Construction boom continues beyond flood projects

IOWA CITY — Since FEMA-fueled projects began soon after the 2008 flood, Johnson County has been rife with construction and development.

Today, almost seven years after that flood, local construction continues in full force — but it's beginning to transition away from flood mitigation and rebuilding efforts to new projects spurred by urban renewal and facilities needs.

'We've seen that the flood-related projects are either in full swing or wrapping up,' said Wendy Ford, Iowa City economic development coordinator. 'That's continuing and thankfully we still have a healthy market for the private sector to be investing and building as well.'

University of Iowa

Arguably the three largest flood replacement projects belong to the University of Iowa, with the $176 million Hancher Auditorium, $77 million Art Building and roughly $150 million Voxman School of Music.

With those projects nearing completion in the next few years, UI officials have now set their sights on other projects spurred by necessary building renovations or replacements — the UI has 16 buildings more than 100 years old and the average building age is more than 40 years old — or to meet the growing student population with new residence halls.

Rod Lehnertz, interim vice president of finance and operations and director of planning, design and construction for UI Facilities Management, said managing that many projects requires a careful balance between maintaining existing building stock and prioritizing the most pressing needs.

'We keep spinning all of the plates,' he said. 'We take care of the stock of the buildings that we have and then we look forward to address needs of today's students and tomorrow's students and researchers.'

At the same time, Lehnertz said he doesn't expect the challenge of finding low prices or enough skilled workers to lessen any time soon.

'Those are going to remain challenges,' he said. 'We remain aware of the work going on and try to time bidding so hopefully it gains the best value.'

Iowa City Community School District

David Dude, chief operating officer with the Iowa City Community School District, said the district's many new school projects and renovations and/or additions to existing schools have been less affected by the massive UI projects due to their smaller size.

While some UI projects are hundred-million-dollar efforts, the majority of school district projects range from $4 million to $10 million.

'We haven't seen a whole lot of issue with those flood projects,' Dude said. 'We were worried we would, but they're such a different scope.'

One of the district's largest projects, the construction of Liberty High School in North Liberty, was bid earlier this month at $48 million to Iowa City's McComas Lacina. Work is set to start immediately and be completed in time for the 2017 fall semester.

Dude said the favorable bid came down to timing, with McComas Lacina just finishing a different local project and looking for the next venture at the time bids opened.

'Sometimes these things have to do with timing more than they have to do with the overall market itself,' Dude said. 'It really worked perfectly.'

Iowa City

Outside a few public projects such as the flood mitigation efforts behind the future Gateway Project or the multi-use construction planned for the corner of Linn and Court Streets, the large majority of projects taking place in Iowa City are in the private sector.

Last year, the city issued a total of 703 building permits, valued at roughly $153 million. That was a slight decrease from the 715 building permits worth $185 million in 2013.

In 2008, the city had 807 building permits valued at about $145 million.

Ford said it's likely the construction market would have been strong even without the flood work in the area. But he added that those projects only helped bring those contractors to Johnson County.

Now that the flood projects are winding down, those companies are more likely to vie for other projects as they open for bid.

'Obviously the post-food work was huge and a big part of all the construction activity in the recent five years or more. But without flood relief projects, I can imagine we would have sustained that level of construction activity around here,' she said.

'You can walk around and observe that it's still more active than it was in the mid-2000s, before the flood.'