Headlines of the Week

OKC area builders build like it's 1996
BY RICHARD MIZE
Oklahoma
Published: January 29, 2011

Last year was like the mid-1990s for metro-area homebuilders.

Builders in Oklahoma City, Midwest City, Edmond, Moore and Norman took out construction permits for 3,466 single-family homes in 2010. That was 2.5 percent more than 2009 — a small increase. But it wasn't a decrease.

It was the first time since 2005 that permits didn't go down compared with the year before.

Construction last year in the five cities was comparable to the mid-1990s. In 1996, for example, the cities issued 3,413 permits.

Feeling for bottom
Was 2010 the bottom? Builders hope so — and so do the subcontractors, suppliers and others who have tightened their belts since 2005, the last year of the housing boom.
Builder Jim Schuff said subs and suppliers are asking his take on the coming year.

In addition to planning for staffing, it helps to have a handle on how much material they might need because they can get quantity discounts.

“I wish we had a crystal ball,” said Schuff, co-owner and president of Vesta Homes in Moore and 2010 president of the builders association.

Looking back, Schuff said he wished he'd been a little more aggressive in 2010.
Looking ahead, he said he has a little more confidence in the economy as 2011 proceeds.

Edmond rebounds
Recovery in Edmond was the main source of the increase in planned construction across the metro area — “planned” because builders typically have six months to start a house after obtaining a building permit. Edmond's 297 permits, while well less than one-half the city's peak of 695 permits in 2005, represented a 40 percent gain from 212 permits in 2009.

The number of permits doesn't tell the whole story, however. Permit numbers rose last year partly because builders responded to the rush of first-time buyers into homeownership by building more starter homes. But even with the incentives to first-timers long over — federal tax credits expired last April — the recession continues to make smaller homes attractive.

“There's still a hole in the market up top,” a lack of demand that has many large homes lingering on the market, said Mark Dale, who was Central Oklahoma Builders Association president last year.

Dale, owner of Oklahoma City's Carriage Homes, wondered if the recession has caused a generational paradigm shift.

Could be, but partly because of the green movement, which puts energy efficiency and the environment above prestige, said Edmond builder Caleb McCaleb, whose Arbor Creek addition of bungalow-size homes signaled the small-is-better trend here when he debuted it in summer 2009.

Frugal is ‘in'
“Every builder I know has moved to building a smaller home,” said McCaleb, noting that it's not just first-time buyers and young couples who are attracted to his smaller homes, although that's who he had in mind when he developed Arbor Creek.
Lots of older folks are through living so large, he said.

“When I'm working open houses, we're getting a ton of move-down buyers but still looking for the amenities,” he said. “It's ‘we've lived beyond our means.' It's the frugal-is-the-new-cool deal.”

McCaleb said the Millennial Generation, also called Generation Y — people born as early as the 1970s but mostly in the 1980s and 1990s — wants nothing to do with an overly large footprint, whether for a house or carbon.

“Millennials, they totally don't think it's cool to live in a big house. They're all about everything green,” he said.

Chamber forecasts job growth next two years
FROM STAFF REPORTS
Oklahoman
Published: January 29, 2011

The report was commissioned by the chamber and prepared by Russell Evans, director of the Center for Applied Economic Research at Oklahoma State University.

“This forecast is very positive for our region,” chamber President Roy Williams said. “Our economic stability and continued growth is vital to our local businesses and in continuing to attract jobs and investment.”

The report indicates the Oklahoma City metro will gain approximately 20,000 jobs from 2010 to 2012, accounting for an expected 3.8 percent job growth over the next two years.

The forecast also showed positive momentum for the city's retail market and sales tax collections. Retail sales growth is forecast to grow 2.5 percent in 2011 before aggressively growing to 5.7 percent in 2012.

“The retail sales data is great news,” Williams said. “It shows that while one-time factors like the hailstorm did have an impact, sales tax collection in Oklahoma City has bounced back and should continue to grow. The stability of our sales tax base is important to the economic health of our city government and the continued improvements in our infrastructure.”

Continued population growth also is expected through 2012. The Oklahoma City metro is forecast to add 175,000 individuals which should account for half the state's growth. The total population is projected to exceed 1.28 million.

The official forecast also looks for gross metro production to grow at just over 5 percent annually through 2012 with personal income expanding about 4.5 percent per year.

The report also looks at trends in economic development and highlights that over the past five years, Oklahoma has experienced the fourth-highest percentage gain of leisure and hospitality jobs in the nation at 9.6 percent.

The national shift in economic development strategy toward expansion of existing companies is expected to continue.

OCAST is good for Oklahoma
Oklahoman Editorial

No state agency has its vision firmly trained on the future quite like the Oklahoma Center for the Advancement of Science and Technology. The state is better off for it.

Michael Carolina, executive director of OCAST, recently reported that for every dollar of state investment, $19 is returned to the state through federal and private investments. That's a phenomenal record — one that's been the hallmark of the agency since its inception in the late 1980s.

Unfortunately, what's also been common since its creation has been OCAST's need to constantly educate policymakers amid a consistent fight for funding. That's not easy, especially at a time when many basic services have been cut or are struggling to maintain the status quo. But OCAST has a powerful testimony.

OCAST's opportunity to help diversify the state's economy is indeed critical to the state's future. Through its funding of promising research projects, OCAST not only draws more money to the state, it draws smart people, ideas and, of course, jobs.

The payoff often isn't immediate; research and development take precious time. But the agency's return on investment demonstrates the time is clearly worth the wait.

OCAST, the EDGE endowment and research efforts within the higher education system are key to Oklahoma prospering in a global economy eager for creativity and innovation. At such a critical time for our state's economy, policymakers face many tough decisions in funding state government for the coming year. But they can't afford to ignore the future, either.

Super assignment: OKC company to keep track for football extravaganza
By April Wilkerson
Journal Record

OKLAHOMA CITY – Before the Packers and Steelers ever take the field or the first witty Super Bowl commercial airs on Sunday, the eyes of an Oklahoma company will be watching over the yearly extravaganza.

For the fifth year, Oklahoma City-based US Fleet Tracking is keeping a watchful eye on the people and equipment crucial to the Super Bowl. The company’s tracking and navigational devices have been placed on buses, limos and other vehicles that carry players, their families and the media, ensuring that each stays on course.

Jerry Hunter, chief executive officer of US Fleet Tracking, said his technology has changed significantly in five years’ time.

“When we started doing the Super Bowl, the equipment had to physically be installed in the vehicles with wiring hooked up,” Hunter said. “Things have evolved and now we have a battery device that we check out to the driver just like it was a cell phone. Installation is quick and easy – they plug it into a cigarette lighter in the limousines or buses. It’s gotten to the point where it’s very streamlined. Early on, because it took so long to install and uninstall equipment, we had maybe 25 or 30 units being tracked. At this point, we have about 320.”

US Fleet Tracking’s efforts at the Super Bowl and last weekend’s National Hockey League All-Star game represent its high-profile work, but not the majority of its customers. About 80 percent of the company’s business is with small business – delivery companies, tow trucks, medical trailers hauling expensive equipment – anyone who wants to track the whereabouts and efficiency of a fleet and the employees driving them, Hunter said. Another 10 percent of his business is with the government, such as U.S. marshals and the FBI, and emergency responders like ambulance, police and fire. The rest of his business is split between parents tracking teenage drivers and people tracking cheating spouses.

Because snow and ice are a problem across the nation right now, his technology is getting particularly high use.

“A lot of snow-removal companies are working right now using our equipment,” he said. “The equipment allows them to see which roads have been done and which haven’t. Small businesses are where the money is because they have to have a way to manage their mobile resources.”

US Fleet Tracking has continually improved its technology since Hunter launched the company about six years ago. His navigation-class devices not only let companies see where their employees are in real time, but they can be used to send messages to and from drivers, he said. The technology accomplishes that in a way that is more user-friendly than more traditional navigation services, he said.

“If you’ve got a fleet of plumbing trucks, you can send out a message to Jim and Bob and Ken that says, ‘Which one of you guys has three 90-degree plumbing elbows and a three-quarter-inch PVC pipe?’ Bob and Jim say no and Ken says yes, so you can dispatch him on that call,” Hunter said. “This allows you to dispatch that driver through your PC so it pops up on his screen and guides him all the way to his customer’s doorstep.”

US Fleet Tracking has flourished in a post-Sept. 11 world in which organizers of major events like the Olympics and Super Bowl want to ensure the right people get to the correct places and the wrong ones stay out. And in a troubled economic time, businesses are looking for ways to save money through efficiency, and tracking US Fleet Tracking provides that tool. Hunter said Ditch Witch is starting to place his devices on its equipment right after it is manufactured.

Bill Eichhorn, director of operations for US Fleet Tracking, has been in Dallas since Jan. 24 preparing for the company’s Super Bowl role. Nothing is left to chance for such events, he said, which is the reality of today’s world.

“It’s peace of mind,” he said. “The NFL wants to make sure that the buses going to the stadium are the buses that are supposed to be going there. Also, if the driver veers off course, we can correct him.”

US Fleet Tracking also worked last year’s Winter Olympics in Vancouver, and it will track athletes again next year during the Summer Olympics in London, Eichhorn said.
All of that points to the company’s growth. Hunter said his staff has grown to about 30 people, twice what he had last year, and he’s shipping many more products.

He also is moving the company into a new building next month near 156th Street and May Avenue.

“It’s 18,000 square feet we need badly,” Hunter said. “The data center will be 24 feet by 36 feet, the walls are cinder block that are ‘rebarred’ into the concrete slab … it’s like a storm shelter inside the building, just for the computer room. It gives us a lot more space and room to grow.”