Most of the news coming out of the hospitals of late has been negative and the prospects for hospital construction have certainly been that way for several months one project moving ahead is the 100-space Luna Parking Deck in Shadyside for UPMC. The $18 million job is due June 6. UPMC has asked Mascaro, Massaro, Mosites, PJ Dick & Turner for bids. You can see details at the Builders Exchange http://www.pbe.org/ipin/ProjectDetail.asp?txtPID=2012-00D0. Highmark’s medical mall in Wexford is apparently over budget but there are efforts to VE the project so that construction can stay on schedule.

On a different front, there was an interesting panel discussion of financing conditions for commercial real estate at NAIOP’s monthly meeting this morning. The takeaway was that earnings pressures are pushing underwriting standards to be looser. Veteran lenders Jack Shelly of Dollar Bank and Claudia Steeb of HFF both expressed concern that lenders were beginning to ‘stretch’ to make deals happen – just like in 2006-2007. Given the underbuilding of 2009-2011, a swing to the loose credit side probably wouldn’t create the crash we experienced at the end of 2008 but few bankers thought we’d be talking about loose credit again in 2013.