As I write this, New York City is pumping itself out from flooding caused by hurricane Irene. Thankfully Irene did now show us the full force of her rage. New York City’s leaders prepared well and should be commended for their hard work. Just because the full force did not hit, does not mean the preparation was mistaken. The hurricane reminds me of political change in New York. We make a big deal about it because we think it is coming, but it actually rarely occurs.
Over the last couple weeks there have been some good headlines about New York and about upstate cities; or at least headlines that are better than
expected. The Democrat and Chronicle lead with We’re First in Job Growth (8/23). Rochester is leading the upstate cities when it comes to creating jobs with a 2.6% increase. The state as a whole is third in the nation when it comes to job creation, with an increase of 100,000 new jobs. The Daily Record (8/24) lead with The Rochester Area Among Lowest Unemployment in NY. We are sitting pretty at 7.5% compared to the state average of 8% and 9.3% for the nation.
The various city business journals also had headlines or stories touting the strength of our housing market. Buffalo was sixth in the country, with Rochester, Newburgh and Albany at 16, 25, 47, respectively.
What is hidden in these last numbers is that they are measuring the smallest decline in new units. Buffalo actually had a decrease of 28.53%! Rochester was a decrease of 46.52%. The New York City area had a decline of 72.22%. The best place in the country (or the smallest decline) was Gulfport / Biloxi, Mississippi with a decline of 13.8 percent. This likely proves that you can win by not losing – too much!
The headlines above paint an interesting picture for upstate. We are doing a lot better than many areas of the country. While we are seeing declines in overall construction, residential construction, building, and heavy, we have not fallen off of the proverbial cliff. State construction spending is holding relatively steady for upstate and the private market is increasing slightly from prior lows. The Builders Exchange will continue to help advocate for additional construction dollars and we are hopeful that the planroom will return to its historical levels in 2012. We are also developing two items that we believe will be useful to our members: a 401K program, and an expanded group of educational offerings in partnership with Alfred State College. The 401k program is designed to take advantage of fee structures that are available to larger asset pools and to help take one thing off of your plate that needs to be managed. The education-al programs that we have done with Alfred have been very popular and we hope that expanded offerings help you build your business. Rochester continues to export construction services and if there are ways we can help you please don’t hesitate to let us know.

Aaron Hilger, President