HOUSING SLUMP COULD EASE CONSTRUCTION COSTS

At this writing, respondents to last week's Feedback Poll were split evenly, with half of our readers saying that the housing slump and subprime issue could reduce commercial construction costs, while the other 50% were not so optimistic. Commentator David Scholl, senior vice president of development of the Santa Monica, CA-based Macerich Co., is in the prior group. An expert in the Phoenix area, where he is based, Scholl sees opportunities and a slowdown in construction-cost increases that he wasn't witnessing a few years ago. Here is his take on the situation.

"The way to measure it is to contrast today with 12 to 24 months ago. When Phoenix was banging out over 60,000 single-family starts, it was sometimes hard to get more than just one or two subcontractors to submit bids to the general contractor on some of the different trade work, whether it was concrete, block, steel or whatever."

"We were also seeing pretty steady materials-pricing inflation for several years. Now, we have seen much more activity at the subcontractor level. We're certainly seeing a leveling off on some of our materials pricing."