VCC Construction’s Taylor Marsalis, Director of Preconstruction, joined host Tyler Kern in the studio to dive into preconstruction processes. Everything from the preconstruction process to the various challenges and navigating current construction market conditions was up for discussion. 

“Preconstruction is the events that take place up to the actual groundbreaking of the construction part of the project,” Marsalis explained. “There are a few different phases associated with pre-construction. It’s the design of your project, conceptual through construction documents and permitting. It’s going to be your budgeting phase for the project as well as your planning. So, scheduling, site logistics, phasing some of those other components that go with it.” 

Preconstruction is a collaborative effort involving all parties of a project, and when done right, it’s a sure-fire way to guide a project to successful execution. The preconstruction process can help limit RFIs and other costly items that could emerge throughout the construction process. 

Marsalis said budgeting is the currently a big challenge in the preconstruction process, with material costs fluctuating and uncertain. “As most people know right now, we’re in a pretty tough construction market when it comes to material availability, lead times, cost escalation, and inflation, so it’s trying to navigate the headwinds we have right now in terms of those areas.” 

And it isn’t just material shortages and pricing fluctuations that impact the construction market; labor shortages continue to plague the industry. “A lot of our suppliers and their warehousing, they don’t have the labor to pump out the material, so that’s lengthened lead times, delayed projects, and caused a lot of project teams to shift their focus to different materials that are readily available,” Marsalis said.

On this inaugural episode of the VCC Construction podcast, host Ben Thomas and first-ever guest VCC CEO Derek Alley broke down the modern city center, what it takes to plan, build and maintain them, and how they’ve evolved from those of the past.

VCC works on a variety of projects, including city centers. In the past, the term city center could’ve had a lot of different meanings, according to Alley. At one time, it probably meant something civic.

“The transition from a city center to multiple community centers is almost the best way to describe it,” Alley said. “As we’ve urbanized as a country and world, as the population has gotten into more dense areas, you find yourself having to think of it as a community center.”

When they’re thought of today, they’re approached from a public/private perspective and tailored to what the locals want to see. It comes down to having multiple connectivity aspects for the community – apartments, retail and civic. But, there isn’t any cookie-cutter approach to the modern city center.

“The reason is there is no cookie-cutter solution, and you can’t rinse and repeat, even though it’s what we’d like to do and wish we could do,” Alley said. “One is the nature of changing patron interest and demand. People are changing what they want a lot more quickly than in the past.”

Listen to the inaugural episode to hear more about contemporary urban centers.