Starting off this week with some forecasting news. There was a good economic mid-year update
presented this week and some interesting nuggets came from it. The analysts see us being past the bottom now
and rising. The metrics are all pointing
at least in an upward direction. That
said it’s still dicey out there with unknowns regarding a new surge of the
virus. However taking that into account
the non-residential forecast is looking like 2020 will end 15% down from
2019. 2021 is being predicted as up 8%
with the majority of the growth on the backend of the year. That may be comforting to a lot of glaziers
who are normally backlogged out through the entire following year by this time
and right now there’s a portion that are not.
Other notes of interest- the big growth area in buildings are NOT a good
one for our world. It’s warehouses. The e-commerce side is on fire and there’s
significant growth in the fulfillment area.
Positive news though as renovation looks strong especially on the office
side (I have been preaching that for months-even pre-virus) while the other downsides
are hotel/motels and colleges and universities.
Both of those are really taking a beating and the forecasts for them are
not kind. So again we will stay on top
of it- soon we will have the latest update from Connor Lokar of ITR during the
NGA Glass Conference (REGISTER HERE and not only get that update but so much
more- a lot of buzz surrounding that event!) and later this week the June
Architectural Billings Index will be released. My prediction there is still
numbers in the 30’s but getting better. After all we did have an improvement in
starts in June from May, so I think this area will also show it as well. But it is 2020 so no logic really applies
right?? So we’ll see…
Elsewhere…
-- One of my favorite buildings of all time was torn down this
past week. The Palace of Auburn
Hills. This was the home of the Detroit
Pistons and a state of the art arena and showplace that was built by Bill
Davidson in 1988. He absolutely did it
right and it was a great and innovative venue all the way to the end. I saw so many super events there, sat
courtside for Kobe (a very very lucky moment there for me) and bonded with my
son during some good and usually bad basketball games. But it also had a business connect for
me. In the early 2000’s the Palace
remodeled an entire side of its structure putting in huge glass spans. I was
lucky enough to be the fabricator on this job, working with my pals from
Peterson Glass who were glazing it. It
was a challenging job with pattern cuts and oversized glass and the obvious
high profile nature of it. But it went
off as well as it could- everyone was happy and it gave me insane pride to
always point to that to anyone I was with.
So on my Project of the Week below it is the Palace… a great building
with lots of memories that I will always cherish.
-- I’ve hit it here a few times over the years so many know I
am big in to the bird friendly glazing space.
(Though again in all honesty when Julie Schimmelpenningh
brought it up for the first time in a GANA meeting several
years ago I seriously thought she was joking) This week Joe Green of GlasPro
in California had an excellent take on it on LinkedIn and I think it’s worth
the read.
-- Security Glazing is a big area and the NGA just released a
new technical paper on it. If you are at
all involved in this world, having this document handy is a must. You can find that and a bunch of other great
resources HERE.
-- I was excited to see my friend Joe Dressler land a new gig
this week. Joe was at Tremco for a long
long time but that recently ended and now he’s moved to G&W Engineering in
St. Louis- so his skillset will thankfully stay within our world! Congrats on the move Joe!
-- Last this week… I
really like what Guardian Glass did with their new education page. The layout is fantastic and the amount of
resources available pretty significant.
Click here for the link and check it out. Not sure who the individual folks are there
who deserve the props, but kudos to all who worked on this.
LINKS of the WEEK
I have never heard of this record but full credit to this
man- not easy
Interesting concept for the change of pace #WFH types
PROJECT of the WEEK
So here it is…. The Palace of Auburn Hills. Obviously Guardian Glass was the float
supplier (Bill Davidson was the owner of Guardian and the Palace at the time)
with the install by Peterson Glass and the fabrication by Trulite. Props to the awesome Chris Dolan of Guardian
Glass who was a huge help in making sure we didn’t screw anything up here and
to the great Steve Martin (who I used to work with at Trulite and is now at OBE) who was
our PM for this job because he lived and breathed this one til done. What a
beauty and a shame it is now gone!
ADDED: Chris Dolan replied on Twitter with the below... his memory is better than mine and he's classier too- all of these folks WERE also huge in this project!
Max, you are so right regarding the Palace. The glass was beautiful and it is sad that it is gone too soon. Don’t forget Ray Wakefield who was also intimately involved in the project at Trulite and I have to shout out Guardian’s Mitch Edwards and Cory Richardson.
ADDED: Chris Dolan replied on Twitter with the below... his memory is better than mine and he's classier too- all of these folks WERE also huge in this project!
Max, you are so right regarding the Palace. The glass was beautiful and it is sad that it is gone too soon. Don’t forget Ray Wakefield who was also intimately involved in the project at Trulite and I have to shout out Guardian’s Mitch Edwards and Cory Richardson.
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