NEW YORK CONSTRUCTION COSTS/ECONOMY SET TO RISE?

Posted by Leonard Steinberg on July 8th, 2011

The past few weeks have been a hive of activity with developers snapping up development sites throughout the city: yes, the new development market is waking up and it is waking up with a LOUD BANG.

These are some of the projects in the pipeline:  The Drake Hotel site, One 57, 150 Charles Street, One Madison Park, 1107 Broadway, The Seminary building, The Hudson Yards multiple buildings, 508 West 24th Street, 212 West 18th Street, The St.Vincent’s site, 130 West 12th Street, One Abington Square, 220 Park Avenue South…..and the list goes on. What all this amounts to is a HUGE, unprecedented, simultaneous demand on the construction industry. Break that down further and look out for increased labor costs, lower unemployment, increased costs for commodities, increased costs for fixtures and finishes, additional traffic and congestion, over-worked lawyers, engineers, architects, ad agencies, brokers…..

All this could give a tremendous boost to the New York economy, but this boost will have a down-side too.