Tampa Bay Report

High-Rise Condos Help Heat Up Area Market

By Debra Wood

It may not compare to South Florida, the state's hottest geographic market, but contractors in the Tampa Bay area are keeping busy chasing a growing high-rise residential sector and health-care, retail and school projects that support the region's population influx.

"It's better than last year," said Steve P. Cona Jr., president/CEO of the Florida Gulf Coast Chapter of Associated Builders and Contractors. "There's definitely a lot of work going on and potential work coming up."

During the past four years, about 2,200 people a month have moved into the Tampa Bay area of Hillsborough and Pinellas counties. Lyle Blanden, president of J.O. DeLotto & Sons of Tampa, attributed much of the growth to baby boomers retiring or preparing to retire and low interest rates for home loans.

Condos

"Tampa is a very healthy market, particularly high-rise residential, as well as single-family homes," said Page McKee, senior vice president of Hardin Construction Co. of Tampa. "There are several thousand units planned for downtown."

Hardin is wrapping up construction on Parkside of One Bayshore, a $30 million, 17-story, 104-unit condominium for Crescent Resources of Charlotte. The residential units sit atop retail and parking levels. The company also has began construction on Grand Central at Kennedy for Mercury Advisors, a division of Merrill Lynch Investment Managers of Plainsboro, N.J. The $90 million, 300-unit residential project will include ground-floor retail and office condominiums.

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Batson-Cook Co. of Tampa has begun boring and sitework for the Towers of Channelside in downtown Tampa. The $80 million complex features two 24-story towers with 257 units above a four-story parking structure.

Pinnacle Group Holdings of Tampa is developing a $300 million project at Channelside. Skanska USA Building is serving as construction manager in an advisory capacity for the O2 Condos, one component of the proposed Pinnacle of Tampa Bay project. Sitework has begun for the residential portion.

Donald J. Trump of New York and SimDag-RoBEL of Tampa announced plans for Trump Tower Tampa, a $220 million, 52-story condominium project along the Hillsborough River, also in downtown Tampa. The 190 residences, priced from $700,000 to more than $6 million, are 98 percent sold. Sitework has begun. Bovis Lend Lease of Orlando, which has worked on Trump projects in Chicago and New York, will build the tower.

Support for New Residents

The School District of Hillsborough County has about 40 construction or renovation projects under way and about 50 in design. Across the bay, Pinellas County Schools has budgeted about $63 million for six projects planned for the 2005/2006 school year.

"The educational market is always playing catch-up in Florida," said Dave Marshall, with Batson-Cook, which is finishing an elementary and middle school in Hillsborough County.

Batson-Cook also is working on a 45,000-sq.-ft. children's science center at the Museum of Science & Industry in Tampa. This is the company's fifth project for the museum.

J.O. DeLotto & Sons expects to complete a new downtown Tampa elementary school and an attached 450-space parking garage in time for the fall start of classes.

In the post-secondary education market, Fred Hames, senior vice president of Skanska, reported an increase in community college projects. The Beck Group of Tampa is providing construction management services for a $15.6 million, 11-story residence at the University of Tampa. Collegiate Housing Foundation will own the building and lease it to the school.

Hospitals are gearing up, adding beds and services to care for the new residents and an aging population. Skanska serves as construction manager for Tampa General Hospital's $65 million four-story addition and parking garage.

"The foundation is in the ground. Tower cranes are set, and we're about to go vertical with the frame," Hames said.

Brasfield & Gorrie of Lake Mary broke ground this spring on All Children's Hospital in St. Petersburg, an eight-story, 300,000-sq.-ft. replacement facility and outpatient services center.

New residents also shop. McKee anticipates additional regional malls in the suburbs. Closer to downtown, Skanska is building a $30 million multilevel retail center developed by Morin Development Group of Tampa at the site of the former Walter Industries buildings.

Public Projects

More people require more public infrastructure. Skanska has broken ground and is going vertical on a $22.5 million, 16,400-sq.-ft. health-care facility for the Pinellas County Jail in Clearwater.

Road projects continue throughout the region. PCL Civil Constructors of Tampa is working on the 9-mi. reversible lanes bridge being built in the median of the Lee Roy Selmon Crosstown Expressway for the Tampa-Hillsborough County Expressway Authority.

Pier foundation problems caused a portion of the structure to collapse in April 2004. Remedial foundation work has added an estimated $78 million to the original $140 million project, now scheduled for completion in August 2006.

Gilbert Southern Corp. of Tampa is adding capacity along 3 mi. of Interstate 4, doubling it from two- to four-lanes in each direction near downtown. The $158.2 million project, scheduled for completion in 2008, will tie into the Downtown Tampa Interchange, currently under construction.

Granite Construction of Tampa is scheduled to complete that $79.5 million I-4/I-275 interchange next spring. The project includes eight new bridges and widening of 18 existing bridges.

Flatiron-Tidewater Skanska, a joint venture between Flatiron Construction Corp. of Longmont, Colo., and Tidewater Skanska of Virginia Beach, Va., is scheduled to begin construction in August on a $202 million project to improve State Road 60 interchanges near Tampa International Airport. The project will separate local from express traffic with collection/distributor roads.

Also at TIA, Clark Construction Group of Tampa is building a $67.3 million, six-story, 5,600-car parking garage and administrative building for the airport authority.

Not Everything Is Rosy

Despite unanimous agreement among industry experts that construction activity is bustling, the latest information from McGraw-Hill Construction Research and Analytics shows a decline in new 2005 contracts, with nonresidential off 20 percent from last year but residential up 4 percent.

For one thing, the office market remains slow, with virtually no speculative projects. Hardin recently completed a four-story, 138,000-sq.ft. build-to-suit building for Nielsen Media Research in Oldsmar.

There also have been concerns about labor shortages, which were exacerbated by all the repair work necessitated by last year's hurricanes.

"The rebuilding is taking its toll on labor and materials. It's making everyone run at 110 percent," J.O. DeLotto & Sons' Blanden said.

"Our challenge is going to be the shortage of workforce and manpower," ABC's Cona added. "The issue facing most of the subcontractors is the manpower issue."

Some subcontractors are becoming more selective about the jobs they bid on, only going after those they know they can finish with existing staff.

"I'm hearing about a lot of them getting backlogged," Cona said. "Subs don't want to make commitments and not be able to fulfill them because of manpower."

Useful Sources:

• School District of Hillsborough County, project list
  http://rossac2.sdhc.k12.fl.us/menu/menu.cfm
  
  
• Trump Tower Tampa
  http://www.trumptowertampa.com
  
  
• Parkside of One Bayshore
  http://www.crescent-resources.com/condos/onebayshore/default.asp
  
  
• The Towers at Channelside
  http://www.towersatchannelside.com
  
  
• Tampa Bay Interstates
  http://www.tbinterstates.com