Stimulus Package - Where Are You?

Many professionals in the architecture, engineering, and construction industry, employed or otherwise, are wondering when this federal stimulus money appropriated in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 is going to start making it's way to the pockets of designers and contractors.

Well, this answer is unfortunately difficult to nail down, however, it is rather clear that the great majority of this money has yet to be released. I'm not exactly sure why, six months after the signing of the ARRA, we are still wondering when this money is going to start flowing. The most recent report from the Government Accountability Office shows that only 5.1% of the $27.6 billion appropriated for highway infrastructure projects has been spent.

While the government is probably partially to blame for some of this, shall we say, sluggish release of stimulus funding, the nature of the construction industry is partially to blame as well. While the funding was at least partially intended to fund "shovel ready" projects, the reality is that a truly shovel ready project is kind of like the study of micro-economics - it doesn't really exist.

The term, "shovel ready" is misleading, and certainly over-used. If plans have been shelved for several years, in the very least the existing conditions have to be verified and brought up to date. What construction has taken place since these plans were generated? Has there been erosion, or effects of weather? What maintenance issues from existing structures have arisen and now need to be dealt with? What code requirements have changed since the initial design? Are the LEED certification requirements the same as they were when the plans were generated?

All of this stuff takes time. So even with a project that was shelved for several years, we can't just pick up the plans grab, our shovel and hard-hat, walk out the door, rev up the bulldozer, and start digging.

The majority of the federal stimulus money is schedule to be dolled out in 2010, so this coupled with perhaps an improving private sector economy could bring more clients in the doors of design firms and more plans in the doors of contractors - and just maybe a collaboration of designers and contractors on new projects.

So once we push this massive snowball down the hill and get it rolling it will pick up steam and could perhaps start rolling out of control.