Fairfield Connecticut Building Expert Directory

Get to Know BJ Siegel: Former Apple Executive and Co-Founder of Juno

April 10, 2023 — Aarni Heiskanen - AEC Business
Don’t miss BJ Siegel’s keynote speech at WDBE in September 2023. In this interview, we learn how he’s revolutionizing sustainable housing as a consumer product, using digital tools and asset-light approaches, while transforming how companies manage their data and processes. Designing commercial concepts BJ Siegel is on a mission to reinvent the world of urban multifamily housing through his prop tech firm, Juno. As a co-founder, Siegel is dedicated to creating branded consumer products that seamlessly blend functionality with impact. But his journey in design didn’t start there. Siegel’s expertise began as an architect at a small design firm in San Francisco, where he honed his skills in exhibit and product design. This led him to create exhibit designs for Apple’s product launches at their Macworld Expos. Eventually, he became part of the team that explored innovative retail ideas to take Apple’s products directly to consumers. 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

Homebuilding on the Rise in Nation’s Capitol

November 07, 2012 — CDJ STAFF
Is the homebuilding crunch over in DC? The Washington Post has reported that while new home construction is up throughout the country, in the DC area, construction has reached levels last seen in 2006. From January to August 2012, there were more than 19,000 building permits issued in the area, nearly doubling the number issued by that point in 2011. While building is on a quicker pace, what’s being built has changed. As compared to 2006, there are more townhomes, condos, and smaller homes being built. The article notes that 11 percent of new construction is condos, while in 2006, it was only 5 percent. Read the court decision
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HB 20-1046 - Private Retainage Reform - Postponed Indefinitely

May 04, 2020 — David M. McLain – Colorado Construction Litigation
On Tuesday, February 18th, the Colorado House Business Affairs & Labor Committee voted 10-0 to postpone indefinitely House Bill 1046. If it had been enacted, HB 1046 would have required, for all for all construction contracts of at least $150,000:

A property owner to make partial payments to the contractor of any amount due under the contract at the end of each calendar month or as soon as practicable after the end of the month;
A property owner to pay the contractor at least 95% of the value of satisfactorily completed work;
A property owner to pay the withheld percentage within 60 days after the contract is completed satisfactorily;
A contractor to pay a subcontractor for work performed under a subcontract within 30 calendar days after receiving payment for the work, not including a withheld percentage not to exceed 5%;
A subcontractor to pay any supplier, subcontractor, or laborer who provided goods, materials, labor, or equipment to the subcontractor within 30 calendar days after receiving payment under the subcontract; and
A subcontractor to submit to the contractor a list of the suppliers, sub-subcontractors, and laborers who provided goods, materials, labor, or equipment to the subcontractor for the work.

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Reprinted courtesy of David McLain, Higgins, Hopkins, McLain & Roswell
Mr. McLain may be contacted at mclain@hhmrlaw.com

Nondelegable Duty of Care Owed to Third Persons

May 29, 2023 — David Adelstein - Florida Construction Legal Updates
Although a personal injury case, the recent opinion in Garcia v. Southern Cleaning Service, Inc., 48 Fla.L.Weekly D977a (Fla. 1stDCA 2023) raises an interesting issue regarding nondelegable duties owed to third persons applicable in negligence actions. Remember, in order for there to be a negligence claim, the defendant MUST owe a duty of care to the plaintiff. No duty, no negligence claim. What if a defendant’s duty was delegated to, say, an independent contractor?

[A] party that hires an independent contractor may be liable for the contractor’s negligence where a nondelegable duty is involved. Such a duty may be imposed by statute, contract, or the common law. In determining whether a duty is nondelegable, the question is whether the responsibility at issue is so important to the community that an employer should not be allowed to transfer it to a third party. Garcia, supra, (internal citations omitted).

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Reprinted courtesy of David Adelstein, Kirwin Norris, P.A.
Mr. Adelstein may be contacted at dma@kirwinnorris.com

Do Hurricane-Prone Coastal States Need to Update their Building Codes?

April 15, 2015 — Beverley BevenFlorez-CDJ STAFF
Property Casualty 360 reported that “a number of coastal states took no action to improve their building code systems since 2012, and a few have weaker systems in place, according to the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety (IBHS).” The IBHS released their “Rating the States” report that published the results of their study of “the 18 most hurricane-prone states located along the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Coast on their building regulations.” States can receive up to 100 points, with a higher score reflecting better state building requirements. Delaware scored lowest with a mere 17 points—the same score it received in 2012. Virginia, the highest scored state, earned 95 points. Read the court decision
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Construction Needs Collaborative Planning

January 20, 2020 — Aarni Heiskanen - AEC Business
What makes construction different from manufacturing is its dynamic nature. Unlike a systemized production plant, a construction site is a mesh of interconnected processes that are far from optimized. The traditional top-down planning practice does not solve problems on the construction site, as recent research reveals. Making planning collaborative is a necessary step in making construction less wasteful. Everybody in the industry has felt frustration with inefficiencies in construction, but seeing the data is still disconcerting. I’ve had the pleasure of attending several workshops organized by the Finnish Aalto University’s research teams. These eye-opening events both revealed how much waste we have in construction today and suggested solutions to this problem. Four Aalto University graduate students shared insights from their research at a workshop of the Waste Workgroup of the Building 2030 consortium. They focused on projects where takt production, a lean construction method, had been used. Takt production breaks the work down into equally timed work batches and typically shortens project lead time considerably—up to 50%. However, even these well-planned projects included waste and unnecessary movement, as the researchers found out. 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

Why Are Developers Still Pouring Billions Into Waterlogged Miami?

November 30, 2016 — James Tarmy – Bloomberg
On Sunday, an ebullient procession of artists, performers, and city residents filled Collins Avenue between Miami Beach’s 32nd and 36th streets to inaugurate the Faena Forum, a 43,000--square-foot, $150 million, performing- and visual-arts space that’s the cultural centerpiece of the Faena District, a $1 billion development comprising luxury hotels, restaurants, and real estate. The complex is the brainchild of Alan Faena, an Argentinian fashion designer-cum-developer known for his all-white outfits, and Len Blavatnik, a Ukrainian born, New York-based billionaire whose net worth is estimated by Bloomberg Billionaires to be $18.6 billion. The parade/carnival/performance was was titled “Side by Tide,” which might be an overly optimistic assessment of Miami Beach's sea level. With "king tides" flooding parking garages and a University of Miami study reporting that Miami Beach has seen a 200 percent increase in flooding in the last decade, the tide isn’t on anyone’s side. It’s already beneath the city, seeping upward, often as not, through the ground’s porous limestone and into buildings’ backlogged storm drains. Aside from ruining the undercarriages of residents’ Porsches, this ground-up flooding has a second, perhaps more deleterious effect on the long-term feasibility of Miami Beach: Normal defenses against a rising ocean—such as sea walls or dykes—are useless. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of James Tarmy, Bloomberg
Mr. Tarmy may be followed on Twitter @jstarmy

Builder and County Tussle over Unfinished Homes

November 13, 2013 — CDJ STAFF
Rivard, Florida has been trying to get rid of a group of unfinished homes destroyed. Now Hernando County officials have decreed that the partially-built homes are unsafe and must be demolished. However, after the building permits were withdrawn, Costa Homes filed a lawsuit asking that they be reinstated. The county had given the builder a deadline to file new permits, but were met with a lawsuit. Costa Homes seeks to be relived of the county’s requirement that each of the six homes be provided with $10,000 bond and also finds the county’s completion schedule to be “so short it constitutes a prescription for failure.” Building officials had declared the structures unsafe in August and had stipulated that they had to be made safe. Read the court decision
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FAIRFIELD CONNECTICUT BUILDING EXPERT DIRECTORY AND CAPABILITIES