"The real fun hasn’t begun yet," said Jeff Burd, president of the Pittsburgh Construction News, a publication that lists construction projects for bid in Western Pennsylvania. The last four years, Pittsburgh routinely trailed other PG Benchmarks regions in construction activity, ranking 14^th every year except 1998, when it ranked last. In this year’s rankings, the amount spent on construction per capita is $907.35, placing Pittsburgh 14^th among 15 similar-sized regions. This could be one of Pittsburgh’s last years at the bottom, though.

An unprecedented amount of construction is ready to roll across Western Pennsylvania, spurred by low interest rates and rising demand for new homes, offices, roads, hotels, shopping centers, plants, and schools. "We are about to enter an actual 100 percent, bona fide building boom cycle," Burd said.

That bodes well for Pittsburgh’s economy. Construction, at its most basic, is a measure of demand. Does the Pittsburgh region have enough space to meet the demand for its products and services? Increasingly, it does not.

The evidence is all over town. In 1998, PNC Bank and Mellon Bank started work on two new operations centers Downtown. Kaufmann’s and Lazarus opened new department stores, in Robinson and Downtown respectively. Developers unwrapped plans for new suburban office buildings, warehouses and regional malls. Retailers elbowed each other for land.

The next few years, though, could make 1998 look slow. All the signs are positive. Vacancies in the suburbs and Downtown are dropping, rents are rising, property values are increasing and more total space is being absorbed now than in years past. Also, interest rates are at their lowest point in years, making it easier to bor row for new projects.

By 2001, two new stadiums for the Pirates and Steelers will have opened on the North Side. The David L. Lawrence Convention Center will have expanded. Downtown may have a new Lord & Taylor department store, a new movie theater and, possibly, scores of new shops. There will be new hotels, lofts, school buildings and offices, too. Suburban developers are planning new office complexes, industrial parks, shopping centers and entertainment complexes.

Typically, cities that are slow to add jobs and population also are slow to add new construction. For much of the 1990s, that was Pittsburgh’s problem. Phoenix, by comparison, consistently leads the other PG Benchmarks cities in new jobs and population growth. By no coincidence, it also leads the other cities in construction activity, with $2,475.14 per capita.

Pittsburgh, however, is conservative by nature, known as "steady" rather than explosive, said Ray Steeb, general manager of Turner Construction Co. "We have been flat for 10 years," he said. Even in the 1980s, when the rest of the country was overbuilding and overlending, local developers picked their projects carefully, never bringing a building out of the ground without know ing it could be filled. Back then, Pittsburgh was a few years behind the national development trends. The same is true today. Construction in other PG Benchmarks cities peaked in 1997 and 1998. Pittsburgh’s boom, however, has yet to reach its crest.

As a result, local contractors who looked outside the region for work through much of the 1990s now are refocusing their attention on Western Pennsylvania. Take R.E. Crawford Construction, for example. In 1994, billings at the Springdale-based firm were $15 million. Its focus was national, rather than local.

Last year, as R.E. Crawford took on more projects in Western Pennsylvania, billings jumped to $48 million. Local work now represents one-third of R.E. Crawford’s total project load, up from one-fourth of its load a few years ago.

"We were able to hone in on the local market because it is growing so much," said Heidi White, R.E. Crawford’s national director of business development.

Among its recent projects are Home Depots in East Liberty and South Strabane, an Amerisuites Hotel in Cranberry, a Wal-Mart in Gibsonia, and several grocery stores, condos and assisted-living facilities throughout the region. The company has added 25 people in the last two years to meet the demand.

Despite examples like that of R.E. Crawford, there are a few drawbacks to this boom. For one, it squeezes labor. With so many projects competing for their time and attention, local contractors may have problems finding enough subcontractors to haul dirt, paint walls, drive screws and pour concrete.