Interview: Fred Lay, President

unsustainable and that, by autumn 2021, when the pandemic has by-and-large ended, people will return to their homes in New York, California, and other cities, tempering prices.

Also, Tampa does not appear to be as popular among millennials homebuyers as other parts of the country. Among the leading metros selling homes to this coveted cohort, Tampa ranks near the bottom of the list (44.54% of homes sold in Tampa are sold to millennials).

One by-product of the pandemic is the boom in multiuse construction, not just in Tampa but across the country. But such construction is facing an imminent challenge in the Tampa region as a new ordinance is being discussed by city authorities that could limit the number of apartment buildings constructed. Driven by fears surrounding the ability to evacuate the city Fred Lay

President & Founder Construction Services, Inc.

What are some of your major takeaways from 2020 regarding the local construction sector?

Eighty percent of our work is in Tampa Bay, although we work throughout the state of Florida. We do a lot of industrial and medical facilities. Last year was teed up to be a great year and by all accounts it would have been one of the best years we’ve had as a company. The onset of the pandemic certainly slowed us down, although as a general contractor we were still considered essential, so we never stopped. Having said that, many of our projects were put on hold but we were able to make it through the year without any layoffs. Revenue was down, which was disappointing. Last year, we learned how to manage a crisis because nobody had been through this before. We were making the best decisions we could with the information we had. I think the main thing that kept us going through last year was our reputation, maybe not for a $10 million job but certainly for $3 million jobs.

How have labor and construction costs weighed on your bottom line?

Pre-COVID, there was so much construction work going on that we could not get enough workers to do what subcontractors could ultimately do. We did not see as much of that last year because, especially with Orlando’s amusement parks being closed down, we had 5,0006,000 construction workers come to the Tampa Bay market. The cost of materials probably stayed consistent throughout the pandemic. Toward the fourth quarter of last year, we had to work around some supply chain issues. HVAC units were sitting in warehouses that needed a $5 component but we simply could not get that component because it was from another country.

What is your focus for the near term?

With some of the sectors coming back, my focus is trying to get ready for that. Some of that is through recruitment and I think we will have to bring on more staff to manage the new demand. This is a good economic indicator for the Tampa Bay area.