"Basically, if you can fog a mirror or have a heartbeat, you have a job," said Rich Thorn, president and chief executive of the Associated General Contractors of Utah. "Construction is an engine that drives the economy, and the economy is strong. We're definitely seeing manpower shortages, and it's pretty much across the board. There is no area, no sector of the industry that seems not to be struggling."

Worker shortage

But there are, according to Thorn and some local builders, some employers whose struggles are proving key. Brigham Latimer, business development manager for SIRQ Construction Solutions, a South Jordan-based commercial builder, said shortages in certain trades — steel erectors, concrete contractors and excavation companies, for example — are having an impact on what gets built and when.

"The work these trades perform are the initial phases of any project," Latimer said. "As a result, the state of a project and the speed of construction will depend on when these trades are available. Iron workers are in especially high demand, and it takes a great deal of competency to perform that kind of work ... therefore staffing takes some time.

"The effect of this demand has the potential to slow down a project or perhaps even change the design of a building to allow keep-up with the speed of construction."

As a result, SIRQ now "proactively prequalifies" subcontractors by reviewing their work programs and targeting windows of opportunity to ensure that subcontractors' schedules are matched up and projects can proceed, Latimer said.

Bruce Heckman, vice president of development for Taubman Centers Inc., a partner with the LDS Church in the City Creek development, said City Creek has not seen any changes in design because of the status of the construction industry in Utah.

The project, which is expected to span five years, currently includes three general contractors — Okland Construction, Big-D Construction and Wadsworth Brothers Construction — according to information posted near the City Creek construction site. Developers declined to estimate how many subcontractors or laborers would be involved in the project.

Rough outside estimates, however, indicate that City Creek may require around 3,000 workers per year, or as many as 12,000 over the course of the project, according to a ratio of employment-to-nonresidential valuation from the U.'s Bureau of Economic and Business Research. The numbers are gross approximations, Wood notes, though he called the estimates reasonable.

The pace of growth may ebb and flow, but Knold, Wood and Thorn all say the basic trajectory of its line extends upward. Thorn said the construction industry is likely to remain red-hot for at least the next three to five years. Knold was even more bullish.

"This isn't just a couple-of-years kind of phenomenon," Knold said. "This is a fundamental shift for the Intermountain West. The construction industry is set to have decent amounts of growth for the next two decades, at least. Not excessive growth, mind you, but the slope of the curve is up. The extrapolation forward is of a growing industry."

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E-mail: jnii@desnews.com