Supply chain issues and staffing shortages haven’t knocked out Columbia County’s construction industry. People still want homes; businesses are still in need of space; and restaurants are still serving food.
According to Jay Frye, purchasing manager at Ivey Homes, the vital signs look good for the homebuilding industry in Columbia County.
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“We’ve just about come out of the summer, so people aren’t as crazy to buy a house right now, but we still are seeing good traffic, good indicators,” Frye said. “Houses are selling. Product-wise, we seemed to have turned the corner on lumber costs and shingle shortages, but now fiber cement siding is becoming a bit of a difficulty for us, as is the metal we use for shaft wall liner, which is a sort of firewall for townhomes.”
Frye attributed his team’s attention to the market and lack of escalation clauses to the consistency they’ve been able to maintain in such a tumultuous time.
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Connie Melear, the chief financial officer of R.W. Allen Construction and Columbia County Commissioner, echoed Frye’s comments about a stabilizing market.
“There is a lot of government money going out in stimulus packages that is starting to trickle down to everyone,” Melear said. “We’ve got plenty of construction work, and I think most commercial contractors are doing fine keeping their folks busy and probably have more work than workers to get it done.”
Melear attributes some of the staffing shortages to the lengthy lay-offs for many Americans during the rise of the pandemic.
“A lot of folks did some soul-searching when they couldn’t do the same work they’d done for decades. They started their own business or made a career change, and I don’t necessarily blame them. But it does pose a problem in terms of keeping skilled laborers in positions.”
In terms of gauging growth in the area by tracking building permits, Melear said regardless of the numbers of permits pulled, there are always questions that must be asked.
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“It’s not how many permits got pulled in a month; it’s how many permits already got pulled in previous months that homebuilders haven’t gotten to, haven’t finished, haven’t worked on yet,” she said. “We can build as many houses as we want to out here but we might not necessarily need 3,000 homes every year. I don’t think anybody in the building business is hurting right now.”
Jim Cox, chairman for Columbia County Planning and Zoning, said the demand for housing has remained stable overall.
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“The supply chain issues have trickled down to everything. With the building supplies, I’m not real sure why we all of a sudden got shortages on everything, but it seems like the supply chain is a lot more fragile than we ever thought,” Cox said. “But as far as Columbia County, interest hasn’t waned. At the last planning and zoning meeting, we had 21 items on the agenda.”
Cox said he’s noticed staffing shortages across the landscape as well.
“I thought when unemployment benefits stopped, you’d see people come back to work.” Cox said. “The work is there and the jobs are out there — good jobs. People have gotten used to sitting at home.”
Tyler Strong is the Business Editor for The Augusta Press. Reach him at tyler@theaugustapress.com.
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