Builders Tackle Supply Snags, Price Hikes

The money’s still flowing to fuel New Haven’s building boom — but builders are scrambling to meet soaring lumber prices and find materials disappearing in a backed-up international supply chain.

The double whammy stems from the reemergence phase of the Covid-19 pandemic: Record demand for home-building and orders for windows and appliances and outlet covers — you name it — backed up in faraway warehouses or stuck on container ships jammed in international ports.

The double whammy coincides with a construction boom, focused largely on market-rate apartments.

With advance ordering and plan alterations, builders that already had construction underway said they are finding ways to navigate the crunch with minimal delays.

“If you’re underway with these construction jobs, they’re not stopping,” reported city Building Official Jim Turcio. ​“You’re going to see some projects pushed back until late fall, ones that are supposed to start soon.”

Turcio helped one of the underway projects, ​“The Whit,” stay on pace this past week by approving a request to erect a temporary roof. The Houston-based development firm Hines has crews hard at work building 230 new market-rate apartments and ground-floor retail space across two new buildings at 630 and 637 Chapel, the old Comcast building site and Smoothie factory lot across the street. But they couldn’t get their hands on needed waterproofing material, insulation, and EPDM synthetic-rubber to permanently top the fast-growing complex walls.

According to the National Association of Homebuilders, a wide range of building products have soared in price: Steel mill products rose 17 percent in march, then another 18.4 percent in April. Gypsum products increased 6.6 percent over just February and March.

“I’ve been in the business 35 years. I’ve never seen anything like it,” observed Neil Frederick, who manages East Haven Builders Supply, a local division of US LBM.

As the middleman between mills and builders, Frederick has had to pass along a 40 percent price increase on lumber since just February, he said. Local contractors rely on him for both the two-by-four lumber and the plywood or oriented strand board (OSB) used to erect the walls in wood-frame buildings. The price of both has risen around 300 percent over the past year.

Contractors used to have to wait three- to four weeks for orders to come in. Now they wait eight to 12 weeks, according to Frederick. And sometimes backed-up freight carriers can’t even get the shipments in to the lumber yard within even that period.

The lumber has been arriving by truckload at the Tower Lane site off Church Street South, where Randy Salvatore’s RMS Companies crews are steadily erecting a 223-apartment complex. He had locked in those orders before the long delays set in; he did still have to pay more than originally envisioned.

Salvatore said he is still on track to complete the first part of the project by year’s end. ““That’s pure luck because of where we are in the queue,” he said. He said his crews are also in the final stages of converting the nearby former Welch Annex School at 49 Prince St. into 30 new affordable apartments

To get there, he has had to switch materials from the original plan when, say, certain types of trusses were no longer available. He’s ordering ranges and dishwashers and microwaves for the apartments eight months in advance, rather than the customary two months. He already has all windows on site even though he doesn’t plan to install them for another three months, he said. ​“As soon as we can get them, we’re taking them.” He’ll store exercise equipment for the complex’s eventual work-out room in a warehouse, if needed, just to make sure he has it on hand.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Salvatore said. ​“You’re up at night [saying], ​‘What should I be ordering now?”

Similar fortunate timing has kept the 299-apartment, 6,100 square-foot retail ​“Olive and Wooster” complex (pictured) arising at the 2.72-acre 87 Union St./44 Olive St. lot, according to developer Darren Seid. He said the project is on target for the first phase to be completed by the end of 2021.

Bruce Becker, too, expects to have the $50 million net-zero 165-room ​“Hotel Marcel” he’s building at the old Pirelli site on Long Wharf open by year’s end, just a few months later than planned. He, too, was fortunate to have gotten his lumber orders in early enough. He, too, has been scrambling to substitute, say, different tiles or metal studs when the ordered ones are no longer available. He ordered light fixtures months earlier than usual in the construction process. ​“My garage is filled with light fixtures. You can’t park” in it.

Officials from Spinnaker Realty did not return calls to offer an update on plans for the hotel they plan to build on the site of the former Webster Bank at Orange and Elm Street, which remains an unattended hole in the ground.