The Korte Co., a design-build contractor, recently began work to expand and renovate Catholic Charities of Southern Nevada’s Hands of Hope Community Food Pantry, along with its kitchen.
The food pantry expansion will bring an additional 3,090 square feet to the existing facility. In total, the facility will grow to about 7,480 square feet. Along with remodeling, the pantry will also be acquiring fixtures food storage, display and distribution.
The expansion of the food pantry will allow Catholic Charities to serve 1,000 individuals every week, which is a 33 percent increase over current levels.
The Meals on Wheels program facilities, also on Catholic Charities’ campus, will see an expansion. The Meals on Wheels kitchen will be consolidated into the existing St. Vincent Lied Dining Room kitchen. An additional 3,778 square feet of kitchen space will be added.
The additional space will allow the Meals on Wheels program to service about another 600 low-income, homebound seniors with home-delivered meals on top of the approximate 2,000 the facility already provides for.
The project comes after Catholic Charities was awarded a Clark County Community Development Block Grant for $2.5 million to grow both the Meals on Wheels program and the organization’s food pantry.
Both projects are expected to be completed by mid-August. Construction started April 12.
Korte was also the general contractor when Catholic Charities’ original facilities were completed in 2002.
Construction material prices
increase
Construction input prices increased by 0.9 percent on a monthly basis in March, breaking a nine-month pattern, according to an analysis of the Bureau of Labor Statistics Producer Price Index released this month by Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC). Input prices are down 3.4 percent from the same period in 2015.
In an analysis of nonresidential construction input prices, a similar phenomenon was occurring with costs being down 3.5 percent over the same period in 2015. Input prices, however, rose 1 percent on a monthly basis in March. Also following this pattern are crude oil prices with an increase of more than 40 percent in March. Crude is still down 26 percent from March 2015.
“Despite the rather profound percentage gain in oil prices and the overall nonresidential construction material price increase, rapid material price inflation remains unlikely going forward,” ABC Chief Economist Anirban Basu said. “There are a number of reasons for this, but perhaps the most important is the ongoing sluggishness of the global economy.”
Some material types that saw an increase in the month of March, in addition to crude oil, were unprocessed energy material with a 6.1 percent increase, down 24 percent for the year, and nonferrous wire and cable prices, up 2.2 percent in March, but down 5.9 percent on a yearly basis. Softwood lumber also was up 2.8 percent, still down 1.6 percent from last year. Steel mill products rose 0.4 percent, also down by 15.8 percent annually. Prepared asphalt, tar roofing and siding products all fell in price, along with natural gas, fabricated structural metal and plumbing fixture and fittings prices.
Las Vegas is booming
Realtor.com, an online source for locating real estate rentals and sales, recently marked Clark County No. 5 in its top 10 list of booming metro areas.
The 89179 zip code in Clark County showed the highest growth in the region. The number of households in that zip code is expected to grow by 19.4 percent over the next five years, according to Realtor.com. At a county level, the region is expecting 3.3 times more growth than other top counties. The local county was surpassed only by the leading Gilbert, Arizona, region, followed by Los Angeles, Dallas and Miami.
“The strength of the residential real estate market is closely correlated to growth in jobs and households,” said Jonathan Smoke, Realtor.com chief economist. “The good news for these markets is these growth factors have already started to translate into new construction. At the same time, it may be a year or so before some markets on our list start to see an increase in inventory. If anything, this is a road map for where builders should be thinking about where to break ground next.”
Meet the Contractors Expo 2016
The sixth annual Meet the General Contractors construction expo by Associated Builders and Contractors Nevada is scheduled May 26 from 3 to 6 p.m. at The Orleans. General admission is $50 if tickets are purchased before May 6 and $75 after that.
Attendees will include general contractors, subcontractors, suppliers, developers and architects from the local region and across the U.S. Among them will be Ledcor Group, Affordable Concepts Inc. and Whiting-Turner Contracting.
Tanya Burtis, business development at ABC Nevada, said the event will attract about 1,000 attendees.
