Manhattan Community Board 1, the Lower Manhattan Construction Command Center and residents of John Street met last night to address the issue of round-the-clock noise coming from five simultaneous construction projects on the one-block stretch of John Street between Broadway and Nassau Street, DNAinfo reported.

The residents voiced particular complaints regarding the Department of Buildings handing out special construction permits, which allow contractors to work into the night and on the weekends. According to DNAinfo, typical hours begin at 7 a.m. and end at 6 p.m. every Monday through Friday. [more]

An architect

Good news for the nation’s construction sector: architects’ workloads are increasing, the Wall Street Journal reported.

In the last three months the Architecture Billings Index has shown increases in work levels at architectural firms, the Journal said. In January, the Index, provided by the American Institute of Architects, showed a score of 50.9, up from a score of 51.0 in December. [more]

Economists project the housing sector will contribute to economic growth nationally for the first time since 2008, Bloomberg News reported.

Multi-family units will lead the construction industry out of their rut, according to Michelle Meyer, a senior economist at Bank of America, and Celia Chen, an economist at Moody’s Analytics. Meyer predicts that work will begin on 260,000 apartment buildings and townhouse developments countrywide in 2012 — up 45 percent from last year, while Chen projects 310,000 developments will break ground, an improvement of 74 percent from 2011. [more]

A rendering of the University Pointe building at Portland State University

Public universities are increasingly turning to the private sector to build and finance the construction of the dorms where their students are housed, the New York Times reported.

The arrangements between universities and developers are mutually beneficial, as they free up capital for schools’ other costs while allowing the developer to profit, since their construction costs are lower due to economies of scale. But critics say that the savings are not being passed on to students. [more]

Determined to cut costs at its $4 billion Hudson Yards project, the Related Companies has reached outside the typical pot of New York City contractors and inked a California company. Crain’s said the impact of the unusual selection could reverberate throughout the city’s local construction industry.

Related chose Tutor Perini Corp. for the project because, unlike its New York counterparts, the firm owns subcontractors that can complete all facets of the construction project. [more]

New York City lost 900 construction jobs in September and added 100 real estate sector jobs, according to an Eastern Consolidated report with the most recent city employment data from the New York State Department of Labor.

Overall, the city lost 13,500 jobs last month, including 8,700 private sector jobs, marking a correction in an otherwise positive trajectory of job growth.

“Since bottoming in September 2009, New York City has added 82,200 jobs, or 2.2 percent. The U.S. has added 2.09 million jobs since its nadir, February 2010, a growth rate of 1.6 percent,” the report says. “The city is 36,400 private sector jobs short of its peak in April 2008, or 1.5 percent below. The U.S. remains 6.26 million private sector jobs short of its peak in January 2008, or 5.4 percent below.” – Katherine Clarke [more]

An Irvington, N.Y., woman was charged with stealing millions from members of the construction workers’ union, Local 147. Melissa King, 60, pleaded guilty in Manhattan federal court on Friday to stealing some, but not all, of the $42 million she was charged with embezzling from pension and employee benefit plans from her company, King Care, which administered benefits on behalf of Local 147, LoHud.com reported. “Um, I plead guilty, but I don’t plead guilty to millions of dollars,’’ King said. According to U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Preet Bharara, King used the millions to fund an extravagant lifestyle, which included spending millions on antique jewelry and horses.
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From left: Port Authority Executive Director Chris Ward, Silverstein Properties CEO Larry Silverstein and 4 World Trade Center

After a five-month effort, the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey has found a way to sell bonds financing the World Trade Center construction while appeasing existing Port Authority bondholders. According to the Wall Street Journal, without an agreement, Silverstein Properties would not have enough funding to complete construction on the 72-story 4 World Trade Center.

Port Authority had wanted to issue World Trade Center bonds. To ensure low interest rates it had intended to make the debt obligations on those bonds a priority over the general obligation bonds the agency had previously sold. [more]

Travel and automotive agency AAA doesn’t want bridge and tunnel fare hikes to fund the World Trade Center development, the Associated Press reported.

The agency is pleading with the U.S. Department of Transportation to block the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey’s plans to increase toll fees by up to 50 percent on the grounds that they violate a 1987 federal law requiring bridge tolls to be “just and reasonable.”

But the agency wants to block the costly hikes because it feels transportation revenue should be used to improve transportation. [more]

Building permit activity has fallen since the crash in 2007, but there are signs that builders have almost completely stopped activity in a number of states, where no one seems to want to buy a new home. At the top (or bottom) of the list is Rhode Island, where building permits have declined 70.81 percent in the last six years, and there are just 312 building permits so far this year. New York, which has one of the largest housing markets in the country, has seen 11,033 building permits in 2011, but that number is a 61.8 percent drop from 2005 — and less than half of the 28,921 permits taken out in 2005. Florida is not among the top 10. [MSNBC]