Jennifer Sereno: New economy trends promise to shape Wisconsin’s landscape this construction season

This is an excerpt from a column posted at BizOpinion.

Spring may be a time for melting snow and potholes in Wisconsin, but more prophetically, it’s a time for tower cranes to sprout and new foundations to take root.

This spring, construction appears set to rebound in several sectors, buoyed in part by some New Economy trends.

Bernard Markstein, chief economist for Reed Construction Data, which develops forecasts based on building permit activity and new projects out for bid, anticipates total construction spending to rise by 5 to 6 percent nationwide after accounting for inflation in material and labor costs. He expects southern Wisconsin, including Madison and Milwaukee, to perform nearly on par with the national level while local experts offer up several area projects that exemplify important socioeconomic changes.

Matt Mikolajewski, manager of the Office of Business Resources with the city of Madison, says it’s no secret that Epic of Verona is contributing to a boom in professional-caliber apartment projects in downtown Madison. His latest count shows about 3,200 apartments under construction or in the approval process – up dramatically from last year’s already record pace of roughly 1,600.

“I don’t believe as a city we’ve ever seen this amount of apartment growth, but Epic isn’t all of it,” Mikolajewski says. “It’s also young professionals who are holding off on purchasing a home and want to stay in an apartment for a longer period of time.”

Read the full column