Developer Jim Zupancic pictures the Stafford Hills Racquet and Fitness Club as a family-oriented sports center with 13 tennis courts nestled against mitigated woodlands in Tualatin.

But before ground is broken on the project this summer, there could be chaos, with subcontractors scrambling and fighting to help build it.

“It’ll be a blood fest,” said Stan Robinson, a roofer in Tualatin who does maintenance work. “Everybody’s starving. That’s the nature of what’s going on right now.”

Robinson doesn’t plan to bid for the project. He may be in the minority.

General contractors in the Portland-metro area say that in the past six to 12 months, as their sector has worsened, area projects have been flooded with bid applications and interest from general contractors, subcontractors, suppliers and others connected to the building industry.

Bids are even coming from companies as far as 500 miles away, said John Bradley, CEO of R&H Construction in Portland.

“It’s nuts,” he said.

The rise in bids has helped produce, among other things, lower construction costs.

Bruce Reid, a senior project manager at Turner Construction in Portland, said his firm completed a $16 million solar panel assembly factory in Hillsboro last November. On average, he said, 12 subcontractors applied for each trade. In the past, six or seven would have bid, Reid said.

The tight competition brought in lower bids, slashing the factory’s cost by 8 percent, he said.

“It’s a very slow market, obviously, so everybody’s looking at the same projects right now,” he said.

Bradley said some bids are alarmingly low. Construction costs for his company peaked in August 2008, and have fallen about 15 percent since, he said. Firms submitting prices below that level, however, indicate “desperation trouble.”

“It doesn’t mean there is a problem, but it’s clearly suspect,” he said.

Those bidders, Bradley said, may be challenged to build quality projects or finish on time. To prevent such problems, R&H “triple-checks stuff,” like the company’s credit and manpower.

Meanwhile, Stafford Hills Racquet and Fitness Club will be built in a city that, like many other parts of the country, has seen little construction activity lately.

Last year, six permits were issued for new construction in Tualatin – two single-family homes and four commercial buildings, said Sue Lamb, the city’s permit technician.

No permits for new construction had been issued this year as of Wednesday, and Lamb said the most recent permit for a commercial project was issued last September, for a parking garage.

According to Stafford Hills’ developer, the Zupancic Group, the club will have seven indoor tennis courts, four outdoor courts and two practice courts “with many high-tech amenities.”

Zupancic Group said Tuesday ground would be broken on the 90,000-square-foot club this year, and work would finish by mid-2011.

Jim Zupancic, the company’s president, said contractors have been contacting his office for 18 months, since the project entered the public planning process. He said contracts would start going out for bid in the next 90 days.

There might also be a “2- or 3-inch stack” of bids, with three or four people needed to process the applications instead of the usual lone person, said Ken Dixon, vice president of Todd Construction, the project’s general contractor.

“I’m sure it’ll be huge … definitely,” he said of the expected volume.

Zupancic said companies that contacted his office 18 months ago were making “initial contacts,” which he said is normal even during good economic times.

But he also said firms are interested because their work volume has fallen.

Bradley said he has never seen the sector struggle like this. In the past year, when a project had three or four general contractors competing for the job, “we are absolutely flooded with subcontract quotes,” he said.

“Our industry is shrinking,” he said. “I’m 54 years old. This is my fourth construction recession. The pendulum will swing and things will get better. It’s just, when.”

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To some people, a heating, ventilating and air conditioning system is just a necessary, boring element of a building. But for Portland State University’s Shattuck Hall, the HVAC system helped it become an award-winning work of engineering.

Shattuck Hall, home to the university’s Department of Architecture and Public Safety Office, on Wednesday was named Engineering Excellence 2010 Project of the Year by the American Council of Engineering Companies of Oregon.

See all the ACEC Engineering Excellence Award winners 禄

The award was presented at the Multnomah Athletic Club in downtown Portland, at a banquet co-sponsored by the Daily Journal of Commerce.

Shattuck Hall, built in 1915, underwent a 13-month, $9.5 million renovation before it reopened in fall 2008. PAE Consulting Engineers of Portland designed its mechanical, electrical and lighting systems.

Ray Miller, a retired structural engineer and one of five judges颅 for the contest – the panel included 91视频 publisher Rynni Henderson – said Shattuck Hall’s new HVAC system was one reason it received the top award.

The system includes approximately 1,000 aluminum, 3-feet-by-5-feet, radiant ceiling panels laced throughout the building. Serpentine tubes connected to the back of the panels circulate some of the building’s hot and cold water, helping to cool or heat rooms where panels are located, said project manager Nick Collins of PAE Consulting Engineers.

The three-story, 66,000-square-foot building still has heating and air conditioning, but the panels help limit their usage, lowering total energy costs, Collins said. He noted that in a seminar room, the panels are flipped upside down, allowing students to examine the tubing network.

Miller said he also liked Shattuck Hall’s seismic and fire-exit upgrades.

“They came up with some good and unique solutions,” he said.

Skip Stanaway, a principal with Portland-based SRG Partnership, the architect and interior design firm for the renovation, also praised the HVAC system. In a letter dated Nov. 23, 2009 and enclosed in the contest entry packet, he described the system as “one of PAE’s greatest contributions” to the renovation.

Shattuck Hall’s original ductwork, he wrote, was too small to heat and cool the building, but PAE Consulting Engineers kept it anyway, for ventilation purposes. He also cited the radiant ceiling panels.

“Not only did this enable us to preserve some of the building’s historic fabric and the dramatic form of the original ducts, but also reduced construction costs and waste,” he wrote.

Located near the intersection of Southwest Broadway and Southwest Hall Street, Shattuck Hall was originally built as an elementary school. It now has digital and materials labs, a metal foundry and workshops for plaster casting, woodworking and model making.

According to the contest entry packet, the exposure of Shattuck Hall’s mechanical, electrical and structural systems make the building “a teaching tool for the architects of the future.” It also has an open floor plan, large windows, skylights and light wells.

In addition, the packet says Shattuck Hall consumes 45 percent less water and 19 percent less energy, and provides 30 percent more fresh air, than required “by national standards.”

Shattuck Hall received Built Honor and Sustainability awards in 2009 from the American Institute of Architects’ Portland chapter. It also placed third in last year’s Daily Journal of Commerce Top Projects “Renovation – $5 million to $15 million” category.

Project partners, all based in Portland, are listed as: Portland State University, owner and developer of Shattuck Hall; SRG Partnership, architecture and interior design; Catena Consulting Engineers, structural engineering; and Howard S. Wright Constructors, general contractor.

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Real estate counsel and development firm Zupancic Group said today it will break ground on a racquet and fitness club in Tualatin by the middle of this year.

The 90,000-square foot Stafford Hills Racquet and Fitness Club will be located near the intersection of Interstates 5 and 205, on a 15.6-acre parcel just south of Lake Oswego.

Company President Jim Zupancic said the club would be completed by mid-2011. He declined to say how much it would cost to build.

The project’s general contractor is Todd Construction of Tigard. Zupancic, a former Republican nominee for the U.S. House of Representatives, said contractors have been contacting his office for months, asking “when we’re gonna get started on this.”

He said contracts are expected to start going out for bid in the next 90 days.

“And I don’t want people calling me,” he said. “They should call Todd.”

According to Lake Oswego-based Zupancic Group, the club will have seven indoor tennis courts, four outdoor courts and two practice courts “with many high tech amenities.” The club will also have fitness programs and aquatics.

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Office square footage under construction plunged this past year in Portland-metro suburbs, falling to about 308,000 in the fourth quarter last year from nearly 756,000 a year earlier, according to a report on the metro area’s real estate markets.

The total office vacancy rate in the suburbs, meanwhile, climbed to nearly 21 percent from 16 percent over that same period,聽 released Monday by NAI Norris, Beggs & Simpson, a Portland-based commercial real estate firm.

“Demand is still low in the suburbs,” the report said, and added that most tenant activity is from businesses trading space and not new ones moving in. In addition, as rates have fallen in Portland’s Central Business District, tenants have left the suburbs for downtown.

“But the suburban markets may have reached bottom, and 2010 should see a modest recovery,” the report said.

Kevin VandenBrink, a principal with Portland-based commercial real estate firm Macadam Forbes, said there is presently little, if any, speculative development in the suburbs.

He also said the Central Business District has generally fared better than suburban markets, in part because companies’ younger employees want to work downtown.

“It’s been almost a bit of a lifestyle change, and now (companies) can afford to make that change,” he said.

However, he said there are a lot of people who live outside Portland and don’t want or need to work there, and some businesses want to leave the city and Multnomah County, to save money on taxes.

Macadam Forbes is trying to lease out a refurbished, four-story office building with approximately 98,000 square feet, near the intersection of interstates 5 and 217 in Tigard.

The building has been on the market for more than a year.

“We’ve had a lot of interest,” VandenBrink said.

Some suburban areas have been hit harder than others. On Kruse Way, several mortgage, residential real estate and title companies have either moved or folded, said Bob Stutte, president of Norris & Stevens, a Portland-based brokerage and property management firm.

According to the NAI Norris, Beggs & Simpson report, Kruse Way had a vacancy rate of nearly 23 percent in the fourth quarter last year, compared to 14.6 percent a year earlier. Nothing was under construction in the fourth quarter, compared to approximately 108,000 square feet being built a year before.

Stutte said suburban office space still draws a lot of interest, but it’s coming from smaller companies seeking shorter leases. Asked if it’s now easy to drive down prices, he said with a laugh, “It depends on the broker you have working for you.”

The suburbs weren’t the only areas hurting late last year.

Square footage under construction in Portland’s city center fell to roughly 830,000 in the fourth quarter from 1.3 million a year earlier. The total office vacancy rate there climbed to nearly 12 percent from 9.25 percent.

The NAI Norris, Beggs & Simpson report said the quarter generally “ended with some optimism,” as consumer confidence and December retail sales rose. The Portland-metro area’s industrial and retail vacancy rates also decreased.

“There was some good news on a number of economic fronts,” said the report, “tempered with the understanding that recovery will take time.”

The report defined the suburbs as including Interstate-5 South, central Beaverton and Sunset Corridor, among other areas, and excluding Vancouver, Wash. “Central City” was defined as encompassing the Central Business District, Lloyd District and Central East side and Northwest.

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Metro, the Portland-area’s regional planning agency, is scheduled to hold 10 open houses and hearings during the next two weeks, allowing residents to voice concerns over urban growth plans for the next 40 to 50 years.

The meetings will focus on the metro area’s urban growth boundary and which land would be designated inside and outside of it. Land inside the lines would be open to development consideration in coming decades.

Metro Council, the agency’s governing body, and the boards of commissioners of Washington, Multnomah and Clackamas counties, have “crafted a proposed regional map” of the designations, according to a recent from Metro.

According to Metro, the map proposes nearly 31,000 acres of “urban reserves,” or land inside the boundary, and roughly 224,000 acres of “rural reserves,” land that would be off-limits from development consideration in coming decades.

The open houses and hearings are scheduled for:

Jan. 11
4:30-6:30 p.m. open house
6 p.m. Metro Council hearing
Multnomah County East Building
600 NE 8th Ave., Gresham

Jan. 14
4:30-6:30 p.m. open house
6 p.m. Metro Council hearing
Metro Regional Center
600 NE Grand Ave., Portland

Jan. 16
9-11 a.m. open house
Washington County Public Services Building
155 N. First Ave., Hillsboro

Jan. 19
4:30-6:30 p.m. open house
Clackamas County Development Services Building
150 Beavercreek Road, Oregon City

Jan. 20
4:30-6:30 p.m. open house
6 p.m. Metro Council hearing
Sherwood Library/City Hall
22560 SW Pine St., Sherwood

Jan. 21
4:30-6:30 p.m. open house
6 p.m. Metro Council hearing
Wilsonville City Hall
29799 SW Town Center Loop E., Wilsonville

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Opus Northwest is laying off 13 people from its Portland and Seattle offices, another setback for a development firm that has seen its Portland-area workload evaporate completely.

Tom Parsons, senior vice president and general manager for Opus Northwest in Seattle, said Tuesday that most of the layoffs would come from the company’s construction management group and would take place this week.

He said the staffs of the Portland and Seattle offices would be reduced, respectively, from six to four and from 24 to 13.

These layoffs and previous ones have mirrored Opus’ diminishing workload. In 2007, according to Parsons, the offices had a combined 110 employees and $250 million worth of projects. Now there are just 17 workers and $30 million worth of projects – all in the Seattle area – scheduled for this year.

The commercial construction firm, based in Minnetonka, Minn., has no planned deals in the Portland-metro area, but it’s pursuing several possible projects, according to Parsons.

He said Opus completed $500 million worth of projects in the metro area in the past seven years, including two high-end apartment complexes last year – Park 19 in Northwest Portland, and Ladd Apartments in downtown Portland.

“If you look at the industry and map Opus with the industry, you’re gonna see a very similar graph,” Parsons said.

The layoffs,聽 by Finance and Commerce of Minneapolis, a sister paper of the Daily Journal of Commerce, are the latest bad news for the company. Opus Northwest is now one of two remaining divisions of its parent company, the Opus Group. Divisions based in Rockville, Md., Atlanta and Phoenix filed for either Chapter 7 or Chapter 11 bankruptcy last year.

John Solberg, president and CEO of Opus Northwest, told Finance and Commerce he doesn’t think the division would file for bankruptcy protection or merge with the other remaining division, Opus North of Rosemont, Ill.

“I don’t think there’s any intention of having only one company,” Solberg said, “but that’s something that I don’t necessarily control, either.”

Opus Northwest has six offices, and Parsons said there are no plans to close the Portland location, despite its dearth of work. The office, which opened in 1997 with two employees, hit a peak of 21 workers three years ago.

For now, Parsons said, the Portland office is pursuing “build-to-suit” projects, in which custom commercial buildings would be financed by either the owner or Opus, not by a bank.

Parsons said this is currently the “only feasible” type of work, given many banks’ unwillingness or inability to make loans.

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With Oregon’s construction sector slumping, many firms are scrambling to make money or just stay in business. But would a company accept seats for basketball games instead of a paycheck?

The University of Oregon hopes so.

The general contractor for the university’s new basketball arena in Eugene, Matthew Knight Arena, is seeking bidders for ceramic tile and riser platforms at the $200 million facility. Proposals are due Jan. 13.

The bid package, from Hoffman Construction Co. and dated Dec. 29, 2009, tells potential applicants of the “opportunity to provide gifts-in-kind donations” to the university for the project.

According to a letter dated Sept. 15, 2008 and enclosed in the tile and riser project’s request for proposals, the university wants labor, materials and services donated to the new arena in general to help offset “rising” construction costs and to build a facility “at the lowest possible cost.”

The letter, from Kurt Zimmerman, senior director of development for the university’s athletics department, said donation benefits include “donor acknowledgement in the arena, as well as seating opportunities for UO basketball, including Champion ($50,000 and up) and Legacy ($1 million and up) level donors.”

Zimmerman said Monday there have not been as many donation offers for the basketball arena as with other university projects. Some of the offers for the arena have been for concrete work, sand and gravel, and fire protection, he said.

Pence/Kelly Concrete LLC in Salem is one contractor donating part of its work. Mick Haggerty, senior project manager, said the firm donated a small portion of its work on the project as a gifts-in-kind contribution.

Haggerty said Pence/Kelly made the donation because the university requested it. Although he couldn’t recall the exact dollar value of the contribution, he said it wasn’t large enough for substantial tax or other benefits.

“We truly wanted to help out where we could,” he said.

Not every contractor would make the donation. Cameron Crenshaw, vice president of Portland-based Floor Factors, said his company, which is not working on the arena, is a union shop with tight profit margins, and declining cash “wouldn’t be feasible.”

“Donating labor and whatnot on something like that would be pretty tough for a medium-size company such as ours,” Crenshaw said.

Construction donations are more common in some parts of the country than others, and their frequency can depend on the culture of philanthropy at the school and among the local donor community, said Brian Swanson of the University of Minnesota’s Office of Budget and Finance.

Swanson was program manager on the Minnesota university’s TCF Bank Stadium, a 50,300-seat football stadium completed in July 2009. Swanson said contractors made few donations, and they included countertops in luxury box suites and televisions throughout the facility.

“Maybe there were more [donations], but for the most part we’re talking pennies, not dollars,” he said.

He also noted that some contractors in general could donate old products sitting idle in inventory, hoping to get a tax write-off and good publicity.

“Not every gift is a true gift,” he said.

Matthew Knight Arena, which had its ground-breaking 11 months ago, is being financed via $200 million worth of bonds sold by the university. University officials hope to open the facility in time for the 2010-11 Pac-10 Conference basketball season.

Phil Weiler, a university spokesman, said construction is on schedule.

Nike Inc. founder Phil Knight and his wife, Penny, named the arena after their son Matthew, who in 2004 was killed at age 34, in a scuba diving accident in El Salvador.

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General contractors in the Portland-metro area are predicting a gloomy 2010, with tight credit, smaller workloads and hardly any private-sector commercial deals.

Bryan Ward is one such pessimist. The president of Skyward Construction Inc. in Ridgefield, Wash., Ward said his firm has a backlog of roughly $5 million worth of contracts, compared to the nearly $20 million it had a year ago.

Other firms have encountered similar drop-offs, he said.

“It’s terrible,” Ward said.

Gene Wellman also predicts a difficult 2010. Wellman, an owner of Triplett Wellman Inc. in Woodburn, said the firm, which specializes in school and church construction, wants to earn $30 million in revenue – half of its total from 2009.

His company laid off 20 people this past year, and Wellman said more layoffs would occur if sales goals aren’t met.

Economic woes, in Oregon and around the country, leave little room for optimism. State and national jobless rates have reached double-digits, and construction employment fell “everywhere except North Dakota” this past year, according to a recent analysis of federal data by the Associated General Contractors of America.

Analysts say the recession may have technically ended or is close to ending in Oregon, but “we are not at the point of feeling the beneficial effects of a recovery,” Portland’s Bureau of Development Services said in an economic forecast on Nov. 25, 2009.

Local contractors agree, saying there are few, if any, signs of a quick turnaround for their sector. They say lending for private-sector commercial jobs will be tight in 2010, while high unemployment, slow population growth and lack of business expansion also will crimp their revenues.

Meanwhile, Oregon’s most recent Economic and Revenue Forecast, published Nov. 19, 2009, said the expectation for construction job losses in 2009 was 15,500. That 16.3 percent drop brings the sector’s employment to 79,200.

The report said another 7,000 construction jobs would be lost this year, an 8.8 percent decline, while 300 would be added in 2011, a 0.3 percent increase.

Steve Malany, president of P&C Construction Co. in Gresham, said some contractors will go out of business this year because they’ve lost too much money or want to prevent future, crippling losses.

“I think we’re gonna be surprised at the number that do fold,” he said.

P&C this year is slated to build, among other things, a new elementary school and a high school performing arts auditorium, both in Scappoose. Malany said the company’s workload had been divided evenly in recent years between public-sector and private-sector jobs, but now, up to 90 percent of its work comes from government bodies.

According to Malany, P&C expects $40 million worth of sales this year, down from $45 million last year and $80 million in 2008.

“There’s just not a whole lot of private work out there right now,” he said.

Meanwhile, it has become increasingly competitive to earn coveted government contracts.

Ward said his company bids against 20 other general contractors for “every single” government job, and Skyward hasn’t earned a public works contract in at least six months.

In one instance, Skyward tried to land a contract to build a new grandstand at Camas High School, in Camas, Wash. He said there were 17 bids, and the lowest was $600,000 less than Skyward’s.

Ward said if his firm had submitted a bid equivalent to the winning bid, Skyward would have lost money on the project. He noted such basement-low bids are now “typical.”

“It kind of sucks, doesn’t it?” he said.

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The Centennial Mills project planned for Portland’s waterfront could face delays because of “rotten” wharf pilings, another possible setback in a commercial real estate market nearly devoid of financing.

Shaheen Sadeghi, principal with project developer LAB Holding LLC, said consultants have found the pier is more damaged than previously thought. The findings were completed in recent months, he said.

Sadeghi said the 10 buildings at the site, located on the west bank of the Willamette River between the Fremont and Broadway bridges, are in good shape. But he also said pilings are “rotten” and the cost of repairs would be “a big number,” though he did not give an estimate.

Company officials said any potential repairs would require permits from the state and federal governments, largely because of the need to protect the river’s natural habitat.

“It could take a while,” said Ryan Aeh, project manager with LAB Holding, based in Costa Mesa, Calif. He said the situation “adds to the uncertainty of when we could break ground.”

LAB Holding wants to turn the site – comprised of warehouses, grain elevators and a seven-story flour mill, all built between 1910 and 1940 – into a culinary attraction, with restaurants, a farmer’s market and even light food manufacturing.

To date, the project is at least six months behind schedule. However, board members from the Portland Development Commission, which owns the site, said the delay is not unusual given the sourish commercial real estate market.

“The problem right now is that no one seems to be getting financing for commercial projects,” Commissioner Steven Straus said.

The board’s chairman, Scott Andrews, said the commission has recently “delayed more projects than approved” because of developers’ lack of credit. He said officials are still working on Centennial Mills’ project plans and environmental work, “but there isn’t a lot of urgency.”

“The financial world is gonna have to change pretty drastically before a project like that gets off the ground,” Andrews said.

Aeh has acknowledged the project “lost of a little bit of momentum” earlier this year, in part because of the economy.

As reported in the 91视频 earlier this year, the Centennial Mills project was expected to be finished in 2011. LAB Holding had hoped to execute its Development and Disposition Agreement with the Portland Development Commission by this past summer.

Now, Aeh said the company hopes to finalize that agreement by the end of March 2010, to break ground in “early 2011” and to finish construction by 2012.

Project plans were reviewed and discussed at an open forum earlier this month. A similar forum is scheduled for Jan. 19, at Bridgeport Brewery in Northwest Portland.

Sadeghi and Aeh both declined to give an estimated project cost, though Sadeghi noted it was previously estimated at $55 million.

Earlier this month the site, on Northwest Naito Parkway, had a bundle of peeling, discolored buildings. What appeared to be a water tower, on top of one of the buildings, was covered in graffiti.

Centennial Mills was in operation until 2000, when the Portland Development Commission purchased the property. Aeh said the commission intended to clear the site for a public park, but community backlash led to the current efforts to preserve most of the property.

The buildings, slated for rehabilitation and other work, will remain largely intact. However, plans call for a warehouse in the center of the 4.75-acre site to be almost completely demolished, clearing space for a wide entryway, while portions of two other warehouses along the river’s edge will be cut out to make room for public space along the wharf.

A July 2006 report from KPFF Consulting Engineers, a project consultant, said most of the buildings are in “fair condition,” though many had damage or deterioration, mostly because of roof leakage.

Warehouse B, for instance, had “extensive decay” in the timber piles at the water line, and at several locations the piles had “completely separated from the concrete columns and pile caps.”

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A Gresham homeowners’ association has sued its complex’s developer for $4.55 million, alleging in the lawsuit that dozens of construction defects caused severe water damage and made the homes “imminently, inherently, and unreasonably dangerous.”

The Gresham Station Townhomes Owners’ Association, which represents all 60 homeowners in its namesake complex near the intersection of Northwest Burnside Road and Northwest Civic Drive, claims the project’s developer and general contractor, Persimmon Development Group Inc., violated building code, manufacturer and trade group installation instructions, and industry standards.

Filed Dec. 10 in Multnomah County Circuit Court, the association’s 32-page complaint says the defendants’ “noncompliance” with those benchmarks resulted in multiple water stains and leaks.

According to the complaint, high moisture content “is causing mold, fungus, and mildew, and odors to spread throughout” the homes.

The complaint lists 34 alleged construction shortfalls, ranging from the general (“Wood trim was not properly primed and/or painted,”) to the more technical (“Required flashing is omitted below the brick veneer sill row-lock to vertical transition of the brick veneer wainscot, in violation of 2004 OSSC Section 1405.3”).

W. Frank Elsasser, the association’s attorney, said the list of alleged defects was compiled by Western Architectural, a Portland-based firm that investigates water intrusion and leaks. He said the association hired the firm to assess the property’s condition and look for construction shortfalls.

Elsasser said another firm, RDH Group, was brought in as a neutral third party to assess the property and recommend repairs. He said the association and Persimmon disagreed on which repairs should be made, which lead to the litigation.

Persimmon’s president, Brian A. Lessler, said Monday that the association wanted “significant betterments” that neither Persimmon nor its insurance company was willing to build.

Lessler also said he had not seen any of the alleged water damage.

“We have not observed significant damage at all, actually,” he said.

Completed in spring 2006, the Gresham Station Townhomes development has 60 townhouses spread among 18, two-to-three-story buildings. The gated, multi-colored complex is on a 3.5-acre site, with garden walkways between buildings.

According to Persimmons’ Web site, site development and vertical construction cost roughly $7.5 million.

The association’s lawsuit does not say when the water damage began. But it says the estimated future cost of repairs is $3.3 million, and “the amount attributable to the stigma caused by the existence of construction defects” is $600,000, or $10,000 per unit.

Elsasser said the stigma would result in the homeowners getting less money when they try to sell their homes. He said it’s similar to a car owner trying to sell a vehicle that had previously been in an accident.

“Someone’s gonna give you less for the exact same car that wasn’t in a wreck,” he said.

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