School construction: Booming in 2001 and beyond.

With President Bush focusing on education, the student body growing each day, and numerous schools in the New York and New Jersey metropolitan areas in disrepair, renovation and new construction at New York and New Jersey's educational facilities will no doubt be on the rise in 2001 and beyond.

We've recently seen our work in the New York metropolitan area's primary and secondary educational facilities increase dramatically. Currently, York Hunter Capitol is working on more than $300 million in education projects for each of the three public agencies within the five boroughs -- the Board of Education, School Construction Authority and Department of Design and Construction. In fact, more than 60% of our division's work is in the K-12 arena, 75% of which is within New York City. We haven't seen this volume of school construction since the Baby Boomers hit the school system in the 1960s!

One of the reasons we're seeing so much renovation and repair work is the aging school stock. Renovations of occupied educational facilities currently account for nearly 85% of our school system jobs. In the New York metropolitan area overall, there is currently $2 billion worth of school renovation work -- not a small number by any means. The issue of schools in disrepair has recently attracted the media and public's attention nationwide, as numerous public schools are undergoing campaigns to rebuild their facilities in an effort to maintain optimal levels of safety. For this reason, a good portion of the state budget surplus is going to education.

A shift in demographics over the past decade has caused significant growth in the student body population. To accommodate this change, new educational facilities are being constructed throughout the New York City metropolitan area. In Queens, more than 15 new schools will be constructed over the next three to five years. It has also been estimated that New York City is short about 100,000 seats for its students, causing a further push for new facilities to be built as quickly as possible.

And New Yorkers are not the only ones experiencing a boom. In West New York, N.J. we've seen a large increase in school renovations. Through our work as the district's construction manager for more than three years now, we've provided professional guidance on their capital planning efforts, totaling close to $120 million worth of work. Some of the school buildings in that portion of Hudson County date back to 1903, causing a need for updates, replacements and, naturally, modernization of facilities.

But population growth and aging schools are not the only reasons we're seeing a tremendous surge in school construction. The increase in public sector jobs, including public housing, justice, transportation and civil projects, is indicative of the last four years in which the United States economy was prosperous. Since the government's revenue cycle takes a while to catch up with current conditions, we will see this growth manifest itself in public sector work such as school construction. Therefore, the current stock market volatility and less-than-stable economy will not slow school construction at all.

With President Bush at the helm, and education a key area on his agenda, we will no doubt see lots of school construction over the next few years.