CONSTRUCTION & INFRASTRUCTURE INTERVIEW
Busier than ever Lower tax revenue will likely hurt public projects but residential continues to soar
Brian Diehl Regional Vice President – Pennoni
How how have you seen demand develop in the past year? We’ve been very lucky in that we’ve been busier than ever in the past year and I don’t see that slowing down. But in Florida, the No. 1 revenue generator was tourism and there was a downturn starting last March. The tax revenue going to the government agencies will certainly be less than in the last few years, so we expect some impact on public projects. That being said, the residential market is getting hotter and hotter. We can’t keep up with the residential work that is coming in throughout the state. This will probably balance the work we potentially lose in the public sector. I think between low interest rates and low taxes in Florida, people can now afford things that maybe they could not previously, so this is also bolstering demand for our services. What areas of Tampa Bay are seeing the greatest new development activity? Pinellas County is pretty built out, so it’s more redevelopment activity taking place here. Pushing out the I-4 Corridor from Tampa to Orlando, there’s a lot of room for new development. This means infrastructure along this corridor, including transit, transportation, water and sewer, will also need to be added or upgraded. Some towns along this corridor are building master plans where they envision doubling the size of the towns in the next few years. We’re having to hire additional crews and environmental scientists for these residential projects and we see this continuing in the years to come. What are the major trends in the market and what are your top near-term priorities? We have a group at Pennoni that handles sustainability
and resilience. In Florida, sea level rise is a big factor that we already design for and it will continue to be a major factor in development. Municipalities are amending their codes to account for this. The FEMA floodplain maps are being amended again as well. My top priority is diversification between public and private work. As a company, we’re around the 50-50 mark. During economic downturns, the public work typically gets us through this. It could possibly be different in the next few years. We’re very excited that we’re not seeing a slowdown in our proposals, which demonstrates that there is no near-term downturn. We’re getting new requests for proposals every day and the developers want to move fast, especially with over 1,000 people a day moving here. The engineering firm that can meet the developer’s needs is the one that is successful. www.capitalanalyticsassociates.com
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