Editor’s note: New nominations continue to arrive daily for the 2014 Best Construction Blog competition. I have just started the review process for each blog — this will take some time, but all qualifying blogs will be reviewed before the competition voting closes at the end of March. You can nominate blogs until January 31.
Construction Data Company has a wealth of material underpinning its blog: Massive amounts of upcoming and historical project data for a diversity of US states from Alabama to Wyoming. Rightfully, you should not expect hard actionable contact details for individual projects and bidding opportunities. If CDC gave that stuff away in its blog, the business would be handing over its primary revenue source. However, the blog provides really worthwhile insights into trends, images of interesting projects, and company news, and so is worthy reading for anyone seeking an overview?of the industry’s current state and priorities.
For example, see this recent posting with a detailed report about the Texas construction market.
Today we take a look at the bidding landscape for the state of Texas from October through December 2013. CDCNews reported on 2,403 construction projects that had a bid date between October 1st?and December 31st. There were 1,906 public sector bids and 497 private sector bids during the fourth quarter of 2013.
Of the 1,906 public projects, 519 were classified as General Building, 256 were Specialty Trades, 828 were Heavy/Highway and 564 were Sewer & Water projects. There is some overlap in the numbers since projects can fall into more than one classification.?General Building?projects are all general construction projects regardless of size.?Specialty Trades?are projects with three or less trades involved where subcontractors can bid as a ?prime contractor?.?Heavy & Highway?projects include projects involving road paving, tennis courts, athletic fields, drainage, dredging, demolition, traffic signals, site improvements and bridges.?Sewer & Water?are projects involving pump stations, water treatment facilities, force mains, septic work, inspection services, drainage, etc.
There’s more data and pie charts, which you can view for yourself here.
This type of granular data can be very helpful in framing priorities and market expansion objectives. You’ll need to either develop your own leads gatheing system or use a service such as CDC or one of its competitors to obtain the detailed project/competition information, but that isn’t the role of this blog.
In a recent posting, CDC president Bill Black reports on positive trends he has noticed recently within the commercial construction market.
Is Commercial Construction Finally Starting To Grow?
The latest data from the Government tells us that Commercial Construction spending, through November, is up 7% from January this year and is now at its highest point in four years, since October of 2009. The gains have been tiny each month but, other than last month, steady.
We?re certainly starting to see positive trends in our business, how about yours? Are you getting your share of the growth? We?d love to hear success stories from our customers and always look to spread good news. Optimism is contagious! Let me know.
I think the CDC’s Building Blocks blog deserves a bookmark, especially if you are currently on business or planning to expand to one of the company’s market areas. This blog is a worthy contender in the Best Construction Blog competition.
