from wbez.org
Hundreds of Chicago public schools collectively need more than $3 billion in repairs — including leaky roofs, unreliable boilers, and decaying windows that are made worse year after year as critical needs are deferred.
And yet, school staff, parents, and students have no way of knowing when — or if — their buildings will ever get attention from the cash-starved school district. (read more)
from chicagoconstructionnews.com
Illinois ranks near the middle in US construction employment growth, according to data Labor Department data reported by the Associated General Contractors of America (AGCA).
Overall, in between March and April, 800 additional jobs were created between March and April, bringing the total to 225,800. In the past year, 7,000 new jobs were added, an increase of 3.2 percent, from the employment total last year of 218,800. (read more)
from Chicagolandconstructionnews.com
The long empty Cook County Hospital building is one step closer to getting a new lease on life as two separate hotel properties and office and retail spaces thanks to $135 million in financing.
According to the Chicago Tribune, construction on the site is set to begin in about two weeks. The 14-acre site will see as many as five development phases and will include office spaces as well as some apartments. The hospital has sat unoccupied since 2002 and this facelift has been long awaited. (read more)
With the continued and growing emphasis on sustainability in construction we could be on the verge of a radical shift in how we think about the current stock of buildings. The time may be coming when we stop planning for building replacement, and instead plan for building reuse. That in turn would significantly change the roles of designers and builders.
Continue reading Finding New Buildings in the Dust of the Old
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The housing industry has proceeded at a red-hot pace for several years running. An all-time record was set in 1998, when 886,000 new-site single family homes were sold. That represented a 10% gain from the robust total of 804,000 homes sold in 1997, and an 8.1% rise from the prior record of 819,000 units in 1977. Single-family housing construction accounted for $48 million of the total $125 million generated in the industry.
From Chicago Agent Magazine
Eighty percent of U.S. metro areas are lacking in single-family home construction, and few areas are in greater need than Chicagoland, according to a new analysis from the National Association of Realtors.
Comparing home construction to job gains from 2013 through 2015, NAR found that among the 171 metro areas it studied, Chicagoland’s housing need is the fifth-worst in the nation, with 94,457 permits required to maintain the historical equilibrium of 1.6 jobs to every single-family permit.
Lawrence Yun, NAR’s chief economist, says this is a problem that has persisted since the downturn.
“Inadequate single-family home construction since the Great Recession has had a detrimental impact on the housing market by accelerating price growth and making it very difficult for prospective buyers to find an affordable home – especially young adults,” Yun said. “Without the expected pick-up in building as job gains rose in recent years, new and existing inventory has shrunk, prices have shot up and affordability has eroded, despite mortgage rates at or near historic lows.”
Here is NAR’s full top 10 list:
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