Seattle Washington Building Expert Directory

Judge Halts Sale of Brazilian Plywood

June 06, 2022 — Beverley BevenFlorez – CDJ Staff
A permanent injunction was issued by Judge Roy Altman in a Ft. Lauderdale federal court on May 24th that requires the revocation of all PS 1 certificates that were issued by PFS-TECO to more than a dozen Brazilian mills that produced structural plywood for the U.S. market, reported Business Wire. “This case highlights how a few bad actors profited by essentially looking the other way while substandard, and potentially dangerous plywood was imported into the U.S. and used to build homes and businesses,” Michael Haglund, counsel representing the U.S. Structural Plywood Integrity Coalition, of Haglund Kelley, LLP, told Business Wire. Building codes throughout the U.S. require the use of PS 1 structural plywood in construction. "If product standards are not being met, there can be serious implications for all homes constructed using those substandard wood panel products," Tyler Freres, VP of Sales for Freres Engineered Wood, told CDJ. "Contractors and homeowners should be able to trust that U.S. certification agencies are doing their due diligence to accurately inspect panels, ensuring consumers' health and safety." The U.S. Structural Plywood Integrity Coalition, including nine family-owned U.S. plywood manufacturers, alleged that PFS-TECO falsely certified that plywood from Brazil met U.S. structural integrity requirements. This substandard plywood has been used throughout the U.S. In particular, it was used during the hurricane reconstruction efforts in Florida and Puerto Rico due to its cheaper price. In 2021, Brazilian plywood made up 11% of the U.S. supply with nearly 1.2 billion square feet sold. Read the court decision
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Real Estate & Construction News Round-Up (08/24/22) – Local Law 97, Clean Energy, and IRA Tax Credits

September 26, 2022 — Pillsbury's Construction & Real Estate Law Team - Gravel2Gavel Construction & Real Estate Law Blog
This week’s round-up features the intersection of real estate and energy efficiency, including state efforts surrounding clean energy legislation, Inflation Reduction Act tax credits, hotel & hospitality sectors creating sustainable initiatives to reduce carbon emissions, and more.

In New York City, building owners try to figure out how to pay for upgrades needed to comply with regulations outlined in Local Law 97 that are intended to fight climate change. (Jane Margolies, The New York Times)
Maryland, Massachusetts, and New York approve clean energy legislation, enacting laws to promote electric vehicles as well as wind and solar energy. (ACEEE)
The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), signed into law by President Biden this week, includes expanded tax credits expected to pivot building owners and property developers to make upgrades geared towards energy efficiency. (Jack Rogers, Globe St.)

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

Look to West Africa for the Future of Green Architecture

May 16, 2022 — Kriston Capps - Bloomberg
In 2014, a crowd of demonstrators stormed Burkina Faso’s National Assembly building, setting it ablaze and ending the nearly 30-year rule of President Blaise Compaoré. A year later, Burkenabè architect Diébédo Francis Kéré was asked to imagine a new parliamentary building — one that would reflect a more democratic future for the West African nation. Kéré conceived a six-story stepped pyramid that slopes up gently from the ground, inviting citizens to gather, climb and take in views of the capital city, Ouagadougou. The ruins of the former parliament building next door would be transformed into a rainwater-collecting memorial park. The project remains a ways off: Burkina Faso continues to struggle with political unrest, including a coup d’état in January 2022. But Kéré’s fast-growing prominence may improve the odds that his vision will eventually materialize. In March, he became the first African architect to win the Pritzker Architecture Prize, the design field’s top honor. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Kriston Capps, Bloomberg

Why Builders Should Reconsider Arbitration Clauses in Construction Contracts

October 21, 2019 — David M. McLain – Colorado Construction Litigation
My advice to home builders has long been to arbitrate construction defect claims instead of litigating them in front of juries. Based on my experience and watching others litigate claims, I have learned that home builders usually fare better in arbitration than in jury trials, both in terms of what they have to pay the homeowners or HOAs and also in what they recover from subcontractors and design professionals. Because of these dynamics, conventional wisdom has been that builders should arbitrate construction defect claims. For several reasons, I am now questioning whether the time is right to consider a third option. First, plaintiffs’ attorneys dislike arbitration and will continue their attempts to do away with arbitration for construction defect claims. In 2018, the Colorado Legislature considered HB 18-1261 and HB 18-1262. While both bills were ultimately killed, they showed the plaintiffs’ attorneys disdain for arbitration, and serve as a warning that attempts to prevent arbitration legislatively will continue. If the legislature does away with the ability to arbitrate construction defect claims, and that is the only means of dispute resolution contained in a builder’s contracts, that builder may find itself in front of a jury. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of David McLain, Higgins, Hopkins, McLain & Roswell
Mr. McLain may be contacted at mclain@hhmrlaw.com

Is the Manhattan Bank of America Tower a Green Success or Failure?

April 15, 2014 — Beverley BevenFlorez-CDJ STAFF
Construction Digital reported that the Bank of America tower in Manhattan, New York, “has been conversely hailed as both the greenest skyscraper in the world and an energy-guzzling toxic tower that exposes the charade of the LEED rating system.” It is the first skyscraper to ever achieve the highest LEED Platinum rating. However, a critic alleged that the eighty-year old Empire State Building “uses half the energy” of the new Bank of America tower. The Bank of America tower, designed by architects Cook and Fox, was built with “local and recycled materials,” as well as “floor-to-floor insulated glazing” that maximizes “natural light and traps heat, and lights are automatically dimmed in daylight.” Rainwater is captured for reuse, and “waterless urinals save an estimated 8,000,000 US gallons of water per year.” However, Construction Digital reported that Sam Roudman in New Republic Magazine “pointed out that buildings contribute more to global warming than any other sector of the economy, consuming more energy and producing more greenhouse gas emissions in America than every car, bus, jet, and train combined; and furthermore, than every factory combined.” Joel Levy writing for Construction Digital declared, “We can call LEED a failed artifice and even suggest abandoning it as a pointless charade, but unless we want to live in caves and go back to using candles for light, we must accept the fact that the 155,000,000 people that make up America’s workforce power the country and indeed the world’s economy…need somewhere to work.” Read the court decision
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Construction Bright Spot in Indianapolis

March 01, 2012 — CDJ STAFF

The downtown Indianapolis area is the site of about 85 major building projects that are from groundbreaking to just complete. The Indianapolis Star reports that the cumulative worth of the projects is about $3 billion, a level of construction that Indianapolis has seen only once before.

About thirty of the projects are residential. The main commercial project is a $754 million hospital building. The boom in downtown Indianapolis is not matched elsewhere, with the Indianapolis Star reporting that in the rest of Central Indiana, construction has slowed.

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Future Environmental Rulemaking Proceedings Listed in the Spring 2019 Unified Federal Agenda

July 15, 2019 — Anthony B. Cavender - Gravel2Gavel
The latest federal regulatory agenda has been released, which, among other matters, lists proposed and projected environmental regulatory proceedings being considered by different departments and agencies. Here are some selected items. EPA 1. The Water Office

EPA plans to issue in December 2019 a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) to consider making a regulatory determination as a prelude to listing as drinking water contaminants PFOA and PFOS pursuant to the Safe Drinking Water Act.
EPA (along with the Corps of Engineers) plans to issue an NPRM in December 2019 that will propose to revise and update its 2008 mitigation banks and in-lieu fee programs, with a final rule scheduled for September 2020.
An NPRM to revise the 2015 effluent limitations guidelines and standards for the Steam Electric Power Generating Point Source Category will be released in June 2019.

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Anthony B. Cavender, Pillsbury

anthony.cavender@pillsburylaw.com