Page 20 - HealthcareNews Jan_Feb 2021

REAL ESTATE & CONSTRUCTION CONT’D
And he was not alone in that assessment, espe- cially when it comes to the price hikes.
“We’ve seen steel and lumber costs rise exponen- tially — they’ve almost doubled within the past year,”
“We’ve seen steel and lumber costs rise exponentially — they’ve almost doubled within the past year.”
said Dan Bradbury, director of Sales and Market- ing for South Hadley-based Associated Builders, which works within a number of sectors, including healthcare. He noted that these rising costs could, and probably will, impact everything from decisions on whether projects move forward in the near term to what kind of construction takes place — new or renovation of existing space (more on all that later).
As for now and the immediate future, those we spoke with said that, after going mostly and then almost completely silent in the weeks after COVID hit, the phones are starting to ring again with greater regularity — in general, and within the healthcare sector in particular.
Pat and Craig Sweitzer, co- owners of Monson-based Swietzer Construction, which specializes
in healthcare construction and especially dental offices, said
they have a number of projects
in progress and on the books, including three new dental offices, a medical building with a dental office as part of the lineup, two new medical spas (including one in East Longmeadow, adjacent to an Ascent Dental office they built), a cannabis dispensary, and work at Adaptas Solutions in Palmer, which is now making parts for COVID testing.
Noting how he needs to be at a number of differ- ent sites on a weekly of not daily basis, Craig Sweitzer joked, “I need to buy an airplane.”
Those sentiments express just how much the market has rebounded — if that’s even the right word — and how the outlook has brightened since the darkest days of the pandemic.
Bradbury agreed. “Especially in this new year, 2021, there’s been a more positive outlook, and we’re starting to have the phone ring more and see more potential jobs in the pipeline for this year and for next,” he said, adding that this sentiment applies, again, to construction in general and healthcare construction more specifically.
Ryan Pelletier stands in
the atrium at Mercy Medical Center, one
of the many projects within the healthcare sector undertaken by the company in recent months.
But there are still many question marks about just what the future will bring, and for this issue and its focus on healthcare construction and real estate, we talked with these experts about what can and likely will happen, both short- and long-term.
Concrete Examples
Rewinding the tape on the past 12 months of COVID, those we spoke with echoed the sentiments of business owners and managers in every sector when they said the changing landscape brought with it both challenges and opportunities, and certainly more of the former.
Indeed, some construction projects in the health-
renovating for the future...
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