Winter

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By JENNIFER NETHERBY

Staff Reporter

For the Los Angeles construction industry, 1999 may prove to be the best of times. Local job growth remains healthy, L.A.’s population continues to swell and mortgage interest rates are low.

Then there’s the weather.

The industry that last year was plagued with El Ni & #324;o-related delays has bounced back from the soggy year, blessed with dry La Ni & #324;a weather that has translated into fewer delays and fewer project overruns.

“We, as did everybody last year, lost the ability to predict when we were able to deliver the product to the customer,” said Bob Scanlan, executive vice president at Kaufman & Broad Home Corp. “It helps significantly when it’s dry like this. It allows us to very consistently deliver homes to customers when we projected to do so.”

The degree of dryness is dramatic.

As of Feb. 23, the season-to-date rainfall at the L.A. Civic Center has been just 4.28 inches, less than half the normal rainfall of 10.37 inches, according to the National Weather Service. Last year, 21.92 inches had fallen by Feb. 23.

Kaufman and Broad and other developers lost money last year when they fell behind schedule by as much as two months on houses in Southern California because of heavy El Ni & #324;o rains. This year, the company is churning out houses on schedule.

Because Southern California is already one of the nation’s driest regions, even in normal years, this season’s lack of rainfall has not pushed project completions ahead much, said Ray Pearl, deputy director of the Los Angeles division of the California Building Industry Association.

In fact, residential contracts in L.A. County totaled $104.7 million in January, up 5 percent over the like period a year ago, according to F.W. Dodge, the research arm of the McGraw-Hill Construction Information Group. Nationally, the value of residential construction activity dropped by an annualized rate of 9 percent in January.

“The reason L.A. is doing better is that L.A. and California as a whole were slow to recover in housing,” said Kim Kennedy, national forecaster for F.W. Dodge. “L.A. and the Northeast metropolitan areas are still in recovery.”

Last year, weather was a major factor. El Ni & #324;o rains resulted in big setbacks for the industry. The weather was so extreme that even with extra days factored in for projects, it wasn’t enough to compensate.

The El Ni & #324;o-related problems were “not just the number of days but the amount of rain,” said Bob Ruth, Southern California managing director for commercial developer Trammell Crow Co. “Heavy rain and number of days, that really impacts the construction.”

Those rains last year caused Trammell Crow to suffer two- to four-month delays on various projects, which were costly. This year, by contrast, every one of the company’s 25 buildings under construction is on schedule, Ruth said.

“The nice weather schedule helps with the amount of work and production of work,” Ruth said.

The dry La Ni & #324;a winter also is helping developers stay on schedule with several huge projects underway, including the Staples Center arena and Catholic cathedral projects downtown, and the Hollywood & Highland project in Hollywood.

Staying on schedule is particularly crucial for Staples Center, which must be completed by Sept. 30 to be ready for the start of hockey season.

The drop in rainfall has also helped keep the sprawling Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels project on schedule. “If the next winter’s favorable, that would make completion 2001,” said Father Gregory Coiro, a spokesman for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.

John McCoy, deputy director of the L.A. Community Redevelopment Agency’s housing division, said weather generally plays a role in the beginning stages of a project, when builders are excavating and laying the foundation. Builders tend to plan that part for drier months. And because so many other factors affect the timing of a project, McCoy said, it is difficult to isolate the effect weather has unless it is dramatic, as it was last year.

Still, Pearl of the Building Industry Association said builders are basking in the good weather. “Construction is really good right now,” said Pearl, “Everyone’s happy. Everyone’s working.”

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