1. Immigration Laws & Labor Shortages
A new statewide immigration law that took effect on Jan. 1 requires employers to avoid hiring illegal immigrants by checking identifications, including a new level of screening for fake IDs. The law has created widespread confusion about which employers must follow it and how they will do that. Employers hiring illegals can face $5,000 fines for the first offense and $25,000 for each additional one.

The question for contractors is who's responsible for screening and saving documents-the general contractor or its subs-and who should be fined if an illegal slips through the system. Many contractors fear that the new law will create a "chilling effect" on the already-stretched labor supply by forcing potential workers to leave the state to avoid scrutiny. This will be one of the developing industry stories of 2007. Stay tuned.

2. Single-Family Housing Slump
ith Colorado leading the nation in housing foreclosures and nearly 30,000 properties on the market at year's end, the state joined many others in a nationwide single-family housing slump.

Nationally, economists are predicting an additional 5 percent decline in single-family housing starts for 2007, dropping from 1.84 million to 1.61 million in 2007, which will affect the overall level of construction activity this year and could have a longer-term impact in the retail, institutional and public works sectors.

Overall, construction in Colorado is projected to remain positive but grow at a slower rate this year, with the addition of 3,000 jobs, compared to the more than 7,000 jobs added in 2006. The total number of residential permits in Colorado will increase by 4 percent to 42,400 in 2007 on the strength of multifamily housing starts, but the slumping single-family market could drag down the economy as a whole.

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3. November Elections
The landslide victory last November by Gov. Bill Ritter, and the ongoing Democratic control in the state House and Senate have local industry groups wondering about the potential fate of industry legislation this year.

Topics of industry bills this session could include indemnification, workers' compensation, best-value contracting, integrated project delivery, unemployment insurance, labor issues and possible cleanup of loopholes in the immigration process. Industry lobbyists will be closely watching how the new governor handles pressure from special interest groups and how he will use his veto pen.

4. Escalating Materials
The industry was rocked in 2006 by some of the sharpest materials price hikes and most volatile supply situations seen to date. Asphalt was in short supply, with price spikes as high as 30 percent in some areas. Colorado, Hawaii and Wyoming experienced some of the worst shortages.

Other materials that caused problems in '06 included copper (up about 60 percent in the first half of the year), steel (up 10 percent), cement (up 13 percent), gypsum (up 20 percent), construction plastics (up 18 percent) and the ever-present threat of sudden spikes in the cost of fuel.

Industry economists say that contractors can expect more moderate price increases in most of materials markets this year, but many unknowns will continue to make increases for some commodities, like fuel, anybody's guess.

5. Union Station Redevelopment
The Continuum/East West Partners team was chosen in mid-November as the master developer for the $420 million redevelopment and preservation of Denver's historic Union Station. The team, now known as Union Station Neighborhood Co., includes Continuum Partners, East West Partners, Kiewit, DMJM Harris, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, Kaplan Kirsch & Rockwell, PACO Group, Civil Technology Inc., DRG Construction and Ronald A. Straka Urban Design.

The revitalization of Union Station-which will become the central hub for the Regional Transportation District's $4.7 billion FasTracks transit system-is the city's largest project since construction of Denver International Airport in the early 1990s.

Highlights from the winning plan include completion of all transportation and street-level improvements by 2011, including build-out of the light rail and commuter rail facilities, as well as integration of the regional bus system onsite; full undergrounding of the commuter rail and regional bus components, but not the light rail; redevelopment of Union Station's forecourt and revitalization of the existing train room concurrent with transit construction; and private development fully integrated with the public transportation components.

The project award culminated an 18-month process that drew an initial 11 competing teams, with the final five months focused on only two-Continuum/East West and Union Station Partners, which included Cherokee Investment with Buchanan Yonushewski Group and Hensel Phelps Construction.

6. Denver Justice Center
With a strong local leader at the helm, design of Denver's new flagship courthouse is moving forward on schedule after weeks of finger pointing last fall when noted New York architect Steven Holl abruptly left the project, blaming the city for alleged budget problems.

Members of a high-level architectural peer-review panel met in mid-December with klipp, the local firm handling the design. The courthouse is the key component of the $378 million, three-building justice center campus in downtown Denver that will also feature a detention facility and post office/parking garage building.

The peer-review group is conducting schematic reviews, site tours and meetings with the design team during the schematic design and design development stages. The work is expected to finish at the end of this month. In addition to klipp, the other design team members for the courthouse are Ricci Greene Associates of New York and Harold Massop Associate Architects of Denver.

7. The BIM Phenomenon
Like the Energizer bunny, it just keeps going and going and sweeping aside everyone who's not on board. Building information modeling has proven its capacity to speed up estimating, help schedule work crews, fix problems before they reach the field, track the progress of work, detect clashes and enhance design.

But BIM is more than just the latest trendy tool in the kit. It is changing the way the industry does business, from design and estimating to construction and even bonding. However, not enough firms are nearly as BIM capable as they should be, say industry insiders. The conservative building culture is holding back the new technology and its full acceptance. Because construction companies can't afford to botch a project, many of them are more likely to go with the methods they know work rather than experiment with new ones like BIM.

However, local successes like the Denver Art Museum expansion demonstrate that many projects can't be done without BIM assistance, and more and more will fall into that category in the future.

8. T-REX
The monster died peacefully just in time for Thanksgiving. Denver's $1.67 billion Transportation Expansion Project officially ended Nov. 17 with the grand opening of its last major component, the Southeast Rail Line. Over the previous five years, the T-REX team built 19 miles of new double-track light rail, 13 new LRT stations, 34 LRT vehicles, new highway lanes, 65 bridges, eight tunnels and new retaining and sound walls. Most of the highway expansion work was complete by the end of last summer.

The project team included the Colorado Department of Transportation; Regional Transportation District; Carter & Burgess; and Southeast Corridor Constructors, a joint venture between Kiewit and Parsons Transportation Group. Completed ahead of schedule and under budget, T-REX was also the state's first multi-modal transportation project and the first time that RTD and CDOT worked closely together on a project.

9. DAM
It's built and they have come to see it. The Denver Art Museum celebrated the debut of its Frederic C. Hamilton Building with a 35-hour grand opening weekend in early October. The new building's titanium-clad, jagged, jutting angles have caused it to be likened to everything from the peaks of the Rockies to the points of a geode, and despite some harsh criticism from some of the country's art and architecture critics, it has continued to attract visitors from around the world, further enhancing Denver's growing reputation as an artistic and cultural destination.

The Hamilton addition includes 18 to 20 different planes that rise 75 to 120 ft above the street and could not have been built on time and within budget without the use of sophisticated 3-D building information modeling to coordinate the 3,100 steel members connected by nearly 50,000 bolts and a total of 16,500 pieces of steel, likened by some to a "massive pile of pickup sticks."

The $90.5 million expansion, built by Denver's M.A. Mortenson Co. and designed by Denver's Davis Partnership and Studio Daniel Libeskind, is the museum's first major addition since its existing North Building, designed by Italian architect Gio Ponti, was completed more than 30 years ago.

10. ULI & USGBC Conferences
Denver hosted two national conferences last fall that drew significant participation from the local construction and design industry. The Urban Land Institute's 2006 meeting in mid-October attracted more than 6,000 real estate leaders, owners and developers, with speakers that included actor/director Robert Redford and former Secretary of State Colin Powell.

Nearly 12,000 green-building industry professionals came to town in mid-November for Greenbuild 2006, a three-day gathering that featured the latest advancements in green-building design, construction, project financing and building management. The U.S. Green Building Council's annual conference featured 700 exhibitors and an "A list" of speakers that included Chris Luebkeman, director for global foresight and innovation at Ove Arup and Partners; Alexander Karsner, assistant secretary for energy efficiency and renewable energy at the U.S. Department of Energy; Eileen Clausen, president of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change; and Thomas Leppert, chairman and CEO of Turner Construction Co.

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