It is officially time to put 2007 behind us and look forward to 2008. It was a nice to enjoy the holidays with family, recharge the batteries, and prepare for the new year. That being said, it is just as enjoyable to get back into the thick of things. We have received some positive news over the last few weeks indicating that things are looking up. I have spoken to builders and Realtors in Lake City, Gainesville and Ocala, and it appears that activity is picking up in all three. That's a great way to start off the new year.
Speaking of the new year, we got our first present from the Alachua County commission, with the arrival on New Year's Day of the five-cent increase in the gas tax. As we know it is the first of many dips into our pockets, as the commission looks for every tax and fee it can find. Let's all remember these additional costs at election time.
One irony about the gas tax is that it targets Alachua County residents only. As we know, many of the people who work in Alachua County, driving on our roads, and using our infrastructure, will just gas up in neighboring counties. And those of us whose work takes us into neighboring counties will do the same. Gas in Marion County is now considerably less. I was in Lake City last week, and filled up for 15 cents a gallon cheaper than Alachua. Commissioner Pinkoson brought up that this might happen, and I believe he will be proven right again. It just goes to show how important the upcoming elections will be.
Finally, since we are on the subject of roads, my daughter, Taylor, turns 16 this week. Sweet 16. I bring this up as she has been practicing her driving in Northwest Gainesville quite a bit lately. So if you are on the roads, keep both eyes open! J
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www.BuildingEdgeMagazine.com
The January 2008 issue of Building Edge is online, and should be arriving in the mail soon. The cover story is on Allen Stine and All America Homes. Our National Feature is on Home Technology.
In February we return to Lake City, and feature Sparks Construction. The National Feature will be on Surfaces & Finishes: Countertops, floorcoverings, walls & ceilings. Look for this issue to arrive around Valentine's Day.
Our cover story for March will be G.W. Robinson Remodeling, LLC. The National Feature will be on Windows: Style, efficiency, architecture, and glass technology. We close Tuesday, January 29th. If you would like to participate, please call us today.
In the April issue, we will feature the Builders of the Parade of Homes™. This is the first time we will be profiling the builders in all three local associations - Builders Association of North Central Florida, Marion County Building Industry Association and Columbia County Builders Association. I am excited about hitting all three Parades. If you have something in your Parade Home that you think stands out, and would make a good picture for this issue or the June issue where we wrap-up the Parade of Homes™, please let us know so I can have our photographer come out, and shoot the image.
Our Fall 2007 Commercial issue, featuring Ausley Construction , is now available as well. You can view this issue online at www.buildingedgemagazine.com/commercial, or call us for a copy.
Our Winter Commercial issue, featuring Trunnell Construction on the cover, is now in production.
The Spring 2008 issue of Commercial Building Edge is now open. Paul Stentiford and Stentiford Construction Services will be on the cover. Early response on this issue has been phenomenal. Please call us for details.
HOME™: Living in the Heart of Florida:
Our winter issue will arrive this week. Start looking for it at one of our roughly 300 distribution points by the end of the week. The cover story is a feature on Sister Hazel'sAndrew Copeland. Listening to recommendations from the first issue, we have maintained the quality, but increased the editorial topics. One of my personal favorites in this issue is the article on kitchen islands. We will start working on the Spring issue this week. To be featured in this magazine, advertise or just interested in receiving the magazine, please email us at info@advantagepublishinginc.com or call us at 352-372-5854. If you have not seen our first issue, please visit our website at www.livingintheheartofflorida.com.
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Alachua County Gas Tax Hike Now in Effect
Welcome to 2008 and a sudden increase in gas prices, courtesy of the Alachua County Commission. The gas tax increase of 5 cents a gallon approved by the commission last summer took effect today and dealers said they will be passing the cost on to buyers quite quickly. "Ultimately it works its way into the cost. It just depends on how fast or what the competition does with it," said Pete Sodini, chairman and chief executive officer of Pantry Inc. of Sanford, N.C., which owns the Kangaroo convenience stores. "I will tell you a 5-cent increase in a business where last year we made 10 cents on the gasoline margin, it will get in quickly for us and everybody else." The County Commission in June bumped the gas tax by 5 cents to a total of 12 cents a gallon to raise money for road improvements. The extra money is expected to bring in $5.5 million a year, of which the county will get about $2.8 million. The rest will go to Gainesville and some of the county's smaller cities.
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Gainesville Goes Green
Gainesville charted a greener energy future in 2007, dropping coal from the discussion of a new power plant and focusing on conservation and renewable energy. After five years of discussions, city commissioners voted in June to ban coal from consideration for Gainesville Regional Utilities' new power plant. They instead will consider a biomass plant fueled by wood and possibly waste. Proposals for such a plant were received in December and will be considered in the coming months. GRU's spending on energy conservation has been another significant change. After tripling conservation in the previous fiscal year, GRU nearly doubled that amount to about $4 million in its current budget.
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Kesselring an Applicant for Marion County Planning Director
One Marion County commissioner wants to see what county government is like on the other side of the dais. Commissioner Andy Kesselring is one of 16 applicants for the post of planning director. Dwight Ganoe, who has spent 35 years with the county and 10 years as head of the planning department, plans to retire by Sept. 30. Kesselring said several months back that he would not seek four more years on the County Commission when his term expires this year. Instead, he expressed an interest in running for Florida House District 24. That's the seat formerly held by Dennis Baxley and won by former School Board member Kurt Kelly in a special election last summer. Kesselring said Wednesday that he is still interested in the House seat. "Sometimes you have to pursue multiple options," he said. "Things run on parallel paths a little bit. If I don't get the county's planning job, I will run for state rep."
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Deadline Looms for Land-Use Initiative
Depending on who's doing the talking, it's either the biggest threat to Florida's economy in years or much-needed check against irresponsible growth management. Exactly one month from now, Florida voters will either hear the end of it or only the beginning. The issue is "Florida Hometown Democracy," a proposed state constitutional amendment under which local voters would get to have their say on comprehensive land-use plans or amendments proposed by local governments.
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Neighbors Oppose Developments Near SR 200, CR 475
One residential development is planned along the State Road 200 corridor near On Top of the World. Another subdivision would go on almost 200 acres located a short drive west of County Road 475 and be built in the style of the nearby gated community of Bellechase. Zoning applications for both projects head to the Marion County Commission on Jan. 22. Boyd Development plans Douglas Ridge as a 196-home subdivision on 197.5 acres off of Southwest Seventh Avenue Road and Southwest 52nd Street. The property is not far west of County Road 475, and Boyd's contracted attorney, Steve Gray, described the development as sister project to Bellechase, which sits along C.R. 475. The Zoning Commission vote ended in a 2-2 deadlock, which means the application for a zoning change from agricultural designation to a planned unit development will go to the County Commission without a recommendation of approval or denial.
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MCBIA Calendar of Events Click Here>
BANCF Calendar of Events
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Burke Hogue Mills' New Headquarters in Lake Mary to be 'Green' Showcase
Burke Hogue Mills & Associates is designing what it describes as Seminole County's first built-from-scratch "green" building. The office building, which will serve as the firm's headquarters, is working toward obtaining a LEED Silver energy-efficiency certification. The $4 million office building is to rise at 1130 Business Center Drive in Lake Mary. Construction is expected to take nine months. The 15,452-square-foot building was designed by Aranya Mom, one of the firm's principals; it features a two-story, 4,500-square-foot design studio and sustainable features such as rainwater harvesting and reuse, solar power, below-floor air, reflective roof and paving, automatic light controls, and products high in recycled-material content.
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State Government Grows for First Time in Eight Years
The number of state government employees increased for the first time since a downward trend began in 2001 under former Gov. Jeb Bush, according to data from a new state report. The increase was apparent in final numbers from 2006, the last year of Bush's term, and early numbers from 2007, under new Gov. Charlie Crist. It includes positions in the state university system, justice administration, courts and other areas. As of June 30, the state had 171,333 employees, up from 167,268 in 2006 and 165,198 in 2005, according to the state's annual year-end Annual Workforce Report. The report also found that Florida has one of the lowest ratios of state employees per capita in the nation. In 2006 it had 106 full-time state workers per 10,000 population - above only Illinois (103) and Nevada (104). The national average that year was 142.
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Travelers Settles Lawsuit and State Actions over Broker Payments
The Travelers Cos. Inc., one of the nation's largest commercial insurers, has settled a lawsuit and will pay $6 million to settle several state investigations over how it paid brokers, the company and the Florida Attorney General said on Monday. Travelers did not disclose how much it was paying to settle the 2004 shareholder lawsuit over contingent payments to brokers and allegations that it rigged bids. The company had lost an earlier effort to dismiss the lawsuit, which sought class action status. In the state investigations, Florida insurance commissioner Kevin McCarty said that state and nine others settled with Travelers in a "pay-to-play" scheme. The St. Paul-based company said it had reached agreements with attorneys general in Florida, Hawaii, Maryland, Michigan, Oregon, Texas, West Virginia, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania and the District of Columbia. The settlement still needs court approval.
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Seminoles' Gambling Deal Clears Another Hurdle
Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum's last-minute push to delay the approval of Gov. Charlie Crist's gambling deal with the Seminole Tribe fell short Friday when a federal district judge in Washington refused to block the deal. That left the Seminole Tribe waiting for one final step, likely to occur next week, that will make the gambling pact official: publication of a notice in the Federal Register. ''The tribe is happy every time an obstacle is removed,'' said Seminole attorney Barry Richard, adding, ``I didn't think there was a case.'' McCollum had hoped his suit against the U.S. Department of the Interior, which signed off on the deal Monday, would halt the approval process long enough to allow the state Supreme Court to decide whether Crist had the right to enter into the deal on his own. The Supreme Court has scheduled arguments in the case Jan. 30.
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Local Governments Could Get Access To $2.7B In Investment Pool
Local governments with money stuck in a state-run investment pool could get access to another $2.7 billion of their deposits during the next four months. State Board of Administration managers said the fund -- which sharply restricted withdrawals after a $26 billion balance on Nov. 1 dropped to $14 billion -- would begin easing those restrictions soon. Gov. Charlie Crist and the SBA trustees approved the restrictions last month to stop the run on the pool, which held surplus operating funds invested by more than 1,000 counties, cities, school districts and other governments.
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Charlotte County School District Discards Impact Fee Resolution -- For Now
The Charlotte County school district is no longer pursuing impact fees for new construction. School officials discarded a proposed interlocal agreement with Charlotte County as a result of the sluggish housing market. The School Board approved the resolution in August, but it needed authorization by the County Commission to become official. As the months passed, school and county attorneys reviewed the legal language of the interlocal agreement, as the county would administer the ordinance. However, the document never made it to a county agenda. "We've just kind of dropped it for now," said Barbara Rendell, School Board vice chairwoman. Impact fees are a one-time tax assessed on new construction, such as a home. The purpose is to offset the "impact" associated with a family moving to the area. If approved, the school district's fees would have cost homeowners $3,159.52 for a new, single-family home. The cost for multifamily housing would have been $998.32, and $526.59 for a mobile home, in addition to the county's impact fees.
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Fed to Lend $60 Billion to Ease Credit Crunch
The Federal Reserve announced Friday that it is increasing the amount of money available to banks through the new auction process it created to ease the nation's severe credit squeeze. The Fed again pledged to continue the auctions "for as long as necessary." The Fed said that it will increase the amount offered at each of the next two auctions from $20 billion to $30 billion, a 50 percent jump. Those two auctions will be Jan. 14 and Jan. 28. The Fed announcement indicated that the auction process it began last month has been successful in providing a source of loans for cash-strapped banks. The first two auctions offered $20 billion each and attracted bids for about three times that amount. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and his colleagues decided to try the auction approach because their efforts to inject funds into the banking system through direct loans to banks had not been as successful as hoped.
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Copper Thieves Cost Farmers a Fortune as Metal Price Soars
Lifelong farmer Dave Sturgis made an unsettling discovery last spring while going out to water one of his fields. Copper thieves had risked electrocution to strip away hundreds of feet of electrical wiring from his irrigation system. Thefts of copper wiring from farms have reached epidemic proportions in some areas of the country during the past few years, as the market value of copper skyrocketed from about 75 cents per pound in 2004 to more than $3 today. Construction sites and utility companies also have been targeted for their wiring, which thieves sell for its scrap value.
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5-Year Winning Streak Has a Good Shot at a Sixth
No bull lives forever. Not even the wealth-building Wall Street variety. But if the current bull market, now 5 years old, can stay alive one more year, it will accomplish what the mighty bull of the late 1990s could not: six consecutive years of gains. That's not to say this bull market, even if it finishes higher in 2008, is in the same league as the '95-through-'99 bull, a moneymaking machine that transformed the Standard & Poor's 500 from a little-known stock index into a household name. The S&P 500 tallied gains of 220% in the '90s run, posting annual returns in excess of 20%. In contrast, the current bull, which rose 3.5% in 2007, is up 67% since the end of 2002.
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Tree Thefts Rise Along with Timber Prices
The crime scene - a once-wooded landscape marked by tire tracks and tree stumps - makes the victim, Verna Potter, feel physically violated. "It's just like someone cut your heart out," says the 77-year-old Potter, who lost an estimated $50,000 worth of generations-old oak trees, which were taken from her property and sold, without permission, while she was away. Rogue loggers have long preyed on private properties from coast to coast, taking advantage of the elderly, the absent or - in Potter's case - both. And they traditionally had little to fear from law enforcement officials hesitant to pursue criminal charges, instead chalking up most complaints to property disputes. But as timber values rise, so have the stakes for landowners - and the attitude of law enforcement is adjusting accordingly.
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Building Information Modelling Poised to Change the Construction Industry
Mention Building Information Modeling (BIM) and most Canadian construction people will still look puzzled. "Don't think I've heard of it," one told me recently. "Not for me," said another. "It's only for the big guys." That's a common perception, partly because some BIM systems aren't simple, and partly because the technology is being used mostly on federal government projects in the U.S. by big firms. But BIM is also starting to establish a presence in the U.S. homebuilding market. A couple of big production builders are using it, and so are a few custom builders. And they're discovering that they are saving time and money and producing homes that are exactly what the buyers want.
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Armtec Distribution Agreement Expands U.S. Retail Market Presence
Armtec Infrastructure Income Fund announced Friday a distribution agreement with CertainTeed Inc., a leading North American manufacturer of building materials and supplier to the U.S. residential building trades industry. Under the terms of the agreement, CertainTeed will distribute Armtec's Platon foundation wrap product throughout the U.S. residential housing and retail building trade markets. Platon keeps basements dry by waterproofing foundations and controlling moisture under sub-floors. "This agreement is consistent with our growth strategy and marks the beginning of an exciting new relationship that supports our objective of increasing the penetration of the Platon product in the U.S. marketplace and also opens opportunities for future growth," said Charles Phillips, President and CEO of Armtec. "CertainTeed is a major player in the U.S. Building Products market with a national presence. We are very pleased to have the opportunity to work with such a strong partner, who shares our enthusiasm for the potential for Platon, and look forward to following up with them on further initiatives that will expand the respective offerings to our customers."
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As Public Works Languish, Private Dollars Set the Agenda in Cities
Conceived as a freeway, the Route 34 Connector still promises to whisk motorists across New Haven as they exit Interstate 95. But in less than a mile, the three broad lanes abruptly end, forcing traffic onto side roads that skirt the unbuilt right-of-way. Mayor John DeStefano Jr. calls the aborted project a tragic example of public infrastructure gone awry. He has drawn up detailed plans to rip up the highway and parking lots and restore the neighborhood of homes and stores that once existed. But lacking money, the mayor's project only inches forward. A few streets away, there is no such obstacle. On either side of New Haven's highway to nowhere, city streets throb with construction activity. A different kind of infrastructure spending - unrelated to roads or rapid transit, airports or levees - is under way. Yale University is rebuilding itself - drawing on its huge, rapidly growing endowment and on multimillion-dollar gifts - to renovate 54 buildings and construct 16 new ones. The message in this outburst of activity, here and in other places across America, is that private spending, supported handsomely by a growing number of very wealthy families, is gaining ground on traditional public investment. In New Haven, private investment now far surpasses public outlays.
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Powered by Hot Roads
If you've ever blistered your bare feet on a hot road you know that asphalt absorbs the sun's energy. A Dutch company is now siphoning heat from roads and parking lots to heat homes and offices. As climate change rises on the international agenda, the system built by the civil engineering firm, Ooms Avenhorn Holding BV, doesn't look as wacky as it might have 10 years ago when first conceived. Solar energy collected from a 200-yard stretch of road and a small parking lot helps heat a 70-unit four-story apartment building in the village of Avenhorn. An industrial park of some 160,000 square feet in the nearby city of Hoorn is kept warm in winter with the help of heat stored during the summer from 36,000 square feet of pavement. The runways of a Dutch air force base in the south supply heat for its hangar. And all that under normally cloudy Dutch skies, with only a few days a year of truly sweltering temperatures.
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Insurance Regulators Release Annual Report on Workers Comp Insurance, Approve 18.4 Percent Rate Reduction
Florida is the largest workers' compensation insurance market in the nation dominated by private market insurers, according to a state report released this morning. The annual report to the Florida Legislature on the state of the market for workers' compensation insurance was conducted by the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation. It analyzed the availability and affordability of coverage for workers' compensation insurance in Florida for the calendar year 2006. In conjunction with the report's release, state insurance regulators approved an overall rate reduction of 18.4 percent for workers' compensation insurance, effective Tuesday (Jan. 1, 2008). It will be the fifth consecutive year of workers' compensation rate decreases.
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6 Bills Will Delve Into Immigrant Matters
In the two years since immigration legislation stalled in Congress, many states have passed their own laws targeting illegal immigrants. Soon Florida could join them. Legislators have filed six bills that would, among other things, penalize farms and government contractors that hire undocumented immigrants or require local officials to report their arrests to federal authorities. Come spring, legislators could debate whether to make it harder for an estimated 850,000 illegal immigrants to live and work in Florida. "Our federal government, in my opinion, has failed our citizens in dealing with the crisis of illegal immigration," said state Sen. Mike Fasano, R-New Port Richey, who filed two bills. The Florida bills follow a trend of cities and states proposing local laws related to immigration.
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Construction Spending's Surprise Rise
Construction spending edged up slightly in November as a continued steep slump in housing was offset by record spending on government and business projects. The Commerce Department reported that spending on construction projects rose by 0.1 percent in November to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $1.165 trillion, a better performance than what economists expected. Spending had fallen by 0.4 percent in October.
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AGC of Greater Florida Calendar of Events
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