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Cranes Crowd Portland Skyline as Building Boom Continues

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — John Killin pressed the panic button in February amid a multibillion-dollar tsunami of real estate development.

The building frenzy that lit up the Portland-area economy and changed the city irrevocably has depleted the pool of skilled construction workers. In a letter to fellow contractors, Killin warned of a "new normal" of chronic labor shortages.

"There are probably 10,000 open jobs out there," said Killin, executive director of the Associated Wall and Ceiling Contractors of Oregon and Southwest Washington. "We need 800 carpenters, we need about the same number of electricians. And there are 20 more trades."

Nearly a decade after the Great Recession, the long and frustratingly slow recovery has morphed into a barrage of development that by some measures surpasses the mid-2000s housing bubble. The city issued nearly 12,000 buildings permits through the first 10 months of its current fiscal year for a record $2.5 billion in projects, easily eclipsing the previous high of $1.9 billion set the year before.

Interviews with dozens of developers, construction company executives and union officials reveal a boom that includes all real estate categories, from high-end apartments in Portland's urban core to enormous data centers in the eastern Oregon desert. Fueled by strong in-migration and job growth, Portland should remain red-hot in the near-term, they predict.

Twenty-one construction cranes currently dot the metro-area's skyline, the fifth most in the country and more than either San Francisco or New York. The development mania extends north to Seattle, where a nation-leading 64 construction cranes are in action.

"This boom is unprecedented; it's absolutely unlike anything else I've seen in 50 years," said Bob Walsh of Walsh Construction in Portland.

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https://www.usnews.com/news/best-sta...boom-continues