C&D News

MORE METAL AHEAD?

Metal building systems, most frequently used for industrial and warehouse structures, will continue to dot the landscape in North America, one forecast has predicted.

According to a report by the Freedonia Group Inc., Cleveland, demand for metal building systems in the U.S. has been forecast to rise 5% annually through the year 2002, reaching the $5 billion mark in that year.

The industrial and warehouse markets remain the largest for buildings with metal roofs and wall panels. Systems have also been developed with metal components fitted with non-metal outer coverings for the retail, commercial and institutional markets.

Bewteen 1987 and 1997, new construction of metal buildings was growing at a double-digit annual rate. Demolition contractors should begin seeing more metal building projects on their schedules in the first half of the next century.

FLAT CONSTRUCTION NUMBERS PREDICTED

The number of jobsites channeling materials to C&D debris recyclers may decline slightly in 1999, if one study proves accurate.

A 3% construction spending increase in the highway and utility infrastructure segment should help overall construction numbers stay stable in 1999. Projections by FMI Corp., Raleigh, N.C., call for slight drop-offs in both the residential and commercial/industrial segments in 1999. While the commercial/industrial segment was also relatively flat in 1998 (up 2%), if the residential prediction holds true it will curb a 9% growth spurt recorded by the that segment in 1998.

“Nearly everyone who could possibly purchase a new house had already done so” by late 1998, according to Thomas R. Loy, senior economist for FMI Corp. “Single-family construction has far outpaced its demographic drivers,” he adds.

“Restraint will predominate” in the speculative office market, Loy predicts, while the construction of new retail stores will decline another 5% in 1999 after dropping 6% in 1998.

In the industrial segment, the study notes that manufacturers continue to favor investment in new equipment over brick-and-mortar expansions.

The federal government Santa Claus sack known as TEA-21 could fuel a 7% increase in highway construction spending, FMI Corp.’s Loy predicts. 4% construction growth is predicted for the telecommunications and other utility segments.

Loy concludes that after a 12 to 18-month “downshift,” the U.S. economy should then “keep right on moving ahead. But we don’t really know what’s out there in the darkness, and a very prudent, cautious aggressiveness is the proper stance for now.”