January 30, 2012, 3:53 AM
EST

By Anna-Louise Jackson and Anthony Feld

Jan. 30 (Bloomberg) -- Private nonresidential construction may
pick up this year, as demand grows for new U.S. projects.

The Architecture Billings Index held at 52 last month, a sign
of expansion, according to the American Institute of
Architects. The commercial and industrial component -- a proxy
for private building activity -- climbed to 54.1 in December,
the highest in 10 months, the Washington-based association said
Jan. 18.

The monthly survey of U.S.-based architecture firms is a
leading indicator of nonresidential construction, said Kermit
Baker, chief economist for the association. “Pretty solid
readings in November and December suggest some modest
improvement” may be afoot, he said.

The Federal Reserve echoed that outlook in its Jan. 11 Beige
Book report, where it noted that demand for nonresidential real
estate has “improved in a number of districts.”

Spending on lodging, office, commercial and manufacturing
buildings grew 8.2 percent in November to $9.2 billion from a
year ago on a nonseasonally-adjusted basis, data from the
Census Bureau show. These types of commercial and industrial
projects are historically the first part of the nonresidential
industry to improve during economic expansion, Baker said.

Other indicators -- including vacancy rates -- “are pointing
toward a modest recovery,” said Rob McCarthy, a Chicago-based
analyst for Robert W. Baird & Co., who forecasts
“mid-single-digit growth” for nonresidential spending this
year.

Falling Office Vacancies

U.S. office vacancies fell in the fourth quarter to 17.3
percent, the lowest since 2009, from 17.4 percent in the prior
period and 17.6 percent a year earlier, according to Reis Inc.,
a New York property-research company.

Inquiries for commercial building projects -- another component
of the Architecture Billings Index -- also suggest “we are
likely past trough,” as a multi-year recovery “could begin to
gain some traction in 2012,” Ann Duignan, a New York- based
analyst at JPMorgan Chase & Co., wrote in a Jan. 18 report.
The index of inquiries for new work was 64 in December, after
reaching an almost five-year high of 65 the previous month, the
association said.

This makes stocks of companies that design privately-funded
projects in industries such as manufacturing and utilities
particularly attractive, said Burt White, chief investment
officer at LPL Financial Corp. in Boston. Caterpillar Inc., the
world’s largest manufacturer of construction and mining
equipment, is the “poster child” for this industry, he said.

Beating Estimates

Caterpillar reported fourth-quarter earnings Jan. 26 that beat
analysts’ estimates, as revenue in its construction industries
grew 31 percent, to $5.355 billion, from a year earlier. The
Peoria, Illinois-based company is forecasting total U.S.
construction spending “to finally begin to recover” this year
after declining since 2004, with nonresidential-building
construction up 5 percent, it said in a statement.

CNH Global NV, which manufactures agricultural and construction
equipment, and Oshkosh Corp. are scheduled to report earnings
for the quarter ended Dec. 31 tomorrow.

“It’s hard to go wrong with these companies,” said White, who
helps oversee about $315 billion. “We have a big infrastructure
and industrial theme in our portfolio right now.”

For Caterpillar, “demand for construction equipment is
improving,” as customers continue to rebuild their fleets, it
said Jan. 26. McCarthy has an “outperform” recommendation on
the company, which is forecasting that total revenue will be in
the range of $68 billion to $72 billion this year.

Earnings ‘Upside’

Westport, Connecticut-based Terex Corp. and Oshkosh, in
Oshkosh, Wisconsin, also provide “upside to earnings estimates
in the mid-term” because of their exposure to the U.S.
construction industry, Duignan said. She raised these stocks to
“overweight” from “neutral” earlier this month; McCarthy also
recently upgraded Terex to “outperform” from “neutral.”

Shares of Terex, which makes aerial work platforms and cranes,
and Oshkosh, a commercial-truck manufacturer, have outperformed
the market by 98 percent and 55 percent since Oct. 3, 2011,
when the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index fell to a one-year
low. This followed almost 7 months of underperformance, when
Terex and Oshkosh shares lagged behind the S&P 500 by 59
percent and 43 percent.

Manitowoc Co., Ingersoll-Rand Plc and Illinois Tool Works Inc.
also have large end-market exposure to this industry, said
McCarthy, who maintains “outperform” recommendations on these
companies. Manitowoc makes cranes used in construction;
Ingersoll-Rand’s products include air-conditioning systems.

‘Mood is Changing’

The “mood is changing now” for nonresidential construction,
according to Eaton Corp., and the electrical- products maker is
forecasting “continued recovery into 2012,” Chairman and Chief
Executive Officer Alexander Cutler said on a Jan. 26 conference
call.

Even so, the Cleveland-based company reported operating
earnings of $1.08 a share for the period ended Dec. 31, missing
the average analyst estimate of $1.11, in part because
customers in its U.S. electrical business delayed shipments,
Cutler said in a statement. The revenue shortfall probably was
driven by temporary factors and shouldn’t have “a significant
impact” on sales this year, he said. McCarthy has an
“outperform” recommendation on the company.

Nonresidential construction exhibits “late-cycle” growth
because the design and building process may take several years
from inception to completion, said Russell Price, a senior
economist at Ameriprise Financial Inc. in Detroit. As a result,
companies planning projects must have confidence in the
economic outlook, he said.

“Developers have to see not only that demand has improved, but
that the improvements are sustainable,” Price said.

Expanding U.S. Economy

The U.S. economy grew at a 2.8 percent annual rate in the three
months ended Dec. 31 after rising 1.8 percent in the previous
quarter, which was less than the median forecast of 3 percent
in a Bloomberg News survey. Meanwhile, payrolls expanded by
200,000 in December, following a revised 100,000 gain in
November, Labor Department data show.

“The tone in nonresidential construction is changing” after
years of pessimism, Price said. “We’re finally starting to see
this sector perk up.”

Even so, the jobless rate remains elevated by historic
standards -- at 8.5 percent in December compared with less than
5 percent before the 18-month recession began in late 2007
--and private nonresidential spending is about 33 percent below
its January 2008 peak, so “there’s still a ways to go,” Price
said.

Later Rebound

Lackluster construction spending is a result of the economy’s
sluggishness, Baker said. The architecture association’s
billing index historically has led improvements in building
activity by about nine to 12 months; because this recovery has
been so weak, a construction rebound is coming later in the
economic cycle as “companies don’t need to add new facilities
until they’re seeing growth,” he said.

Illinois Tool Works, which makes fasteners, is forecasting a
“modest recovery” this year, with global growth in its
construction-products segment between 3 percent and 5 percent,
Vice Chairman David Parry predicted at the Glenview-based
company’s Dec. 2 investor meeting. “I think we’ve hit bottom,”
he said.

--Editors: Melinda Grenier, Daniel Moss

To contact the reporters on this story: Anna-Louise Jackson in
New York at ajackson36@bloomberg.net; Anthony Feld in New York
at afeld2@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Anthony Feld
at afeld2@bloomberg.net

Read the rest here:
Construction Rises as Architects Signal Nonresidential Rebound

SIMSBURY—

— Construction work at Grist Mill Commons, the first
development to be built using the new "planned area" zoning
regulation, has started months ahead of time thanks to this
year's unseasonably warm, dry weather.

Once completed, the project will add 20 tri-level townhouses,
88 upscale apartments, a restaurant and office space near the
corner of West Street and Grist Mill Road. Construction on the
apartments was originally scheduled to begin this spring.

Ron Janeczko, developer and partner of Farmington-based
Landworks Development LLC, said the mild winter weather this
season has provided an opportunity for construction crews to
resume work earlier than anticipated. He added that crews have
already excavated the front portion of the 5-acre parcel where
the 300-year-old grist and saw mill building sits. Crews were
also able to get some work in to control drainage.

The newly renovated restaurant at 77 West St. is expected to
open within the next couple of months, said Town Planner Hiram
Peck. Construction crews have been working on a 90-space
parking lot outside the building, which will also house a new
office for Landworks Realty, currently based out of Farmington.

The project, which was unanimously approved by the zoning
commission on April 4, is the first to be approved under the
town's planned area development zoning regulation, which went
into effect in September 2010. It was developed with the
intention of creating "attractive, livable, environmentally
wholesome and pedestrian-friendly public spaces" in Simsbury, according to the
town's website.

Plans to construct upscale town homes, commercial space and
apartments perfectly fits into the mixed-use focus of the
regulation, Peck said.

"It's exactly keeping with what we had envisioned for the
town," he said.

The roughly $30 million project is expected to take another
2-plus years to complete.

Five buildings with a total of 20 townhouses are to be built on
a 2-acre lot adjacent to that of the restaurant. Each will have
with two bedrooms, a den and two-and-a-half bathrooms and will
range in size from 1,800 to 2,100 square feet. The development,
which overlooks the mill pond and gorge, will be called Mill
Pond Crossing.

The largest area, about 10.5 acres off Grist Mill Road, will be
converted into apartments called Grist Mill Commons, Janeczko
said. Eighty-eight units will be built, of which four will be
free-standing and 84 single-level with private garages and
elevator access. Both 1- and 2-bedroom units are included in
the plans and range in size from 900 to 1,500 square feet.

"We are building this as if we would be living there," said
Janeczko, a Farmington resident, in
reference to his business partner Chris Nelson, also a
Connecticut native. "We're from here, we live here, we've
raised our kids here.

"Our vision is to create a place where people will want to
live, where they will be happy and comfortable."

Excerpt from:
Construction Resumes At Grist Mill Commons In Simsbury

Private nonresidential construction may pick up this year, as
demand grows for new U.S. projects.

The Architecture Billings Index held at 52 last month, a sign
of expansion, according to the American Institute of Architects. The
commercial and industrial component -- a proxy for private
building activity -- climbed to 54.1 in December, the highest
in 10 months, the Washington-based association said Jan. 18.

The monthly survey of U.S.-based architecture firms is a
leading indicator of nonresidential construction, said Kermit
Baker, chief economist for the association. “Pretty solid
readings in November and December suggest some modest
improvement” may be afoot, he said.

The Federal Reserve echoed that outlook in its
Jan. 11 Beige Book report, where it noted that demand for
nonresidential real estate has “improved in a number of
districts.”

Spending on lodging, office, commercial and manufacturing
buildings grew 8.2 percent in November to $9.2 billion from a
year ago on a nonseasonally-adjusted basis, data from the
Census Bureau show. These types of commercial and industrial
projects are historically the first part of the nonresidential
industry to improve during economic expansion, Baker said.

Other indicators -- including vacancy rates -- “are pointing
toward a modest recovery,” said Rob McCarthy, a Chicago-based
analyst for Robert W. Baird & Co., who forecasts
“mid-single-digit growth” for nonresidential spending this
year.

Falling Office Vacancies

U.S. office vacancies fell in the fourth quarter to 17.3
percent, the lowest since 2009, from 17.4 percent in the prior
period and 17.6 percent a year earlier, according to Reis Inc.,
a New York property-research company.

Inquiries for commercial building projects -- another component
of the Architecture Billings Index -- also suggest “we are
likely past trough,” as a multi-year recovery “could begin to
gain some traction in 2012,” Ann
Duignan, a New York- based analyst at JPMorgan Chase &
Co., wrote in a Jan. 18 report. The index of inquiries for new
work was 64 in December, after reaching an almost five-year
high of 65 the previous month, the association said.

This makes stocks of companies that design privately-funded
projects in industries such as manufacturing and utilities
particularly attractive, said Burt White, chief investment
officer at LPL Financial Corp. in Boston. Caterpillar Inc. (CAT), the world’s largest
manufacturer of construction and mining equipment, is the
“poster child” for this industry, he said.

Beating Estimates

Caterpillar reported fourth-quarter earnings Jan. 26 that beat
analysts’ estimates, as revenue in its construction industries
grew 31 percent, to $5.355 billion, from a year earlier. The
Peoria, Illinois-based company is forecasting total U.S.
construction spending “to finally begin to recover” this year
after declining since 2004, with nonresidential-building
construction up 5 percent, it said in a statement.

CNH
Global NV (CNH), which manufactures agricultural and
construction equipment, and Oshkosh Corp. (OSK) are scheduled to report
earnings for the quarter ended Dec. 31 tomorrow.

“It’s hard to go wrong with these companies,” said White, who
helps oversee about $315 billion. “We have a big infrastructure
and industrial theme in our portfolio right now.”

For Caterpillar, “demand for construction equipment is
improving,” as customers continue to rebuild their fleets, it
said Jan. 26. McCarthy has an “outperform” recommendation on
the company, which is forecasting that total revenue will be in
the range of $68 billion to $72 billion this year.

Earnings ‘Upside’

Westport, Connecticut-based Terex Corp. (TEX) and Oshkosh, in Oshkosh,
Wisconsin, also provide “upside to earnings
estimates in the mid-term” because of their exposure to the
U.S. construction industry, Duignan said. She raised these
stocks to “overweight” from “neutral” earlier this month;
McCarthy also recently upgraded Terex to “outperform” from
“neutral.”

Shares of Terex, which makes aerial work platforms and cranes,
and Oshkosh, a commercial-truck manufacturer, have outperformed
the market by 98 percent and 55 percent since Oct. 3, 2011,
when the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index fell to a one-year
low. This followed almost 7 months of underperformance, when
Terex and Oshkosh shares lagged behind the S&P
500 by 59 percent and 43 percent.

Manitowoc Co. (MTW), Ingersoll-Rand Plc (IR) and Illinois Tool Works Inc. (ITW) also have large
end-market exposure to this industry, said McCarthy, who
maintains “outperform” recommendations on these companies.
Manitowoc makes cranes used in construction; Ingersoll-Rand’s
products include air-conditioning systems.

‘Mood is Changing’

The “mood is changing now” for nonresidential construction,
according to Eaton Corp. (ETN), and the electrical-
products maker is forecasting “continued recovery into 2012,”
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Alexander Cutler said on a
Jan. 26 conference call.

Even so, the Cleveland-based company reported operating
earnings of $1.08 a share for the period ended Dec. 31, missing
the average analyst estimate of $1.11, in part because
customers in its U.S. electrical business delayed shipments,
Cutler said in a statement. The revenue shortfall probably was
driven by temporary factors and shouldn’t have “a significant
impact” on sales this year, he said. McCarthy has an
“outperform” recommendation on the company.

Nonresidential construction exhibits “late-cycle” growth
because the design and building process may take several years
from inception to completion, said Russell Price, a senior economist at Ameriprise
Financial Inc. in Detroit. As a result, companies planning projects
must have confidence in the economic outlook, he said.

“Developers have to see not only that demand has improved, but
that the improvements are sustainable,” Price said.

Expanding U.S. Economy

The U.S. economy grew at a 2.8 percent annual
rate in the three months ended Dec. 31 after rising 1.8 percent
in the previous quarter, which was less than the median
forecast of 3 percent in a Bloomberg News survey. Meanwhile,
payrolls expanded by 200,000 in December, following a revised
100,000 gain in November, Labor Department data show.

“The tone in nonresidential construction is changing” after
years of pessimism, Price said. “We’re finally starting to see
this sector perk up.”

Even so, the jobless rate remains elevated by historic
standards -- at 8.5 percent
in December compared with less than 5 percent before the
18-month recession began in late 2007 --and private
nonresidential spending is about 33 percent below its January
2008 peak, so “there’s still a ways to go,” Price said.

Later Rebound

Lackluster construction spending is a result of the economy’s
sluggishness, Baker said. The architecture association’s
billing index historically has led improvements in building
activity by about nine to 12 months; because this recovery has
been so weak, a construction rebound is coming later in the
economic cycle as “companies don’t need to add new facilities
until they’re seeing growth,” he said.

Illinois Tool Works, which makes fasteners, is forecasting a
“modest recovery” this year, with global growth in its
construction-products segment between 3 percent and 5 percent,
Vice Chairman David Parry predicted at the Glenview-based
company’s Dec. 2 investor meeting. “I think we’ve hit bottom,”
he said.

To contact the reporters on this story: Anna-Louise Jackson in
New York at ajackson36@bloomberg.net;
Anthony Feld in New York at afeld2@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Anthony Feld
at afeld2@bloomberg.net

Read this article:
Construction Rises as Architect Billings Show U.S. Nonresidential Rebound

By
Andrew Barksdale
Staff writer

Another major private investment is planned for Bragg Boulevard
by the developer of the Villagio luxury apartments.

Fayetteville businessman Rajan Shamdasani unveiled his plans
last week for a $3.5 million office building called The
Palazzo. The three-story building, to be on vacant land in
front of the apartments, will feature Mediterranean-style
stucco, a rooftop garden with palm trees and a cupola.

The upscale building would be in sharp contrast to much of the
boulevard's landscape of used car dealers, older storefronts
and empty lots north of Sycamore Dairy Road.

Shamdasani opened the Villagio apartments last fall. The
Italian-inspired complex is a $20 million investment, separate
from the commercial building being proposed.

In 2009, the city and county awarded tax incentives for the
apartment complex with a combined worth of about $500,000 over
five years. Local officials hope the residential project sparks
a revitalization to the boulevard corridor.

Shamdasani said he'll apply for additional tax incentives for
The Palazzo. He hopes to start construction by the end of this
year. The building will have 31,300 square feet.

"This building will only enhance the value of what we are doing
out there and what we are seeing happening on Bragg Boulevard,"
said Shamdasani, president of American Uniform Sales.

Already, "for sale" signs have begun popping up along the
boulevard in the vicinity of Villagio.

Ranny Nimocks, a commercial real estate agent who has property
listed on the boulevard, said any new construction has a
positive impact on property values and attracts other
development.

The first phase of Villagio was completed last year. Of the 105
available units, 81 have been leased, Shamdasani said. Monthly
rents range from $770 to $1,420. Construction on a second phase
is expected to begin this summer, with two buildings and a
total of 132 units.

Last year, Shamdasani solicited five designs from three firms
for his commercial building. He received input from people in
the community and those affiliated with the
Fayetteville-Cumberland County Chamber of Commerce. They helped
him select the winning design and name.

"It was my favorite choice," Shamdasani said.

He said he has a pending lease contract for the third floor
penthouse office, and he is looking to lease or sell other
space in the office building. The cupola is an ode to the
Market House, he said.

View original post here:
Villagio to add office building to Bragg Boulevard site

Originally published January 27, 2012 at
5:40 PM | Page modified January 27, 2012 at 7:36 PM

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