Building on the past: scrambling to stay busy, contractors hope things improve before projects that already were in the pipeline run out.

• Author: Maley, Frank
• Position: FEATURE

In good times, Doug Allen's company needed to beat only two or three other contractors to win an industrial construction project. But when Asheboro-based J.H. Allen Inc. recently went after a job in Eden, it was one of 60 companies looking for work. It failed to make the approved list of seven bidders.

Not every job is that competitive, but it isn't unusual these days for 10 or more builders to battle for projects that often wouldn't make them much money--and in some cases, might lose them some. "It's about as bad as bad gets," says Dave Simpson, North Carolina building director for Charlotte-based Carolinas AGC Inc., an association of general contractors. "Except for a little bit of help with the stimulus money for highway construction, it is about the toughest environment that there has been in decades."

J.H. Allen will struggle to gross $10 million this year--less than a third of its record $35 million in 2007--and even some larger companies have felt a pinch. Among the state's 25 largest general contractors, North Carolina revenue for the 12 months that ended June 30 is down 1% from 2007, and the revenue required to make the cut fell by more than $10 million.

Banks have tightened their lending, and people arc afraid to build, Simpson says. Some owners have abandoned projects because of...