Ten important commercial
construction trends for 2018
By Jim Lamelza
Special to North Carolina Construction News
Commercial construction, like any industry, has its
ebbs and flows, its changes and expectations. Construc-
tion entrepreneurs always keep an eye on the near future,
figure out what's next for their businesses, and get ahead
of their competitors in adopting new ideas or reacting to
inevitable shifts in the market.
With that in mind, here are 10 commercial construc-
tion trends to watch for in 2018.
1. Labor shortages
The 2008 recession caused a serious downturn in
prospects for the construction industry. Since they began
to recover, however, construction companies have had
difficulty finding sufficient skilled workers to meet the de-
mand. While it should be a purely positive sign that three-
quarters of construction companies plan to add
employees in 2018, this is countered by the fact that even
more—82 percent —expect it will remain as difficult, or
even harder, to do so. Companies that solve this riddle,
be it through better training program, higher wages, a mix
of the two, or other ideas entirely, will be at an advantage.
2. Prefab construction
Ever since the early 1900s, when Sears sold prefabri-
cated homes and shipped them to customers in boxes
for them to build on their own, the potential value in pre-
fab construction has been apparent. Building on a con-
trolled assembly line reduces construction time and
costs. For the most part, however, no one has been able
to put this idea to effective use; thus construction has
6 — May-June 2018 — The North Carolina Construction News
continued in the traditional style, with workers and mate-
rials placed on site and buildings raised from the founda-
tion up. Now, thanks to the efforts of companies like
Katerra and buy-in from major corporations such as Mar-
riott, modular and prefab construction are seeing a resur-
gence. 3. Giant companies need more space
The biggest headline example of this is the creation of
a second Amazon headquarters. However, other massive
tech companies are expanding as well. Data center in-
vestment in 2017 far outstripped 2016; given the con-
stantly increasing amount of data companies need to
store on their servers, this trend does not appear ready to
decline. Non-tech sector companies such as General
Electric and Marriott are poised to open new headquar-
ters as well.
4. Automation
Although many labor organizations fear automation's
effect on the overall workforce, new advances have cre-
ated robots that can perform tasks dangerous to human
workers. This covers many industries, but construction
businesses may take note of the robot that can tie rebar
and form bridge decks, both for the safety of its employ-
ees and to help allay the aforementioned issues in adding
headcount to their companies.
5. Resiliency
In 2017, the world was impacted by a remarkable num-
ber of environmental calamities. The devastation in
Puerto Rico was the most newsworthy, but other hurri-
canes, heat and cold waves, flooding, and other disasters