Alaska construction forecast: above average and better than Lower 48.

• Author: Colby, Nicole A. Bonham
• Position: BUILDING ALASKA

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With the construction industry of the Lower 48 staggering from the weight of a national recession and widespread housing crisis, construction in Alaska enters 2011 suffering some peripheral impacts, but is also poised to benefit from dozens of large-scale public projects on the near horizon.

"From 30,000 feet, it seems to look steady as she goes" similar to last year, says Scott Goldsmith, professor of economics at the University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA) and director of its Institute of Social and Economic Research (ISER). "Public spending is certainly strong. The private sector is still a little weak, just because the overall economy is still (uncertain)."

As researchers begin crunching the 2010 numbers for detailed scrutiny, Goldsmith's early, high-level analysis is mirrored by those in the trenches. While the public sector continues to see roll-out of multi-year projects, like the State's deferred-maintenance program, influences of the national recession and other cutbacks are more immediately evident in the private sector.

"From the private sector, we've seen a downturn just because of the Lower 48 economy," says Roger Hickel of Anchorage-based Roger Hickel Contracting, Inc. He is also chairman of the Construction Industry Progress Fund (CIPF), a sister organization to the Associated General Contractors of Alaska (AGC), a nonprofit construction association for commercial and industrial contractors.

"In the public sector, I think we are doing very well in the state of Alaska. We've had a lot of public projects that have been approved in years past," he says. This includes approval of another several-million-dollar swath of bonds and deferred maintenance. "It's going to take a while for those projects to turn into a start of construction. So we see those carrying over and affecting 2012," Hickel says. "We'll have a good construction economy in the future that's going to continue to be level and not have the ups and downs back in the 1980s."

CONTINUED RECESSION FALLOUT

True to form, Alaska's economy continues to run somewhat separate from that of the Lower 48, watching from afar as states like Arizona and Nevada continue to bear the brunt of recessional effects. "It's not that Alaska is delayed in experiencing the recession, but (it is) just a whole different ball of wax," says Goldsmith. "We are sort of on our own wavelength up here. Because of the strength of our economy through this recession, it's a totally...