Hey, everyone, welcome to deconstruction with VC. I'm Tyler kern, and today we're talking pre construction here on the show. And joining me is Taylor Marsalis. He's the director of preconstruction at VC. Taylor, welcome to the show. Thanks for joining me. Thank you. Absolutely so, Taylor, let's start off here with the basics. What is pre-construction for those who might not be familiar with the concept and maybe for some who are? Tell us what your perspective is on what pre-construction is. Yeah, absolutely. It's exactly what it sounds like pre-construction. It's the events that take place up to the actual groundbreaking of the construction start of the project. So there's a few different phases that are associated with pre-construction. It's really going to be your design of the project conceptual through construction documents or permitting. It's going to be your budgeting phase for the project. It mirrors the conceptual through construction start of the project, as well as your planning. So scheduling site logistics, phasing some of those other components. And nuances that go with it. So how does what you do in pre-construction end up having an impact throughout the entirety of the process? How does good pre-construction kind of lead to better results? Well, to me, pre-construction is what really sets up the success for the project through completion. So that's working closely with our owners and clients, our design team, engineers, consultants, ensuring that when we actually do begin construction, it's going to be successful. We're going to limit any RFI as any costly items that might pop up through construction and tackle that through the pre-construction process. What kinds of challenges do you come up against on a regular basis that make pre-construction challenging? Right now, definitely the budgeting phase, as most people know right now, we're in a pretty tough construction market when it comes to material availability, lead times, cost escalation, inflation. So really trying to navigate through kind of the headwinds that we have right now and in today's market in terms of those areas. You mentioned a lot of those challenges. Let's talk about some of those when it comes to material shortages or supply chain issues and that sort of thing. What sorts of things are you running up against when it comes to those sorts of those sorts of issues? Yeah, I mean, really name a material right now, and it's generally going to be a problem. I know most people are familiar with the lumber market right now. We've we've seen it kind of settle down close to pre-pandemic numbers. So it's a lot better than it was six months ago when you're talking about a 350% swing when it came to pricing as opposed to a year ago. Copper is another area where pricing availability has been an issue with PVC as well. And lately we've been seeing a pretty big problem with steel lately. That's really interesting. And how does also like the idea of labor shortage is kind of come into that conversation as well because we know that those two things can be linked at times? Yeah so skilled labor. It's really been an issue in the industry for quite some time now. I would say within the last really 5 to 10 years, it's, you know, started to be a big problem for us in the construction industry. But when it also comes to commodities and materials and those shortages that we were just discussing a lot of our suppliers and their warehousing, they don't have the labor and actually, you know, to actually pump out the material, right? So that's lengthened lead times. Delayed projects caused a lot of project teams to kind of shift their focus to a different material that's readily available. And I guess that puts added importance added pressure on that pre-construction process as well, because there are so many challenges when it comes to getting the right materials, sourcing those sorts of things and whatnot, right? Yeah, absolutely. You know, through the last year has been a little bit of a trial by fire as we try to navigate what shortages are cropping up. So working closely with those vendors, those suppliers, our trade partners to really try and get ahead of any issues that we might find when we actually do break ground, we'll tap into databases and some other resources to try and navigate those. Yeah, I was going to ask what sorts of things can you do to really try to navigate these fluctuating prices, fluctuating and fluctuating lead times, things like that? What are some ways that you found that have been effective in doing that? Yeah, absolutely. Well, we rely a lot on our trade partners throughout the pre-construction process. They deal directly a lot of times with commodity brokers and those vendors that are actually realizing those, you know, problematic areas with material lead times and how that really translates to the end user and us getting a material on site. So we'll try and rely a little bit on word of mouth, you know, watch the construction indices, see how pricing is shaking out over the course of the last few months all the way up to, you know, two years at that point. But, you know, trying to navigate as best as we possibly can right now through those material shortages that we find ourself in. Absolutely so are the materials that maybe people should keep an eye on. They could be good. Substitutes for others you mentioned, steel has been a struggle. Is there any substitute for steel or lumber? Actually, there is. Yeah, so and it's a little bit of a catch. 22 Typically, whenever the market tries to make an adjustment for a shortage of overwhelm the other side of that market. So that becomes a shortage, right? We were running into an issue with joist and deck. We were seeing, you know, lead times as much as 10 to 12 months. You know, that's very difficult when you're trying to plan a project. And you know, the main structure of the building is 10 to 12 months on a lead time. So you have to put together some early release packages with the design team and kind of commit to those areas that you know, are going to be in place. When we did see those lead times, a lot of the market shifted over to a traditional structure steel package with I-beams, and that overwhelmed the steel Mills. So we began to see what used to be an advantage and joist and deck in lead time and cost. And, you know, traditional steel building kind of come close to each other. Yeah and in terms of cost, so a lot of people switched it and that caused steel to just keep on going up in price. That's that's really fascinating. And just, I guess, an insight into how the market works when things get a little squirrelly the way they've been. Absolutely another one lately has been Harden siding horizontal siding for a multifamily product, depending on where you're at regionally in the country, we've seen kind of a shift to stucco. There is a little bit of a price gap, but those are some of the other areas to try and navigate the fiber cement material shortages that we're seeing right now really, really interesting. So I want to go back and kind of hit on something that we talked a little bit about at the beginning. But walk through what the long term effects are throughout a project of good pre construction. What sorts of benefits are tangible and noticeable once the project is nearing completion? If pre-construction is done well, most people will say on time on budget, right? I mean, I think that's what a lot of focus is, is on time, on budget when it comes to a success. You know, in terms of pre-construction, for me, it's when all stakeholders, all parties associated with the project are successful financially resourcefully. That's that, to me is a successful pre-construction is when the outcome is, you know, positive for all parties associated. And I suppose it's one of those things that occasionally gets attached to the construction industry is things are always late. Things are always budget and that sort of thing. It's just one of those unfortunate stigmas that I think sticks around. So by having that good pre-construction process, sometimes you can exceed expectations and that sort of thing in those sorts of ways. Yeah, absolutely. For for us, there's really a multi departmental approach to pre-construction. There's this umbrella, if you will, with pre-construction project management operations, quality control and our in-house peer review. Between those departments really all working together, we're able to tackle some of the issues that we might see further down the road in the construction process. Right, right. And before we wrap up, I wanted to ask about offsite construction as well. How does that relate to pre-construction? Is there any factor that plays as well? Yeah, absolutely. You know, over the course of the last 30 years, people have been trying to find different avenues to get a project delivered a little bit quicker than normal share. Modular construction is one that comes to mind where majority of the building is, is manufactured or built offsite, and then assembled and pieces. We've had some experience lately with a prescient system that's at the Grand scale project in the colony. It's a load bearing metal stud system that's actually penalized and assembled and offsite brought to the site and then assembled. From there, they really pick up an advantage in terms of schedule. What's helped? It'll help offset some of the costs associated with changing the structure types. Really, really interesting. Do you anticipate that we'll see more of that in the future? Or just what's your general thought on that? I mean, people will always look to find improvement and systems and speed to market. So I think that it's, you know, it's absolutely an area of growth that will be really interesting to watch. Taylor marcellus, director of pre-construction at VC Taylor, thank you so much for joining us here on the podcast. Thank you. Absolutely And everyone, thank you for tuning in to this episode of deconstruction with VC. We appreciate it very much. Stay tuned for new episodes coming out shortly, but for this one, for my guest today, Taylor marcellus, I've been your host, Tyler Kern. Thanks for joining us.
