Photo: One Spruce Peak residential building. PC Construction photo.
Vermont Business Magazine Below are Q&As with two Vermont contractors. Jay Fayette, President/CEO of PC Construction and Johnny Illick, CEO and owner of ReArch Company. Both are based in South Burlington
Q: What are the major projects you're working on and what are some of the upcoming projects?
Fayette: We have a lot of exciting projects under construction in Vermont. On the UVM campus, we are nearing completion on the On-Campus Multipurpose Center project and the Firestone Medical Research Building. At the Spruce Peak Resort in Stowe, PC just completed the new $45 million, 125,000-square-foot One Spruce Peak residential building just in time for construction to start on the new $75 million Treehouse and Parking Garage at Spruce Peak project. Additionally, we are thrilled to have started the much-anticipated BETA Technologies’ S40 Aircraft Assembly Facility at Burlington International Airport. Add in the State of Vermont’s new $15 million Department of Mental Health Recovery Residence in Essex Junction, the $25 million Southwestern Vermont Medical Center Emergency Department Modernization in Bennington, and our extensive and complex recurring work with GlobalFoundries and Green Mountain Power, and 2021/2022 has been a very busy time for us.
This is a boom time for construction in Vermont
We also have cutting-edge projects occurring from Maine to Florida, and across all our market sectors – higher education, health care, water and wastewater and hospitality. Notable projects include over $100 million worth of work on the University of Southern Maine campus (the Portland Commons Residential Hall and Career & Student Success Center and the Structured Parking Garage), the unique Wildflower Farms Eco-Resort in New York, the Piscataway Water Resource Recovery Bioenergy Facility in Maryland, and extensive work at the Intrenchment Creek and South River Water Reclamation Centers in Georgia.
Illick: Current projects include: Winooski School District (K-12/Education) $52M; Adimab Lebanon, NH, $21.5M; Putney School Dorm Putney, VT $14M; Bayview Crossing (Affordable Housing) $7.9M; OnLogic Global Headquarters (Industrial Computers) South Burlington, VT $50M; Barry Callebaut (Foodservice Distributor) St Albans, VT $3.2M; Stowe Custom Residence at Spruce Peak, VT $6.4M; and Switchback Brewhouse Window.
Upcoming projects include: Silt Botanica Bathhouse, Pine Street Burlington; Alice Holway Housing Putney; and Switchback Restaurant and Bar Burlington.
Q: What factors are impacting your business and how so?
Fayette: The industry in general is facing significant challenges and they will continue for the foreseeable future. For instance, we are dealing with the “Great Resignation,” as many skilled people continue to leave the workforce, as well as rising subcontractor defaults and sustaining wages to retain our qualified construction professionals. The construction industry is made up of an aging demographic, and we need to promote craft careers and career progression to bring new generations into this well-paying industry. At the same time, supply chain challenges, inflation and price escalation are increasing the cost of most commodities, such as steel, wood and petroleum products, which presents a great challenge when forecasting and providing accurate estimates to our owners. This, in turn, can create delays in projects moving from preconstruction to shovels in the ground.
Illick: We continue to see long lead times from manufacturers, so we let our clients know up front which products will have the longest lead times and proactively adjust our schedules accordingly. The construction industry is suffering from labor shortages, which makes it extremely important to have good relationships with the subcontracting community. We believe strongly in treating our subcontractors with respect as true partners in each of our projects.
Q: Have you seen an increase in business as a result of the massive federal spending over the last couple years?
Fayette: Yes, and we anticipate this to continue for the coming years, especially as the Federal Infrastructure Bill and related dollars begin to flow into the industry.
Illick: We have seen continuous growth in our industry over the past several years and perhaps some of this growth is related to federal spending, such as the COVID relief funding (PPP).
Q: How is business overall?
Fayette: Business has been strong for PC. We saw a 40% increase in revenues in 2021 and will see it again in 2022. We are growing and increasingly sought-out for some of the largest and most complicated construction and infrastructure work in the country. We are recognized by a leading industry trade publication, Engineering News-Record (ENR), as among the country’s Top 400 Contractors. PC was also recently recognized as ENR’s 2022 Southeast Contractor of the Year, which is such an incredible honor only given to one contractor each year in each of ENR’s ten regions. That’s a pretty big deal for us and something we hope makes Vermonters proud.
That said, we remain as vigilant as ever, because things can change quite dramatically in this industry. We are optimistic about the work ahead, but we’ve learned you can never get comfortable in the current economic environment.
Illick: Business is busy! We have already met our sales goals for 2022 and are well on our way to achieving our sales goal for 2023, which in our industry is a rare occurrence. The current market conditions are likely the busiest we and our subcontractors have been in the last several decades.
Illick highlighted two projects in particular that feature sustainable solutions:
Glavel foam/cellular glass gravel installation at OnLogic Job Site:
ReArch Company has established an internal sustainability team whose sole responsibility is to find opportunities to help the construction industry find healthy, local solutions to reduce energy and overall environmental impacts.
For the OnLogic project, Glavel was selected for the sub-slab insulation because it resulted in cost savings and yielded an 87% reduction of the carbon footprint as compared to traditional rigid insulation. Glavel, cellular glass gravel is lightweight, thermally insulated, load bearing and made almost entirely of recycled glass, with upwards of 95% recycled content with glass that is currently sourced from Quebec. It is locally manufactured in Essex, VT at a plant that features the first-in-the-world electric kiln. During the manufacturing process Glavel utilizes a formaldehyde-free veil as a base below the pre-fired recycled glass powder mixture.
The product was delivered to the OnLogic job site in bulk trailers and is unloaded via a conveyer system in about an hour. The foam glass product is then spread out in a thin layer and compacted to a ratio of 1.3 to 1. During installation, ReArch’s construction team utilized a plate compaction method.
Photo: OnLogic project. Photo courtesy ReArch Company.
Putney School Dorm – Putney, VT
The Putney School Dorm project includes (2) 13,600 SF identical dormitories for a total of 27,000 SF of new construction and associated site work. The school is hoping to achieve Living Building Challenge certification for the two new dorms.
Throughout the preconstruction process, The Putney School, Maclay Architects, Energy Balance, and ReArch have been considering a wide range of strategies to reduce the building's carbon footprint and enhancing student and faculty indoor environmental quality. The project recently started construction and will be completed in October 2023.
Photo: Putney School Dorm – Putney, VT. Photo by Maclay Architects and Associates.
