Seattle Washington Building Expert Directory

Real Estate & Construction News Roundup (6/26/24) – Construction Growth in Office and Data Center Sectors, Slight Ease in Consumer Price Index and Increased Premiums for Commercial Buildings

July 22, 2024 — Pillsbury's Construction & Real Estate Law Team - Gravel2Gavel Construction & Real Estate Law Blog
In our latest roundup, U.S. interest rates remain uncertain, construction firms continue to use artificial intelligence, New York City updates commercial zoning regulations, and more!

According to analysts, high vacancy rates and declining rents have hurt San Francisco’s office market so badly that it could take almost 20 years to recover. (Eric McConnell, Yahoo)
The New York City Council approved updated commercial zoning regulations that expand where businesses can be located in the city, more than double the space for small-scale clean manufacturing, and enable adaptive reuse projects involving existing buildings. (Joe Burns, Construction Dive)
The insurance industry is responding to the proliferation of extreme weather events and the risks associated with operating commercial buildings in vulnerable areas by increasing premiums. (Renea Burns, Tim Coy, Niall Williams, Deloitte)

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Reprinted courtesy of Pillsbury's Construction & Real Estate Law Team

One-Upmanship by Contractors In Prevailing Wage Decision Leads to a Bad Result for All . . . Perhaps

July 19, 2021 — Garret Murai - California Construction Law Blog
Fights between contractors can be a bit like Mad magazine’s “Spy vs. Spy” with each side trying to out outwit and one-up one another. The next case, Division of Labor Standards Enforcement v. Built Pacific, Inc., Case No. D076601 (March 15, 2021), is a case in point. The Built Pacific Case Built Pacific, Inc. was a subcontractor to Austin Sundt Joint Venture on a public works project known as the San Diego Regional Airport Authority Project. In 2015, following an investigation by the California Division of Labor Standards Enforcement (DLSE), the DLSE issued a Civil Wage Penalty Assessment of $119,319.76 based on Built Pacific’s failure to pay prevailing wages. The DLSE also named Austin Sundt in the Civil Wage Assessment pursuant to Labor Code 1743 which makes contractors and subcontractors jointly and severally liable for wage violations. As a result of the Civil Wage Assessment, Austin Sundt withheld approximately $70,000 in retention from Built Pacific. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Garret Murai, Nomos LLP
Mr. Murai may be contacted at gmurai@nomosllp.com

N.J. Governor Signs Bill Expanding P3s

September 04, 2018 — Nick Steingart - Construction Executive
Government entities in New Jersey that enter into public-private partnerships to help finance public construction projects are now required to utilize a project labor agreement (PLA) and pay state prevailing wages, among other requirements. Previously, P3s were only available to state and county colleges, but did not contain prevailing wage or PLA mandates. The new law, Senate Bill 865, allows the state and its subdivisions, including counties, municipalities and school districts, to enter into agreements with private funding sources provided they follow the additional mandates such as abiding by the state’s prevailing wage law and utilizing a union-only PLA for construction of the project. Reprinted courtesy of Nick Steingart, Construction Executive, a publication of Associated Builders and Contractors. All rights reserved. Read the court decision
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Mr. Steingart may be contacted at steingart@abc.org

Recycling Our Cities, One Building at a Time

December 13, 2022 — Aaron Clark & Erica Yokoyama - Bloomberg
Takumi Osawa kneels on the narrow balcony of a wooden house outside Tokyo and describes how, 140 years ago, workers would have hoisted baskets of mulberry leaves to the second floor to feed silkworms. When they ate, it sounded like rain. Known in Japan as minka, these locally crafted structures with characteristic pitched roofs were built for hundreds of years to accommodate farmers, artisans and merchants. This one was originally constructed in 1879 and housed a family on the first floor who tended silkworms on the second and third. Minka are typically designed like an interlocking puzzle, without nails or screws, which allowed Osawa and a team of craftsmen to take the building apart, move it about 90 kilometers (56 miles) east and reassemble it closer to Tokyo, where a couple now live in it. The number of empty homes in Japan is rising as the population shrinks and younger generations gravitate toward the city. Government data suggests as many as 8 million houses, many built during a post-World War II construction boom that lasted into the 1980s, now lie unoccupied. Reprinted courtesy of Aaron Clark, Bloomberg and Erica Yokoyama, Bloomberg Read the court decision
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Bad Faith Claim For Independent Contractor's Reduced Loss Assessment Survives Motion to Dismiss

January 28, 2014 — Tred R. Eyerly – Insurance Law Hawaii
The insured's bad faith claim based upon the insurer's alleged use of an independent contractor to assess the amount of loss in order to lower the amount paid survived a motion to dismiss. Williamson v. Chubb Indem. Ins. Co., 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 178022 (E.D. Pa. Dec. 19, 2013). The insureds' home was damaged. Chubb, their insurer, retained an independent contractor, Eastern Diversified Services (EDS) to assess the amount of loss. EDS estimated the loss to be $193,270.43, and Chubb paid this amount. Chubb's standard practice was to conduct damage estimates itself using an estimating program called Symbility. EDS used a different program with a data base creating lower payments for loss. When this was brought to Chubb's attention, Chubb refused to recalculate the plaintiff's estimate. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Tred R. Eyerly, Insurance Law Hawaii
Mr. Eyerly may be contacted at te@hawaiilawyer.com

California Pipeline Disaster Brings More Scandal for PG&E

September 17, 2014 — Mark Chediak – Bloomberg
A deadly pipeline explosion that shattered a California town four years ago continues to rip through the state agency weighing a record penalty for the disaster. The president of the California Public Utilities Commission asked his chief of staff to resign and recused himself from the case after “inappropriate e-mail exchanges” with PG&E Corp. (PCG) raised questions about bias, according to a statement from the commission yesterday. The CPUC may decide within weeks whether to levy a proposed $1.4 billion penalty -- the biggest safety fine in the state’s history -- against PG&E for the 2010 explosion of a natural gas pipeline that killed eight people in San Bruno. Commission President Michael Peevey, who has been accused by San Bruno officials and consumer advocates of being too close to the utility, said in the statement he would not take part in penalty deliberations to eliminate any appearance of impropriety. The move is a step toward regaining credibility for the CPUC after two years of political infighting has created an ongoing climate of scandal. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Mark Chediak, Bloomberg
Mr. Chediak may be contacted at mchediak@bloomberg.net

How Machine Learning Can Help with Urban Development

March 27, 2019 — Aarni Heiskanen - AEC Business
An experimentation project has demonstrated the capabilities of machine learning in urban development. It used images as a starting point and came up with interesting and useful applications. “I read data science papers on how machine vision algorithms can be used with satellite imagery. I immediately saw a connection to what we had been doing,” Antti Kauppi, architect at Arkkitehdit Sankari, explains. “Most people associate image recognition with Google’s visual searches. Google can distinguish whether a photo shows a cat or another animal, for example. We went a step further.” An Experiment with Open Urban Imagery Arkkitehdit Sankari Oy, a Finnish architectural design firm began the experimentation project CityCNN in May 2018. It received funding from KIRA-digi, the Finnish government’s digitalization program for the built environment. CityCNN explored the possibilities of using machine learning and open data for urban development. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Aarni Heiskanen, AEC Business
Mr. Heiskanen may be contacted at aec-business@aepartners.fi

A Landlord’s Guide to the Center for Disease Control’s Eviction Moratorium

October 05, 2020 — Colton Addy - Snell & Wilmer Real Estate Litigation Blog
The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (the “CDC”) and the Department of Health and Human Services (the “HHS”) has issued an order to temporarily halt a landlord’s right to evict certain residential tenants to prevent the further spread of COVID-19 (the “CDC Order”). The CDC Order is effective through December 31, 2020. Applicability of the CDC Order. The CDC Order does not apply in jurisdictions that have a moratorium on residential evictions in effect that provides the same or greater level of protection than the CDC Order, and the CDC Order permits local jurisdictions to continue to pass more restrictive eviction moratoriums. To invoke the protection provided by the CDC Order, a landlord’s tenants must deliver an executed declaration (a “CDC Declaration”) form to the landlord that includes the following statements: (i) the tenant has used best efforts to obtain all available government assistance for rent or housing; (ii) expects to earn no more than $99,000 in annual income in 2020 (or $198,000 if filing joint tax returns), was not required to report income in 2019, or received an Economic Impact Payment under the CARES Act; (iii) the tenant is unable to pay the full rent due to substantial loss of household income, loss of work or wages, or extraordinary out-of-pocket medical expenses; (iv) the tenant is using best efforts to make partial payments that are as close to the full rental payments as the tenant’s circumstances permit; and (v) the eviction would likely render the individual homeless or force the individual to move into and live in close quarters or shared living space. Effect of the CDC Order The CDC Order prevents landlords from evicting tenants for the non-payment of rent or similar housing-related payments that have sent their landlord a CDC Declaration. The CDC Order does not relieve tenants of the obligation to pay rent or other charges owed under their leases and does not preclude a landlord from charging late fees, penalties, or interest for missed payments. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Colton Addy, Snell & Wilmer
Mr. Addy may be contacted at caddy@swlaw.com

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