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Generally, the economy has continued to be more resilient than most economists have forecasted through the end of 2023. However, with interest rates projected to stay higher, longer, deal making has stalled in a significant way across the country.

MARKETS TREND
Workplace

A recent survey by IBI has shed light on significant changes in workplace dynamics. In 2024, 90% of major companies are planning to reintroduce “return-to-office” policies and this shift comes on the heels of the challenges and disruptions caused by forced in-office regulations in 2023.

The predominant trend in the workplace is the adoption of a hybrid model, aimed at enhancing flexibility and optimizing productivity, employee engagement, job satisfaction, and retention. This trend has not only impacted office vacancies but has also given rise to the “Flight to Quality” concept. To facilitate the hybrid work model and attract talent, businesses are strategically relocating to smaller, more enticing office spaces with enhanced amenities. In particular, larger, well-capitalized firms are leading the charge in the steady growth of corporate campus construction, with an emphasis on creating iconic and sustainable headquarters that consolidate operational centers and serve as cultural hubs.

MARKET TREND
Adaptive Reuse

The adaptive reuse and repositioning of underutilized buildings, predominantly in the office sector, reached its peak in 2023 and is set to continue as a prominent trend.

This approach not only revitalizes struggling downtown areas but also champions a more environmentally sustainable method to meet the growing demand for new construction.

In 2024, experts forecast a significant 63% increase in upcoming adaptive reuse projects, with a particular focus on residential properties. Los Angeles stands out as a prominent hub for adaptive reuse, and similar projects are gaining traction in cities such as New York and Chicago.

A critical factor for success in adaptive reuse projects is early collaboration with the design team for thorough assessments of existing building conditions, leading to notable improvements in construction timelines and cost management.

MARKET TREND
Hospitality/Mixed-Use

The live/stay industry has experienced a shift in construction focus. Ground-up hospitality projects have decelerated in most cities, but there is a growing emphasis on renovating and expanding existing hotels to cater to the expanding business travel market.

Positive hotel revenue growth in the last quarter reinforces expectations for continued growth into 2024. Notably, many new mixed-use development opportunities are on the horizon, particularly in Texas, Florida, and Nashville. These ventures integrate Class A+ office spaces and retail but are more likely to move forward with the addition of high-end residential and an onsite hotel component.

These developments present promising prospects for the industry’s future but have more demanding returns on the larger-scale projects.

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Photos: Andrea Calo

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Mesa, Arizona has grown by leaps and bounds over the past decade, becoming the most populous city in the East Valley of the Phoenix Metro Area. One of the fastest growing areas in America since the last census, this has resulted in a burgeoning population placing ever more demand on local services. Medical centers are no exception. To meet increased patient care needs and serve as a hub for the East Valley, DPR recently completed work on a five-story vertical expansion above the existing two-story north wing of Banner Desert Medical Center, increasing the licensed bed capacity, renovating aging units and expanding women’s services in Mesa.

Prefabrication was critical in mitigating challenges in the busy region and helping the project realize faster speed to market, create predictable timelines, and minimize impacts on existing hospital operations.

Prefabrication was a critical component in the successful completion of Banner Desert Medical Center’s expansion in Mesa, AZ. Photo: Samuel Carl

The new tower creates a women’s-centered care program on the expanded footprint and maximizes connection between services from the existing seven-story pediatric patient tower that opened in 2009.

Banner Health’s primary goal for the project was to increase bed capacity, elevate the patient experience, and support long-term performance of the facility, while expanding women’s and children’s services. The reimagined women and children’s entrance will welcome patients and reflects the expanded services. Banner’s investment in the community makes state-of-the-art services accessible to every patient and family.

“At the end of the day, our focus was just on making sure the owner was happy and doing that in a collaborative way, not trying to outshine each other. We knew that we’re all in this together, and if we were to succeed it would be as a team. No one team could succeed while the other two didn’t,” said Tracy Lauer of the design team, Cuningham Group.

TIMING IS EVERYTHING

While the original building was designed with expansion in mind, challenges are inevitable in any vertical expansion above active healthcare operations—in this case, a pediatric surgery department. Changes in code requirements in the decade since initial construction coupled with supply chain issues accelerated by the pandemic and an aggressive schedule goal added to the project’s complexity, making robust communication a key factor in project success.

Banner Health Project Executive Nancy Medrano noted, “We collaborated well and kept lines of communication open and honest.”

PREFABRICATION TO ADDRESS CHALLENGES

To meet aggressive deadlines despite unforeseen factors, DPR employed a suite of solutions including 150 prefabricated factory-built bathroom units, the building skin, corridors, shared MEP racks and medical gas headwalls. This strategy made the difference in achieving the project’s schedule—especially as labor, supply chain and escalation issues would eventually impact the market amid a city-wide construction boom.

To meet aggressive deadlines, DPR employed a suite of solutions including 150 prefabricated factory-built bathroom units, the building skin, corridors, shared MEP racks and medical gas headwalls. Photo: Samuel Carl

One key prefabrication component even helped shorten the project’s critical path timeline: the use of SurePods prefabricated bathroom pods. 150 bathroom pods were manufactured offsite and loaded level by level into the five-story expansion, shaving 55 days—more than seven weeks—off the schedule compared to conventional on-site building methods. That not only saved time and cost, but also enabled the hospital to serve patients sooner.

With three separate healthcare projects planned for construction nearby, Banner sought to use the SurePods bathroom pods and modular headwall solutions across its portfolio—creating economies of scale and providing a templated design to achieve a consistent patient experience across campuses. In an uncommon collaboration, the DPR and Cuningham project teams were challenged to work closely with two other GC/design teams to standardize the design of the prefabrication components and reduce the overall cost. This collaborative approach drove value for capital projects across the health system.

SAFER CONSTRUCTION

Building on an active hospital campus brings additional safety risks for workers, medical staff and the public. Working in and around sensitive areas like the hospital’s main entrance and pediatric surgery department, while performing high stakes tasks like critical picks, DPR focused on proactive planning and risk reduction through prefabrication. Without prefabrication of many components, there would have been much more potential for disruptions to hospital operations around the project site.

The team used SidePlate field-bolted steel connections as an alternative to welded joints. In addition to schedule savings, the use of the engineered fasteners meant improved safety—welding over the existing two-story occupied hospital with pediatric OR and PACU directly beneath the vertical expansion was eliminated.

MINIMIZING IMPACT TO OPERATIONS

The exterior skin was also prefabricated. Scaffolding for framing, sheathing, Exterior Insulation Finishing Systems (EIFS), metal panel and block application would add cost and disruptions, and stick-frame construction would require more trade partners on site, adding congestion to an already tight, active campus that struggles for adequate parking. All four new elevations were constructed with panels built offsite, shipped to site and flown into place with cranes. The finished skin installation averaged 2,775 sq. ft. a day by one crew instead of multiple months with six to eight trade partners involved in a conventional setting, minimizing interruptions to the active campus.

Installing overhead MEP elements by traditional means can be complex and, in a 36-bed hospital unit with long corridors, very congested. As part of the project’s critical path, the team opted to use pre-engineered assemblies that integrate mechanical piping and electrical elements within a custom rack chassis. The racks went up quickly, creating schedule savings and reducing the need for onsite labor.

As part of the project’s critical path, the team opted to use pre-engineered assemblies that integrate mechanical piping and electrical elements within a custom rack chassis. Photo: Karin Fossett

Every patient bed in the hospital required framing, medical gas and electrical rough-in at the head of each bed, so DPR self-performed modular headwall installation to better control schedule. The prefabricated headwall system allowed for consistency and superior quality control with fewer trade partners. The premanufactured units shifted fabrication to an off-site facility, which reduced the onsite workforce, risk and safety incidents, and eliminated the logistical challenges of mobilizing a large labor force in an operating healthcare environment.

Ultimately, the team at Banner Desert Medical Center was able to meet the needs of the growing Phoenix community via the use of prefab solutions. Predictable timelines, faster speed to market, superior quality control and increased safety contributed to the project’s success.

Traditional barriers prevent adoption of new approaches in construction and its supply chain. If everyone agrees there’s a better way, what holds the industry back?

For more than a generation, there’s been a robust discussion in construction and design circles about the value of more collaborative project delivery methods. Entire books detail the benefits of integrated project delivery (IPD), design-build has its own advocacy organization and construction firms are looking at ways to fold best practices into projects regardless of project type. Still, adoption of alternative delivery methods is, at best, a slow march.

What looks good on paper is subject to significant pressure in practice. According to project owners, part of the problem is that, given the risks associated with building assets that will have 50-year lifespans or more, the inertia to stick with tried-and-true methods is real.

“We primarily use construction manager at-risk (CMAR) and it goes well,” said Alexander Kohnen, Vice President for Facilities Development and Management at Arizona State University. “Some stakeholders at ASU prefer having closer relationships to designers and they don’t see a reason to change. To me, it’s all about hiring the right team for the project.”

Indeed, project partners across the delivery chain will be the first to admit that culture changes slowly. The industry is built on centuries of working a certain way. In fact, many owners noted there’s even a level of fear to being on the bleeding edge and trying something different.

“It’s hard to do,” said John Bruno, Vice President for Global Real Estate at Workday. “Having something go wrong is a major risk. And for GCs, their relationships are based on delivering results. If a team takes a risk and it doesn’t work, that reputation is going to take a hit.”

A PATH FORWARD THROUGH COLLABORATION

Realizing the most value from alternative delivery methods means having all stakeholders on board. Northern California healthcare provider, Sutter Health, thinks it’s found a way.

“Decision-making on the owner’s side may seem fast to the owner but slow to the project delivery team. That’s because operational leaders on the owner’s side typically only have a few hours a week to devote to decision-making on a capital project due to the demanding full-time operational jobs that dominate their priorities,” said Digby Christian, Sutter’s Executive Director of Project Delivery, who has been a champion for IPD. “On our projects, we use the Last Planner System to create highly detailed workflows. This enables us to clearly explain to our operational leaders exactly what decision is needed, when it is needed, and, critically, why it is needed that soon. Christian says that this approach alone has allowed Sutter to keep projects on schedule.

“You can expedite decision making by two weeks simply by clearly explaining to one person why we need their decision right now,” he said. “To save two weeks in the construction phase, you might need 20 people to meet in-person for an entire day. If the industry would embrace the criticality of clear workflow paths that include the decisions that are needed by owner-side operational leaders, there is much to be gained. Detailed construction workplans that exclude the work of making design and operational decisions are missing perhaps 80% of the schedule risk.”

Christian has written and spoken extensively about how Sutter has realized benefits from IPD.

“In the past 16 years, we have invested significantly across 30 projects,” Christian said. “The industry’s overall record shows that fewer than 30% of projects meet or beat their schedule and budget goals. At Sutter, our track record is nearly 100%. We achieved this by shifting from selecting solely based on price to selecting based on the quality of the teams, their experience and their ability to trust and collaborate. We work with these teams to achieve the right balance of scope, schedule and cost that meets our needs as an owner. This way, we gain a deeper understanding of the projects before seeking funding. Our projects are at or below normal market costs and yet they open as scheduled, on time or even ahead of schedule. This record has remained unchanged through the pandemic and the catastrophic impact it had on worker capacity and supply chains. We incur no financial premium, and in return, we receive rock solid quality with no delays.”

Another benefit Sutter has observed is that this process helps to ensure speed to market.

“We’re under pressure to go faster. We can achieve this if both we and our key market vendors are willing to invest in long-term partnerships,” Christian said. “The best balance of speed, cost and quality can be found with the very best teams. If vendors can provide us with repeat access to their top talent, there’s an opportunity to build on those partnerships and collaborate on future projects. We can further accelerate by increasing the level of standardization in our care spaces.”

For many customers, trust is a key issue on major capital projects and, in many cases, that extends to knowing the team working together on a project will gel. Moreover, while changing the industry might yield benefits, those longer-term goals may not be aligned with a customer’s short-term aims.

“Project goals and what defines success on a project might differ from what our industry-changing goals are,” said DPR CEO George Pfeffer. There are models for doing things differently, but scaling these practices across organizations in any part of the supply chain has proven difficult.

“Our industry tends to learn slowly,” Christian said. “In 2012, at Sutter, we felt like we had it figured out, but the industry still isn’t adopting the practices we implemented from 2007-2012. When I present today about how we’ve solved significant problems, it’s still considered cutting-edge. It makes me think about the fragmented nature of the industry.”

Some of that can simply get chalked up to risks and the pressures to avoid them, leaning on long-established processes that offer a refuge from perceived risks.

“I believe the industry could undergo a faster evolution if contract terms and financial incentives were better aligned with the owner’s goals, particularly in terms of on-time project delivery and staying within budget,” said Christian. “While good intentions are valuable, it’s the influence of market dynamics that has the potential to drive significant transformation.”

OPPORTUNITIES TO IMPROVE THROUGHOUT THE AEC INDUSTRY

“I definitely believe that GCs have the opportunity to improve project delivery,” Christian said. “I’m often surprised that the best practices of GCs typically don’t scale nationally across their companies. The same holds true with design firms. For me, a very practical and achievable goal for our industry is to develop more mechanisms to share knowledge and lessons learned.”

“If you think about it, our industry is not set up to truly share info effectively,” said DPR’s Matt Murphy. “From antitrust laws we have to respect to a general competitive spirit, we’re used to keeping great ideas close to the vest. We have to find ways to share how we navigated the most difficult problems so we can scale industry-wide solutions.”

For customers, too, there are opportunities. “Owners should consider elements of their designs they can standardize,” said Mike Medici, President and Managing Partner at SmithGroup. “We are building a one-off in almost every situation. Instead of having to treat those elements like new on every project, there would be a playbook for delivery. You can move so much faster.”

Standardized elements and a design-for-manufacturing mindset is one area that is beginning to gain wider adoption, especially as stakeholders across the delivery chain consider how prefabrication can be applied. Prefabrication can offer supply chain advantages, as well – and the supply chain is another area where collaboration and trust have to be addressed.

Sam Huckaby, Chief Development Officer, EMEA for Vantage Data Centers gave an example of this related to procurement.

“There are owners who won’t sign off on steel prices from GCs early on, assuming the GC is trying to make a buck,” Huckaby said. “To me, you have to trust GCs are getting you the best price. Have you picked the right partners to trust them enough to give you the best price based on the market?”

Mark Barkenbush, Vice President for Facility Services with Banner Health agrees: “Early coordination when it comes to the supply chain is good, but when you get right down to it, the traditional process is a lot of shifting risk and just deciding who’s going to carry more of it.”

Collaboration on things like procurement show that, regardless of project type, there are ways to break down traditional barriers.

LEVERAGING THE STRENGTHS OF EACH STAKEHOLDER

“You want to give people the things they’re best at doing,” Huckaby said. “In the same context, we don’t want to have our manufacturers doing things they’re not good at. They make their money cranking out base models of their stuff. So that changed how we approached procurement.”

Huckaby described how, with long lead times for electrical equipment like transformers, there was an added risk to schedule and cost of having customizations done on the factory floor. Instead, the project team – customer, designer and contractor – determined custom elements could be handled by electricians on site. That ensured timely delivery of equipment and with the contractor ready to move upon arrival, schedule was preserved.

“The question is, how do you help people think outside of the normal process?” Huckaby said. “We all work at scale so we can learn what’s affecting production lines. There are also situations where you can get production slots with manufacturers before you have all the details. With steel, you can commit to a mill order and still have flexibility when you need to make a choice on fabrication.”

“We’ve all gotten smarter about supply chain management,” said Ray Trebino, a DPR business unit leader. “For example, we’ve learned that where we thought a procurement chain was only three layers deep, there might actually be nine. Moreover, we know that an impact in any one of those steps impacts the supply chain and the project. You need to understand all of the supply chain layers and have mitigation processes for all of the steps to minimize impacts.”

“Vantage has its own procurement team that gets its own equipment,” Huckaby said. “There are still other things that need to get purchased. But our buying power is larger than most think and as we’ve gotten bigger and bigger it’s helped. GCs, with their relationships, can likely also leverage scale to customer benefits.”

In a pinch, this could even be a help with local jurisdictions.

“There’s definitely a need to educate jurisdictions,” said Avi Halpert, United Therapeutics’ Vice President for Corporate Real Estate. “We have a pressure to get things up and running even while there is work still being done. Working together with our GC partners, we believe we’ve found solutions we can put in place in buildings that are temporary, but also safe. Being able to demonstrate that is key.”

That type of approach can begin to break old models and it’s possible now is the time to do so.

“The Roaring 20s followed a pandemic and a war,” said Troy Thompson, Managing Partner at SmithGroup. “We’re in a similar political and cultural moment now. If we say all this is a decade-long issue, it changes how we think of things today.”

“As owners, we have to define what is most important,” Huckaby said. “If we clearly define what is important to us, then our project teams can make decisions based on that.”

According to the Uptime Institute, 1 out of 4 data center projects have zero women on their design, build and operations staff. That was not the case on an Ashburn, VA project where the team was led by women who implemented new practices, applied lessons learned and provided a strong example of collaboration. While women make up just 14% of the construction workforce, these leaders are not only challenging the industry stereotype, but building a great project and fostering continuous improvement that can scale across the client’s portfolio to drive value and deliver great results.

DECONSTRUCTING THE STEREOTYPE

“Growing up, I lived on a farm,” said Gabrielle Bishop, a DPR mechanical, electrical and plumbing (MEP) coordinator on the Equinix project in Virginia known as DC21, a 156,000-sq.-ft. data center. “My sisters and I got to work alongside our dad. I loved to tinker with things, troubleshoot and problem solve, so as I got older, I thought I’d probably go to school for engineering.” Bishop interviewed at several colleges within the engineering school at Virginia Tech, but something hit home as she listened to the Dean of the Construction College speak. “As a woman, who was in the Navy like my dad, and a college athlete like me,” Bishop said. “She was relatable.” While Bishop was aware of the more common types of engineering, she had never heard of construction engineering. “I didn’t even know it was an option going into school,” she recalled. “But the way the Dean described it, it just drew me in.”

Alaina Reeverts, Equinix senior construction manager, has a similar story: “Since I was probably four or five years old, I knew I wanted to build things. My dad was into an engineering TV show, and I remember watching and seeing construction on a big tower. It stuck with me that I didn’t see any women, but it didn’t deter me from wanting to build.”

In fact, in high school, Reeverts was taking a drafting class with the goal of a career in architecture, when her teacher asked her if she had ever considered construction management.

“She told me I had the personality for it,” she laughed. Curious, Reeverts took a class through the local junior college and stuck with construction management all the way through her graduation from Illinois State University. “My internships got me hooked on construction, but my first project at my first job right out of college was a data center in Cheyenne, WY. I’ve been in mission critical construction ever since.”

“I wasn’t planning on working in construction at all,” said DPR project manager Lindsay Smith, who obtained her degree in architectural engineering from Penn State University. But once she had boots on the ground at a jobsite during an internship, she changed her area of focus from structural engineering to where she knew was a better fit for her—construction management. “When I was thinking about what I wanted to do for a career or what I wanted to study in college, construction was never a thought that crossed my mind,” said Smith. “It wasn’t even a curriculum option that I was aware of.”

COMMUNICATION, TRANSPARENCY, INTEGRITY

Like most projects in the construction industry, mission critical projects including DC21 have encountered lingering challenges from the global pandemic. Having worked together previously on multiple Equinix projects, the team was well-prepared to put their heads together to find solutions.

“Procurement delays have been our biggest challenge,” said Bishop, who explained that equipment in data centers is on the critical path and essentially drives the schedule. “We’ve had to come up with temporary solutions and made sure to include everybody in the decision-making process, not just DPR, but making sure all voices are heard in brainstorming for solutions.” Bishop reiterated that the critical factors in the success of solving a problem are clear communication and transparency to ensure all parties know what’s happening at any given point. “We’ve developed a great relationship with each other and a process in which we’re now able to anticipate what Alaina’s team needs and what they expect from us.”

“Equipment and material delays were definitely difficult to maneuver,” added Smith, noting that the delays were significant and often with no notice. “It took very transparent and constant communication, and creativity, to maintain our schedule where we could. It required a lot of work from all of our teams.” Making this a priority helped continue to build and foster a close client relationship.

“Dealing with the equipment delays, this team came together to brainstorm our options and potential workarounds,” said Reeverts. “We’ve worked on multiple Equinix projects together over several years, and we know how to work well together. Having our combined knowledge, experience and our close relationships, together we were ready to prepare backup plans if we needed to.”

“One of the ways we did things differently on this project, was developing a ‘scorecard’ and a process for using it,” explained Smith, including that the detailed and thorough scorecard served as a platform for keeping project stakeholders in constant communication, encouraging open and honest feedback, with the intent to better support the project and its teams. It worked so well in fact, that it has become a model for Equinix projects moving forward. The success of the method has prompted members of several Equinix project teams to visit the DC21 site to learn more about implementing the process into their own projects.

Additionally, Smith and Bishop helped develop and implement what Reeverts and the Equinix team refer to as an “a la carte” menu. “If we run into an issue, we aren’t looking for just one solution,” said Bishop. “We talk about options a, b, c and d. We highlight the low-cost impact, high-cost impact and middle of the road impact. The levels of schedule and risk impacts. The Equinix team is then able to ask questions, have discussions with us and among themselves, then pick from the menu understanding all of their options and how those choices work together. They help shape the path of the project going forward with full transparency.”

And for Bishop, Reeverts and Smith, it’s not only about finding solutions and fostering good relationships among themselves as a team of female leaders. “We take it seriously, to build strong relationships with everyone onsite, not just the team in the trailer,” said Reeverts. Added Bishop, “I’m proud to be part of this strong female leadership team, but what is truly significant is that we’re good at our jobs. We are highly skilled, experienced and resilient experts who also happen to be women.”

BUILDING A NEW PERCEPTION

While this team crushed the stereotype in a male-dominated industry, all agreed that there is unlimited potential for all women to continue to break the mold moving forward, including work on STEM, mission critical and other advanced technology projects, with data center demand projected to grow approximately 10% a year through 2030.

“We’re seeing more and more women come into the trades,” said Bishop, noting that she’s currently working with an all-female fire alarm crew on another in-progress Equinix project. “There isn’t one specific opportunity for women to integrate into the industry or into advanced technology. I genuinely feel that every door is wide open.” She added that exploring various roles in construction early in her education was critical in finding her path and fully understanding the range of options she had in choosing what to study and where to focus her career goals. “Ask questions and be ready to dive in. Just be curious. Be open and be yourself.”

“I see female electricians, women working for our telecom and drywall subcontractors, we’re starting to see females represented in so many roles who haven’t let stereotypes influence their decisions to get into construction,” said Smith. “And I’ve been lucky to work for a company and with a customer who both empower women to work in the field, to lead teams or to explore any path they’re interested in.”

Initially, Smith shied away from working in advanced technology. “I wasn’t interested in working in this market at all,” said Smith. “It was intimidating.” She added that she was unsure if she had adequate technical knowledge to work with the complex systems typically found in data centers. “I didn’t know if I was equipped for it because I started my career in a market that was less technical than advanced technology, and that was the only experience I had.” When Smith joined DPR’s advanced technology team nearly four years ago, her first project was an Equinix data center, and has she worked on mission critical projects ever since.

With more than 10 years’ experience in mission critical construction, Reeverts is fueled by the pace of data center projects. “It’s not boring,” said Reeverts. “It’s ever evolving. There is always a new challenge to solve, and it is intimidating.” She said that working on data centers and mission critical projects might not be as ‘pretty’ as work in other markets, but that’s part of what makes the work interesting. “There’s more concentration on the ‘heart and soul’ of the building, its systems. It might not sound sexy, and that’s why it’s so important that there are opportunities for young women to become aware of how rewarding this work can be.”

To the young women entering the construction industry, from the women who are and have been pioneering the way, Reeverts said, “Be receptive to criticism and help. But don’t be intimidated. Don’t get small. There is so much to learn and there are so many opportunities to succeed.”

Construction Inclusion Week (CIW) harnesses the collective power of general contractors, specialty contractors, subcontractors, and suppliers. The objective is to build awareness for the need to improve diversity and inclusion in the construction industry. What that really means is we are recognizing a challenge: the lack of diversity and inclusion in the construction industry. And, together with others in the industry, we are aiming to solve it. Approximately 5,000 firms are participating this year.

The goal we have during CIW is present year-round. It is felt in DPR’s central beliefs: Respect for the Individual and Change the World. CIW is designed to renew our commitment. It’s a chance to strengthen a sense of belonging and build a stronger culture of inclusivity.

Initially launched in 2021 as an industry-wide awareness initiative, CIW is now an established 501(c)(6) organization. Hear from some of DPR’s team members about inclusivity as we celebrate the third annual week.



Learn more about Construction Inclusion Week at Construction Inclusion Week.

Voices across the AEC industry agree that there is no way out of the labor shortage without true cultures of diversity and inclusion.

Jorge Quezada, Vice President for People & Culture with Granite Construction, sees three paradoxes when he starts talking about diversity, equity and inclusion. The first is that our brains are wired to find similarities, but being human is to be different from one another, so we need also appreciate the differences in the workplace.

“The second paradox,” Quezada said, “is that none of us created the systemic issues we face. But we all have a responsibility to do something about it.”

That leads to the third paradox: everyone needs to support DEI initiatives to create a more inclusive work environments at their respective companies and the construction industry; everyone also should be able to challenge why certain steps are being taken to gain greater clarity on DEI.

“To me, we need to focus on our people the same ways we focus on supply chain,” Quezada said. “Too often, we take an accounting perspective: ask yourself ‘where do people fall into P&L?’ We treat people as an expense. If we do that, we will only pull the expense levers when it comes to our employees.”

From a supply chain perspective, construction’s skilled labor workforce continues to face a shortage. Last year, the Associated Builders & Contractors found that the industry would need 650,000 additional workers on top of its normal pace of hiring to meet demands. As lawmakers from both parties heralded the passage of The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, McKinsey noted that the bill would put additional pressure on the existing workforce and the need to recruit more into the skilled trades. As advanced manufacturing seems poised to ramp up in the United States the need to recruit more workers is only increasing, with a wider group of employers hiring from a pool of talent that isn’t growing fast enough.

“Across the industry, everyone has their preferred company solutions, but we need to work together to move the industry,” said Victor Sanvido, Senior Vice President at Southland. He sees the barriers to entry as a high wall to clear. “How many people in our industry actually encourage their kids to get into the industry? If we can’t recommend it to our families, how can we expect others to?”

Fortunately, leaders from across the construction industry – customers, designers, owners and more – all see the scope of the problem and know that it’s going to take action from every corner of the industry, if not society as a whole, to change the trend. Moreover, if the industry cannot tackle DEI, they said, any effort will likely fall short.

“A lot of the efforts we see in the industry amount to rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic,” said Alexander Kohnen, Vice President for Facilities Development and Management at Arizona State University. “We need to bring more and more people in. Ten internships aren’t enough. We need 10,000. One problem we have in our industry, though, is the stigma around the trades and the drive to put people into college.”

Martin Fischer, Kumagai Professor in the School of Engineering and Senior Fellow at the Precourt Institute for Energy at Stanford University has seen the stigma firsthand.

“Since 2017, we’ve had a workforce VDC program for high schools and unions that has reached more than 700 people,” he said. “These students face the stigma, especially that their parents don’t want them to go into construction. Our class has started to change that perception.”

Mike Madsen, who recently retired from his post as President & CEO of Honeywell Aerospace, sees a similar challenge: “The hardest positions to fill are entry-level technician roles. We must do a better job of letting kids know that there are great careers to be had without a four-year degree.”

“For our technicians, we need to start earlier, especially in underserved communities,” Madsen continued. “Often, those are communities that have few, if any, guidance counselors; but we keep looking for others to solve this problem and we need be the ones to drive it. If we, the industry, reach out to schools, build relationships with the educators, and help connect the dots with the students, we can make a tremendous difference that will benefit all the parties involved.”

For a generation, American society has focused almost exclusively on putting kids on a college track, from well-off communities to underserved communities. While there is no shortage of great “first-in-the-family-to-attend-college” stories, not everyone fits that mold.

“In the face of the shortage of people coming into facilities construction and maintenance, I tend to turn to whether we can grow our own,” said Banner Health Vice President for Facility Services Mark Barkenbush. “It’s a bit unconventional, but we’ve started to explore training needs for our existing staff that can create new career paths.”

Other industries may have models to implement.

“On our campus, Starbucks had a pattern where baristas would leave shortly after becoming successful,” Kohnen said. “So, they started paying tuition for baristas, who now generally stay on all four years at ASU. Maybe we can get people to come into the trades with an offer to pay for college five years down the road? Imagine if we scaled that across the industry.”

In such a model, some might even opt to stay in the trades or, at the least, continue careers in other construction roles. With collective college loan debt in the United States around $1.75 trillion dollars, any avenue that helps keep students out of debt may be a strong recruiting tool. And money in their pockets can go a long way, too.

“I think we probably have to realize that a $5/hour increase in wages alone could help shift things,” said Avi Halpert, Vice President of Corporate Real Estate for United Therapeutics. “Showing a bit more love to folks wearing toolbelts could make a real difference.”

“We check in with women who left the workforce after having kids,” said John Bruno, Vice President for Global Real Estate at Workday. “It’s been great way to bring great people who left for personal reasons back in.”

Indeed, looking at flexible work schedules, part-time plans show promise, even in the seemingly inflexible world of construction job sites.

“The way the construction industry runs its projects is not conducive to a school schedule,” said Gretchen Kinsella, DPR’s Arizona business unit leader. “If you have two working parents, in most cases, the mom is still the person doing the school pickups and caregiving. Fundamentally, the way we operate doesn’t mesh with that schedule and those pressures. We’re missing 50% of the workforce and, I think, if we were more flexible with start times, we’d get a lot more people interested.”

Is solving that flexibility issue as simple as inviting the conversation? Perhaps.

“I don’t care when people are on site. I care about schedule, scope and budget,” Kohnen said. “I’d be willing to entertain a discussion about extending schedule to help be more flexible for teams, especially if I could get more cost certainty out of it.”

Sam Huckaby, Chief Development Officer, EMEA for Vantage Data Centers concurs: “As an owner I could care less when people work on site. I think, at some point in residential areas, it matters when the work happens. The COVID-19 pandemic forced us to be adaptable and agile and flexibility can be part of that.”

“To me, you cannot be looked down upon because you start at an untraditional time,” said DPR CEO George Pfeffer. “A lot of the workforce has long commutes. There are several issues which need more flexibility including parental duties. While we cannot have limitless flexibility, there is room for more than the industry has today.”

If this is true, then it’s the latest case of the construction and design industries needing to break century-old patterns of work and adapt. If, even before COVID-19, 96% of American workers said they needed more flexibility, it’s no wonder the construction industry lags since the pandemic, in an environment where flexibility is becoming the norm. For caregiving women and for workers who cannot afford to live in the city centers where much construction work takes place (and, therefore have long commutes), construction’s traditional hours can be a significant barrier to entry.

Other groups that have been put at a disadvantage because of traditional patterns need attention, as well.

“A class I teach at Stanford is connected with Howard University,” Fischer said. “As part of that, we went to Howard for classes there and then the Howard students came to Stanford for a week. Now, these are two well-respected and well-connected schools, so we were able to set many of the students at Stanford and Howard up for internship interviews. What was eye-opening was how the Stanford students were full of confidence and the Howard students were more doubtful. Yes, we opened a funnel, but that’s not all the work to be done. Sometimes we make assumptions about perceived limits, but seeing it changes your perspective.”

While owners and contractors all seem to agree that a lot of progress has been made, including events like Construction Inclusion Week, which have started long-overdue conversations across the industry, the cultural hard work is just beginning.

“There was an instance where one of my PMs was yelling and swearing at a contractor’s project engineer,” Huckaby recalled. “As soon as I had heard about it, I sent that person home and then went to the contractor’s trailer to apologize. We have to set the standard that this isn’t how we’re going to do business. And we have to tell people they’re not going to advance if they’re not building the culture.”

“In the public sector, if you are not achieving DEI, you’re done,” Kohnen said, noting that ASU is likely to add more robust DEI requirements and questions to its construction RFP process. “We will not put the ASU brand next to you. People who are better at it will get more business. Our students demand it and our board is ready to engage on it.”

“This is definitely a case where owners are moving the ball,” said SmithGroup Managing Partner Troy Thompson. “We cannot submit an RFQ without showing what we’re doing on the DEI front. We had to lead owners up the hill on sustainability efforts; this is the opposite.”

That’s not to say contractors don’t have levers they can pull, as well. While recruiting is the obvious way to diversity, inclusion requires creating environments where everyone can thrive. Without inclusion, it will be hard to retain all the new people who have been recruited.

“In my time at DPR, in my region, we’d had one female superintendent,” said Jody Quinton, a member of DPR’s Leadership team. “We had to change the normal way people moved into that track. Our general superintendents got together and developed a field engineer program. Instead of it being the traditional career path where people had to raise their hands, this was an invite program. They paired every participant with a mentor and, in the past three years, we’ve had three women move from field engineer roles and are now assistant superintendents. We had to develop something that drew women into this path.”

And culture changes that can foster inclusion and make construction more attractive may even take literal infrastructure.

“Let’s take something really tangible,” Pfeffer said. “We all have control over our jobsites and we’ve said there’s a psychological safety issue in construction. I think we should have detailed discussions around the availability and maintenance of things like the women’s and men’s restroom facilities on site. Those are some of the worst spaces for psychological safety and, across the industry, we just let it happen. What if we committed to saying we’re going to find a cleaner, safer space for our sites? There is always something we can do.”

DPR concrete superintendent, Moises Olivarez, is currently leading the concrete scope at 23Springs, a 26-story, mixed-use office tower in Uptown Dallas. Photo: Matt Pranzo

Drop a pin on a map just north of Downtown Dallas, Texas, and you’ll hit the city’s bustling Uptown district—an area increasingly taking on the characteristics of a modern urban design movement characterized by mixed use structures in walkable neighborhoods, with a variety of housing, job types, public spaces and vibrant nightlife.

Adhering to this livable design ethos that aims to combat urban sprawl, DPR is constructing 23Springs, a mixed-use office tower designed by GFF Architects for Granite Properties. This 26-story, 625,000-sq-ft. high-rise has a vertical design to reduce the building footprint, leaving room on the site for publicly-accessible open space. Heading up the concrete scope for 23Springs is DPR’s Moises Olivarez, who joined DPR in 2014 as a field engineer and currently serves as the concrete superintendent on the project.

23Springs is a mixed-use office tower with a vertical design meant to reduce the building footprint, leaving room for publicly accessible open space. Rendering: GFF Architects

Olivarez has dreamt of doing this kind of work since he was 18. He enjoys navigating new challenges and proving himself on difficult projects, but he knows his work is always a team effort, from logistics and planning, to implementing safety protocols.

Q: What are some interesting aspects about the project you’re working on right now?

Olivarez: We’re doing the concrete scope here at 23Springs. The biggest challenge on this job is the lack of space around the site because it’s in a dense, urban area in Uptown Dallas. There isn’t a lot of space to lay down materials. It’s a challenge to organize them, to connect the concrete pumps, to coordinate the sequence—who’s first, who’s next, etc. There is a lot of coordination involved. If something gets delayed, the whole plan has to be adjusted. But I have a good team. We make things happen.

Olivarez is currently working with six foremen and 70 laborers and carpenters, performing six pours per floor to construct the seven-level underground parking structure below the building’s first level. Photo: Ryan Emerson

This is the tallest high-rise I’ve worked on. The concrete workforce right now consists of me as the concrete superintendent, six foremen, and around 70 laborers and carpenters. We will be working until December of 2024.

We’re doing six pours per floor at the moment, but it will get more difficult when we get to level one, above the seven-level underground parking structure. We’ll have sloping columns and architectural exposed concrete columns above level one. The lid and level one have many complicated, deep (eight-foot) beams. We’ve added days to our schedule to account for that. There is a lot of concrete on this project. We’ll soon have more challenges, but with the team I’ve got, we’ll be able to do it and be successful.

Olivarez notes that his number one priority is always safety, which he discusses at length with his team before the start of each project to come up with a solid safety plan, as well as every day thereafter to reinforce their plan. Photo: Matt Pranzo

Q: Talk about a time in your career where you intervened to make the work on-site safer.

Olivarez: Safety is my number one priority, followed closely by quality and production. Before we start a job, my team and I discuss the project—how we will do things, what systems we can use to be better. We discuss the plans and figure out which tools will allow us to do our job more safely. We talk about safety every day, before we start a new project, and then every day to reinforce the plans we made.

I think the key to being able to do a job with zero injuries is always the team. We put the plan together and apply it in the field, but if the team doesn’t follow the plan, it could be a different story.

Q: What’s the most challenging part of your job?

Olivarez: Logistics and schedule are the biggest challenges. To me, those are the keys to being successful on the job. We coordinate and plan, but sometimes things happen that could lead to delays, making it a little tricky to finish out certain parts. Scheduling is really tough, but we’ve been doing a good job, even when challenges pop up.

Noting that logistics and schedule are the biggest challenges he faces in his role, Olivarez says, ” I think the key to being successful is always planning, communicating the plan to your team, and letting them change the plan in a good way. Planning and communication are always the key.” Photo: Matt Pranzo

Q: To be successful in your role, what skills does a person need?

Olivarez: I think the key to being successful is always planning, communicating the plan to your team, and letting them change the plan in a good way. Planning and communication are always the key.

Q: What would your advice be for the next generation of builders entering this field?

Olivarez: First of all, you have to feel passion for what you do. If you don’t have that feeling, I don’t think anything can be successful. But if you feel like, “I want to do this,” if you put in the effort and pay your dues, I think that’s all you need. The rest—the opportunities, the tools, the training—DPR will provide. It’s ultimately up to you. If you want to be successful, you can be. But you have to put in the effort.

“When I was 18, I saw myself doing what I’m doing right now, and I made it happen,” says Olivarez. “I want to prove myself and my team, to show that we can do this job and whatever job they give us.” Photo: Matt Pranzo

Q: What do you love about your job?

Olivarez: I love what I’m doing right now—both the concrete scope and the fact that I get to lead teams. When I was 18, I saw myself doing what I’m doing right now, and I made it happen. I really love what we can do as a team. Every job is a challenge, but this project is my biggest challenge yet, so I’m even more motivated. I want to prove myself and my team, to show that we can do this job and whatever job they give us. After this, we can do anything.

DPR exists to build great things, and that includes great teams, great projects, great people, great relationships and a great place to work. Our talented pool of employees live and work around the globe, and they all share a desire to change the world. Each of them brings a unique and valuable perspective to work.

In recognition of October as Global Diversity Awareness Month, Be a Pillar hears from three DPR employees who have worked in the U.S. and are now based out of DPR’s international operations in South Korea, Switzerland and India. Global Diversity Awareness Month honors diverse thought and celebrates inclusion.

Read about our colleagues’ unique experiences and how diversity in the workplace creates inclusivity, successful teams and a strong company culture.



As part of DPR’s commitment to Global Social Responsibility, the People pillar supports diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives to create a diverse and inclusive workplace that reflects the communities where we work, live and build.

To build awareness for the need to improve diversity and inclusion in the construction industry, DPR is participating in this year’s annual Construction Inclusion Week (CIW) from October 16-20. CIW aims to foster conversations that create alignment and push further on this journey of inclusivity for the industry overall.


The sole clubhouse of the Boys & Girls Clubs of North San Mateo County (BGCNSM) had been critically impacted by water intrusion and compounding maintenance issues for several years. The facility, which serves hundreds of families in the Pacifica, CA area through after-school care and other programming, was facing the possibility of temporarily closing to address repairs.

Enter DPR Construction. Alerted to the repair needs by BGCNSM board member and DPR community initiatives specialist Rena Crittendon, DPR’s Bay Area office jumped in to provide volunteer construction services and to leverage local trade relationships to procure materials at a discount. Between donated time from DPR’s Self-Perform Work (SPW) team, project managers, superintendents, and valued partners, completed repairs to the 10,000-sq.-ft. facility.

DPR Construction has partnered with Boys & Girls Clubs across the country for more than 15 years, providing facility renovations and repairs, educational programming, and board service. As a partner with BGCNSM since 2017, DPR has completed multiple facility renovations ranging from enhancements to allow clubs to remain open during COVID lockdowns to this major renovation.

The project was one of many DPR has completed in support of its philanthropic vision of building possibilities for the under-resourced through skills-based volunteering. Every year, DPR volunteers provide $2 million in facility improvements for organizations that create brighter futures for economically under-resourced community members. The BGCNSM project was complicated and had a short schedule, perfectly suited to DPR’s expertise as schedulers and technical builders.

As soon as the team received permits and approval to proceed, heavy winter storms rolled in causing significant weather delays. When the skies cleared, the team began work on the exterior by waterproofing the main classroom, making extensive roof repairs and improvements, and replacing gutters and all fascia boards. Inside the building, the team replastered and replaced drywall throughout the facility. Leveraging a strong vendor relationship, most of the materials for the project were donated by Channel Lumber, significantly reducing the project’s cost.

“The improvements we made to the clubhouse will allow BGCNSM to serve families here for many, many years. Despite the challenges, I was honored to have the opportunity to dedicate time to an important part of our community,” shared Michael Brennan, a DPR senior superintendent. “The Boys & Girls Clubs are more like community partners than clients, but as clients go, they were the nicest I have ever worked with.”

With the much-needed renovations completed, BGCNSM no longer needs to worry about flooding or safety issues. Instead, they can focus on fulfilling their mission of empowering youth by fostering academic success, 21st-century skills, and post-secondary education plans.

“We are so grateful for this community partnership. DPR Construction has made a tremendous impact on our organization and community, allowing us to remain a staple for many years to come. They have made a difference in each of our lives; we will forever be thankful,” said Lipp.

Delve into the dynamic world of healthcare infrastructure development as we explore the potential of capital projects to not just renovate but revolutionize healthcare. Throughout this thought-provoking podcast,


Here’s a glimpse into the transformative power of the discussions on Constructing with Care.

The Constructing with Care podcast is a gateway to the transformative world of healthcare construction. Be immersed in a world of insights, strategies and best practices that will shape the future of healthcare infrastructure.

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