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.

Perhaps it means nothing but the list of contractors prequalifying for the $80 Agricultural Sciences building at WVU is refreshingly short. The responses to the RFQ have not actually gone in yet so the list could further shrink but the attendees at the mandatory pre-proposal conference included only Mascaro, Massaro/Clark, PJ Dick, Turner, Walsh and Whiting-Turner. During the last few years a project that size drew a handful of national contractors to the table, so having a project involving only contractors with regional offices in Pittsburgh is a welcome change. Again, the list could be indicative of no shift in trend – the project’s size is a bit awkwardly in between large and small – but any relief from the hypercompetitive frenzy of 2009-2013 is a good thing.

WVU awarded the $2.6 million site prep package, which bid publicly earlier, to PJ Dick.

Hospitals are making the other news today. The $14 million surgical center that Highmark is building at the Jefferson Hospital medical center in Bethel Park is out for CM at Risk proposals. UPMC is doing scope reviews with the low bidders on its $20 million Luna Parking Garage. Last week Armstrong Hospital took similar proposals from AIM, A. Martini, Landau, Massaro, MBM and Rycon for its $5 million emergency dept. expansion.  Landau, Martini and Massaro have been short-listed for interviews.

On Thursday, Chevron is interviewing the Mascaro/Skanska and Massaro/Clark teams for the construction management of their new $250 million regional headquarters.

Perhaps because it is the first week of June, this one was a fairly uneventful week for construction news – with one notable exception explored below.

The bigger projects on the market publicly-funded higher education jobs. At Indiana University, bids for the $5 million Dining Café and the $28 million Keith-Leonard Halls are bidding; the $12 million Becht Hall conversion at Clarion is now due on the 20th and Penn State put out the $40 million West Campus Steam Plant. On the private side of the market there are some sub packages out for the $73 million Gardens at Market Square from Turner and interviews are being conducted as part of the construction management selection for the $250 million Chevron office. Google made another splash in the new this week with the announcement that they will be adding another 50,000 square feet to their space at Bakery Square. A. Martini & Co. should be starting work on the space by July.

What was noteworthy this week was Wednesday’s passage of Senate Bill 1, the first salvo from the PA legislature in the effort to increase the funding for infrastructure construction. Following the recommendations of the governor’s Transportation Funding Advisory Commission (TFAC), the Senate used every revenue-creation measure in the 2011 TFAC report to add $1.4 billion to the 2013-2014 budget for bridge/highway work. Five years out, the Senate’s bill would add $2.5 billion to the transportation funding – $1.9 billion of which would go to bridge/highway construction. The biggest source of the funding – and the most controversial – is the lifting of the cap on the wholesale gas tax, which could add 28.5 cents to the price of gas by 2018.

It’s important to remember that TFAC’s conclusion was that it would take an immediate and sustained increase of $3.5 billion each year to catch up and maintain the decay on our state’s bridges and highways (this figure excludes all the infrastructure owned at the municipal level). It’s also worth noting that Gov. Corbett’s response to the TFAC report was to recommend roughly $1.6 billion in increased spending, so there’s quite a bridge to gap between the Senate’s bill and what will ultimately leave the PA House of Representatives. House majority leader Mike Turzai (Rep.) has softened his objections to the revenue sources being tapped in recent weeks, and the Senate’s near unanimous 45-5 vote will certainly get the attention of the House (even the dissent was a bi-partisan 3 Republicans and 2 Democrats). But don’t expect the House version to be anywhere near the Senate’s scale.

What is more likely is that the Senate’s action set the bar high in what will be a spirited political negotiation, with the privatization of the liquor stores as a bargaining chip. With the governor looking for less than three-fourths the increase that the Senate endorsed, the final piece of legislation will probably fall below $2 billion in additional revenue, with maybe half that in the 2013-2014 cycle.

Given that PennDOT’s 2013 lettings will be something over $1.5 billion, even the smallest increase being tossed about in Harrisburg will have a dramatic impact on the heavy and highway sector of the construction industry – and our roads.

Political bargains come much harder these days but with our neighboring states all putting accelerated infrastructure programs in place, PA will be rapidly losing ground in the perception of business conditions (an area in which the state does not exactly shine). What might ultimately win the day is the associated jobs created by the increased construction work. Estimates are that around 50,000 jobs will be created to meet the additional project load. That’s a lot of grateful voters.