According to the Pittsburgh Builders Exchange, bids are being taken by Tri-C Construction for a new 80-room Holiday Inn Express in Butler, PA. The new hotel will be on North Duffy Rd. across from the Butler VA Hospital in the Butler Crossings shopping center that is being developed by Tri-C’s parent company, Cedarwood Development. The property is the first of 2 hotels planned for the same corridor. Horizon Properties from Southpointe received approval from Butler Township to develop another 80-room hotel less than a mile away on New Castle Rd., this one a Hampton Inn flag.

The more inexplicable project is a third hotel but a few mile away in downtown Butler. The city redevelopment agencies received an RCAP grant to make an 80+ room hotel happen behind Main Street near McKean St. Developer J S Capital – the owners of the Fairfield Inn up in Slippery Rock – is reportedly involved in the Butler project, which will be a Marriott flag.

There are actually some fundamentals supporting these 200+ rooms of new hotels. For one, the gas industry is more steadily mobilizing in Butler County. Western Butler is adjacent to the more active areas in PA right now because of the Utica Shale exploration that is taking place in Lawrence and Mercer Counties. More importantly, the occupancy and revenue per room umbers for the limited hotels in the Butler area are relatively high. With a new medical center being built at the VA, visitation is expected to increase. The state aid for the downtown project also props up the fundamentals, reducing the private developers exposure significantly.

Ground was broken this past week for the $70 million Gardens at Market Square being developed by Millcraft and built by Turner Construction. While that was the biggest splash, construction is getting underway on other projects that were both under the radar and on the screen.

PJ Dick has started on a $12 million, 48,000 sq. ft. expansion of Fuhrer’s refrigerated warehouse and offices on South Side. Another warehouse project, a 68,322 sq. ft.  job for Restaurant Depot is getting underway in the Strip by design/builder Oliver/Hatcher Construction. Faros Properties picked Turner Construction to do the first phase of their renovations to the Washington Plaza Apartments, a $3 million project; and Carl Walker Construction has started repairs to the Washington Plaza parking garage.

McKeesport Area School District awarded contracts last week for its $15 million Founders Hall expansion. The successful contractors were Gurtner Construction for general; R & B Mechanical for HVAC; Wheels Mechanical for plumbing; and A-1 Electric for the electrical.

State and local governments – including school districts – have been plagued by emptier coffers and reduced tax revenues for several years. That reality has reduced capital spending from the public sector, although a number of larger projects have moved ahead. At the current moment, however, a handful of $15-30 million public jobs are bucking this trend.

Over the next 30-60 days these projects will bid: $18 million Holiday Park Elementary School in Plum (Aug. 26); $34 million East Liberty Transit Center (Sept. 5); $19 million Frazer Elementary/Middle School (Sept. 18); $30 million Cathedral of Learning Elevator Modernization (design/build due Oct. 10); and the $23 million Fox Chapel High (tentatively scheduled to go out mid-Oct.).

In the private sector, the $15 million Westmoreland Museum of Art took bids on its expansion from Jendoco, Massaro and James Construction. The $70 million Gardens at Market Square office/hotel development broke ground this week. Massaro Corp. was selected as the CM At-risk for the $14 million Meadville Medical Mall and a $2.5 million renovation to Pitt’s Barco Law Library. Turner was selected as CM for the $28 million Carnegie Science Center expansion. Dollar Bank awarded the contract for its new Richland Mall branch to MBM Contracting.

The West Virginia market is again active for western PA contractors. While the Ruby Hospital South Tower addition project is on hold temporarily, work at WVU rolls along. Last week the bids for the new art museum came in and the results were very competitive. March-Westin was low at $7,197,00 with Massaro at $7,297,000 and Landau at $7,298,000. The university has pre-qualified six contractors for its $80 million agricultural sciences building, which should come out in September and for the $20 million minor league baseball stadium, which will be a design/build competition.

The growing confidence in the economy has definitely made an impact on the activity level in the second quarter. As summer enters its second half, there are fewer hard bid opportunities out there but still eight or ten significant RFP’s for CM contracts, both agency and at-risk. The Carnegie Science Center is taking proposals for CM-Risk on its $30 million expansion from Mascaro, Massaro and PJ Dick. Bids should be taken soon for the fit-out of the new Noble Energy headquarters at Southpointe. There is unconfirmed word that Fluor Corp. reached a contract to serve as the EPC contractor for the Shell cracker facility near Monaca, a project that has not been officially green-lighted as yet. While due diligence for the plant continues, reports that engineering/construction firms like Flour and Jacobs Engineering are searching for space inspire confidence that a positive decision will be made.

For two weeks now there have been rumors about the CM selection for the $250 million Chevron corporate campus. I even received a call from a colleague in Las Vegas who had been recruited to come to Pittsburgh as a project executive. It appears now that the rumors of the Mascaro/Skanska team selection are true, even if no one at Chevron has confirmed. Construction is set to begin around Labor Day on what will ultimately be a campus similar to the Westinghouse complex in Cranberry Twp.

Another project with no official confirmation yet is the $14 million Jefferson ambulatory surgery center in Bethel Park. While no confirmation has come yet from Highmark, it appears Rycon Construction will be the CM at risk.

Two projects bid recently in Erie have come to differing conclusions. The $10 million Gannon rec center went to Building Systems Inc. The low bidder on the $20 million Transit Operations Center expansion for the Erie Metro Transit Authority general construction package – Perry Construction – has apparently withdrawn its bid. The EMTA is likely to re-bid the package rather than award the contract to second low bidder PJ Dick.