioned to catch this building wave.”

The full article can be found here.  Are you in the best position to “catch the wave”?

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New York State’s Appellate Division, First Department, in VOOM HD Holdings LLC v. EchoStar Satellite L.L.C., recently adopted strict federal standards with respect to a party’s obligations to preserve documents prior to litigation. These standards were derived from the landmark Zubulake and Pension Committee opinions of Judge Shira Scheindlin of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. This is the first time that a New York appellate court has applied these standards to sanction a litigant for failing to suspend automatic data destruction practices once it “reasonably anticipated” litigation. The decision provides important clarity in the timing and scope of the preservation obligation. It also raises the bar for companies subject to the jurisdiction of New York state courts, many of whom had previously viewed the obligation to preserve as being triggered only by the commencement of litigation.

To learn more about this, click here to read the client alert that was written by Wayne Matus, John Davis and Aubrey Charette.

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An analysis performed by The Association of General Contractors reveals that Construction company employment rose in 28 states and the District of Columbia in 2011. While the increase in numbers is certainly encouraging, the AGC cautions that it is “too early to conclude that the industry is on a steady upswing.”  Especially with looming budget cuts and the potential resulting decrease in public construction.

The AGC’s press release can be accessed here.

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On January 17, 2012, the Supreme Court of the State of New York, Appellate Division, First Department, declined to follow and expressly overruled the insurance rule adopted in DiGuglielmo v. Travelers Prop. Cas., 6 A.D.3d 344 (N.Y. App. Div. 1st Dep’t 2004). The DiGuglielmo rule stated that “[a]n insurer is not required to disclaim on timelines grounds before conducting a prompt, reasonable investigation into other possible grounds for disclaimer.” Id. at 346.

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“In” and “out” of New York City that is. Roosevelt Island, in particular. Stanford withdrew its proposal to build a campus on New York City’s Roosevelt Island and a week later, the City agreed to provide 10 acres to Cornell plus $100 million in infrastructure improvements; Cornell will build a $2 Billion campus on that property. You can read Mayor Bloomberg’s quotes about it on Mayor Bloomberg’s company’s website here. (Surely there’s an antitrust violation somewhere in there.)

New Yorkers hope that the project will keep high tech software from fleeing to the suburbs. Bloomberg (the site — not the mayor) quotes the president of the New York City Economic Development Corporation as saying, “Software and applications need the kind of dense expertise that cities are full of.” If Pinsky is right, maybe Roosevelt Island will be the next Silicon Valley.

Cornell hired Skidmore, Owings & Merrell to design the project and it’s estimated that it will generate 20,000 construction jobs. It’s a bit early to say who the lucky 20,000 workers will be — or who their employer will be. Stay tuned.

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The Department of the Interior has opened the public comment period for the environmental impacts of the Atlantic Wind Connection (AWC) project. The project envisions a link between the proposed off shore wind farms in the Atlantic from Virgina to New Jersey and will provide an efficient means of transporting the power they produce to land. The project is backed by Google – so if you’re looking for adverse comments, you might want to search on Yahoo!

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Some things are truly amazing. A garage under construction in Cleveland collapsed and no one was killed or even injured. See pictures and the story here. There will be multiple investigations, of course, and somebody’s project will be dealing with a major curve ball.

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Chances are, you get your water from a public drinking water system, even though approximately two thirds of drinking water systems in this country are non-community systems — think campgrounds and schools. And the chances are that the system that provides your water needs an upgrade. The American Society of Civil Engineers has produced the second in a series of reports grading America’s infrastructure and has given the United States a grade of “D” for its water systems. You can see an executive summary of the report here and you’ll be able to download the entire report when it is released on December 16 at the ASCE’s website.

The water systems graded include systems for drinking water, and also water for industrial processes sewage systems. The report highlights the need for major investments in our country’s water systems infrastructure and the numbers are staggering. In 2010, the country needed to spend $91 Billion but only spent $36 Billion. That gap is expected to get worse, rising to $84 Billion in 2020 and then $143 Billion in 2040.

Good thing we have lots of extra tax dollars to spend. Oh wait. We don’t. Maybe PPP’s are the solution.