Interview: Brian Sudduth, President Miller Construction Company

Different look

The pandemic had a dramatic impact on businesses and more than a year later, the landscape is very different

Brian Sudduth

President – Miller Construction Company

How did Miller Construction cope with 2020’s specific set of circumstances? COVID affected every business in drastic ways. Unfortunately, many businesses have been affected extremely negatively. Our business also suffered, in the sense that we got really redirected. There were several jobs we were working on where the owner canceled construction. We were in the beginning stages, it wasn’t really clear what was going on, what was happening with capital.

We were starting a four-story office building, for example, and there’s no sign of starting that again. Now, what’s going to happen with the office industry is changing. It may be changing from multitenant buildings to single-tenant buildings. But I think the developers’ community is a little bit hesitant to make too much of a commitment until we have COVID behind us. Our backlog today looks extremely different than in January 2020.

How is technology impacting the design of industrial space and development? The main gateway for technology into the industrial market is e-commerce. We are building facilities right now that have miles of conveyors that run hundreds of feet per minute. We see distribution companies not relying on manned forklifts but unmanned forklifts and robots. I really believe the biggest development we’ve seen in the community is how they’re moving, how they’re sorting and handling their products internally when the goals are next-day or same-day delivery. The last-mile distribution for that is also driving an increase in technology because user interfaces have changed how people shop.

What kind of pickup have you experienced in the industrial marine segment? We’ve been fortunate enough to take on a contract to construct a 250-slip dry stack boat storage facility in Fort Lauderdale, and, definitely, the marine industry is a big part of our community. Looking around, you see marina expansions all over.

Which areas do you see as potential hotbeds for activity? I don’t necessarily know that there’s “that neighborhood” in Fort Lauderdale because we are pretty much landlocked here. One of the things that we are looking at, because of the markets we chase, is redevelopment. To have a last-mile distribution for next-day deliveries, you need to redevelop industrial areas in very dense, populated zones on the east side of Broward County, taking some of the older product that really doesn’t meet the need of the current distribution focus, demo and redevelop to meet demand.