PCBC 2009 Highlights
PCBC recognizes that with the economy the way it is, a lot of people who would normally be in San Francisco for the 50th anniversary edition can’t make it this year. So we’ll be filing dispatches on the PCBC Web site to keep you apprised of some of the highlights from this year’s Show.
We’ve recruited Bill Burnett, former real estate editor for the San Francisco Chronicle, to wander around the Moscone Center this week and report on what he sees. Check back often to see what he’s reporting on.
Friday, June 19
Attendees Focus on Business at PCBC 2009
Plus – a former editor’s take on interesting products on the show floor
By Bill Burnett
PCBC 2009 proved to be an intimate, rather serious affair – a place where attendees were more interested in doing business than in doing cocktails and dinner.
But show officials said that was expected given the sharp downturn in the homebuilding industry during the past three years, but added that given the feedback from attendees and exhibitors alike, PCBC’s 50th Anniversary edition has to be considered a success.
The final numbers won’t be in for a week but it’s clear that attendance, both from attendees and exhibitors, is sharply down from last year.
“We project attendance will be somewhere in the 13,000s,” said Linda Baysari, Senior Vice President of Meetings and Conventions for the California Building Industry Association, which sponsors the conference each year. Last year’s attendance was 19,995.
Last year, 600 exhibitors leased booths; this year the total was 350. And, while the show has used all three of Moscone Center’s convention halls in the past, this year PCBC fit snugly into just the South Hall.
“It’s an accurate reflection of the industry,” said Baysari, who is running her 16th PCBC. “When you think about housing starts being off 82 percent, it’s not surprising to see that impact the show. If anything, in the worst market that anyone has experienced, it’s surprising that so many would show up. It certainly shows the resiliency of the industry.”
CBIA President and CEO Robert Rivinius, who is finishing his 30th year at the helm of the Association, said that while PCBC is smaller for obvious reasons, he saw a lot of positive energy at the Moscone Center.
“I think people have a sense that we’ve bottomed out. We won’t come roaring back but we are entering a time of recovery. The folks that are here are the survivors. And they feel pretty good about that,” he said.
Both Rivinius and Baysari said that while size matters to some degree, PCBC is more importantly a place to network and to toss around ideas.
“Remember the Wednesday night cocktail circuit?” Rivinius said. “How many parties where there – 30, 40? This year there might have been five or six. But they were full and fun. It’s just that there’s more of a sense of business this year both with the exhibitors and attendees.”
Baysari often gauges a show’s success by the comments coming from the exhibit floor.
“I’ve been very pleased with what I’m hearing,” she said. “This core group (of builders) that remains is sending their leaders, their founders. These are people who are going to lead us out of this. There are people on the floor that are saying, ‘Show me product. I’m ready to buy.’
“For me, this isn’t an issue of how large PCBC is, as long as the leaders in the industry are participating, it can be a one-hall show. My challenge is to keep the representation there. It’s not about size; it’s making sure we have all the right exhibitors represented.”
A number of big-name companies were no-shows this year, most notably, Kohler, Viking and Sub-Zero/Wolf.
“It’s their loss. They’re missing out on a good market. Their competitors are here,” Rivinius said, citing such long-time exhibitors as General Electric, Whirlpool and Pella Windows.
He also pointed out that many Western builders forego the huge national show in January and do all their research at PCBC. “But, we’re going to work on getting them back. They’re important to the show and to the industry.”
Rivinius said recovery is coming but it’s not going to be fast.
“I’m getting good vibes from around the state. There’s a lot of enthusiasm. Next year I want to say 2009 is the year we bottomed out.”
Walking the floor
Richard Paoli spent most of Thursday strolling around the exhibit hall floor. It’s something he has done for at least a decade, first as real estate editor for the San Francisco Chronicle and now as a retired guy with an abiding interest in building.
“PCBC is my yearly trip to the candy store,” Paoli said. Here are a few exhibits that caught his eye:
More than window dressing: Serious Materials, the Sunnyvale, Calif., company best known for its sound-dampening drywall, is recycling jobs to produce a line of highly rated windows.
Last year, when Republic Windows shut its Chicago plant and workers staged a sit-in protest, Serious CEO Kevin Surace bought the failed company and re-employed many of its workers. When Kensington Windows, closed its Pittsburgh, Pa., plant last October, Serious bought the business and re-employed many of its 150 workers.
Serious Windows are now produced at several regional centers.
Eco-Rock is Serious Materials’ leading green, low-energy product. It is a drywall substitute made of recyclables and manufactured using cement byproducts.
“Despite the conditions in the building industry, we’re seeing a lot of interest at PCBC,” said Janine Kromhout, Serious communications manager. “We’re also finding that consumers and architects are specifying our products for builders.”
(www.seriousmaterials.com)
Stack ’em up: Klaus Multiparking, a German-made, hydraulically operated parking system, has already been the answer to parking woes at a number of land-tight residential projects in San Francisco and the East Bay. Notable projects include the Gaia Building in Berkeley where 39 cars are parked and stacked; the Symphony Towers in San Francisco where the system will handle 88 cars; and several single-family homes in San Francisco, the East Bay and Southern California.
The Klaus system has 20,000 cars parked on the West Coast and more than 600,000 worldwide, according to Rick Rombach, president of Klaus Parking Systems in Lafayette, Calif.
A simple two-car Klaus system, appropriate for single-family homes, would cost $12,000 installed, Rombach said.
(www.parklift.com)
Just suck it up: DrawerVac is the solution to that kitchen counter strewn with crumbs.
The accessory, which resembles a shallow tray, is mounted just under the countertop and is connected to a central vacuum system. Pulling out the drawer activates the vacuum; then brush the counter debris into the tray and watch it get sucked away. The DrawerVac, which retails for $80, can also be linked to a separate wet suction system that vacuums moist food waste into a composting tank.
(www.plastiflex.com)
Feeling flush: The Neorest from Toto has lifted the word toilet to the level of “personal hygiene system.”
And at $5,600 it also comes with an electronic control panel that allows users to select seat temperature, adjust the temperature of the water and air sprays and select a variety of sounds (ocean waves, rushing river – even a flush toilet) to mask any personal sounds that might emanate from the toilet.
The Neorest has a water spray and air dryer cleansing sprays, which, the manufacturer claims, will reduce the need for toilet paper. The Neorest also has 1.28 and .9 gallon per flush settings to meet water-use reduction standards.
(www.totoneorest.com)
Email Bill Burnett at wburnett@comcast.net.
Thursday, June 18
Imagining the Future
PCBC and Gold Nugget Awards team up to imagine how homes and communities of the near- and more-distant future will be designed
By Bill Burnett
PCBC has seen the future – and according to a number of architects and architectural students around the West, it’s smaller, denser and multigenerational.
To celebrate its 50-year anniversary, PCBC partnered with the Gold Nugget Awards, the architecture and design contest that at 48 years old is no spring chicken itself. The idea was to look to the next 50 years and beyond.
Architecture firms and teams of architects and college students were asked to “imagine the future” and produce concepts for where and how we’ll live in the next generations.
What Gen Y wants
Hunt, Hale Jones and City College of San Francisco students teamed to produce Generation Y Home Buying options, a look at what the next generation of homeowners will demand.
Architect David Casey said an existing urban site plan of about 850 acres was used. “We reprogrammed this to address the desires of Gen Y. Currently the land has 5,100 single-family houses. Now, through density, we have more than 50,000 units.”
An interconnected transit system is included that includes light-rail lines. Walking is encouraged; cars, not so much.
Student Jacob Alexander said the idea was to create “a more holistic, interconnected area. We’re breaking down walls, adding small businesses. It’s all about bringing people together.”
Pods of Bangladesh
Assume that by the year 2152 global warming has caused thousands of acres of Southeast Asia to be flooded by encroaching seawater. KTGY architects and Cal Poly Pomona did – and came up with a novel solution.
They proposed high-rise towers anchored to the sea floor and composed of self-sufficient pods.
The twisting monoliths would contain independent units for living, recreation and community life, as well as modules to collect water, compost waste and generate power.
The Heliotropic House
University of Idaho students and South Coast Architects designed what could easily be a luxury home 10 or 20 years from now. The three-story house comes with separate living space for a friend or family member. Think multi-generation.
The home would feature photovoltaic panels to catch the sun, a rooftop system to collect rainwater and a windmill to harness the wind. If built, the house would live up to its name by rotating to track the sun.
Home to 3 Generations
Here’s one that could happen in the near future.
In Huntington Beach, Calif., 20 acres sits scraped and ready, the site preparation complete. Before the building industry ground to a halt, the plan at Sea-Shore Village was to erect 192 single-family houses.
Martin & Associates architects have radically changed the concept, slightly increasing the density to 252 units but adding lots of open space and diversity. Worth noting are a number of designs for two-story triplexes – two units on the bottom, one on top – in which aging baby boomers, their aged parents and their returned-from-college kids could live comfortably.
The plan also includes a number of live-work units.
Market researcher John Martin said the project could break ground as early as next year.
Bye-Bye Big Box
When mega-stores go out of business B3 Architects and Berkus Design Studio think there should be more left behind than acres of metal and concrete.
Their concept is to reinvent the space, keeping some retail but also adding residences, including live-work space. The architects say this denser living fosters social activity, thus building community.
B3/Berkus also offered other blue-sky glimpses into the future, including a case study for the rebuilding of New Orleans that features a number of raised peninsulas for housing. The firm also dreams about a “Botanic Community” where the suburbs have been reinvented, partly by building homes whose roofs do double duty as vegetable gardens.
Email Bill Burnett at wburnett@comcast.net.
Wednesday, June 17
PCBC Knows Cool
Innovative 2009 Cool Product winners advance homebuilding in many ways
By Bill Burnett
There’s sexy, and then there’s cool.
At PCBC sexy might mean a refrigerator that reminds you when to go grocery shopping, or a private elevator. Cool goes a step further.
In the eight years PCBC has been giving out the Cool Product Awards, a “cool” product has come to mean one that improves homebuilding, makes a new home more inviting to a buyer and improves the sustainability of our resources.
This year, a panel of homebuilders, media and architects chose winners in four categories: Conserves Natural Resources; Contributes to a Healthier, Safer Living Environment; A New, Cool Invention; and Saves Energy.
Here is the Coolest of the Cool, PCBC’s 2009 Cool Products winners:
Conserves Natural Resources
EcoStar, a roofing tile manufacturer out of Carlisle, Pa., has added a new, 10-inch size to its Majestic Slate product line. Heidi Ellsworth, a regional manager for the company, said the new tile can be mixed with 12-inch EcoStar tiles for a roof that has the look of true slate.
Ellsworth said the tiles, made mostly of rubber and plastic, use 80 percent cycled materials, will not fade and will last at least 20 years. (www.ecostar.carlisle.com)
Contributes to a Healthy, Safer Environment
Icynene, the spray-foam insulation company, has been around for a decade. Rather than come up with a new product, the Buffalo, N.Y., company improved the one it already had. The company’s LD-R-50 foam is made with castor oil rather than oils derived from fossil fuels.
Regional sales manager Patrick Bullion said the castor bean is essentially a weed. Crops are not irrigated, nor do they require pesticides. (www.icynene.com)
A New, Cool Invention
Panasonic scored a hit with its new line of WhisperGreen ventilation fans. The company says the fan moves 80 cubic feet of air per minute and is equipped with variable speed controls and a motion sensor.
The company says a new motor allows the WhisperGreen to exceed Energy Star guidelines by as much as 550 percent. (www.panasonic.com/consumer_electronics/ventilation_central/WhatsLurking.asp)
Saves Energy
Custom-Bilt Metals, a 35-year-old Chino, Calif., manufacturer of metal roofing, is the first to market a clean look for solar panels. The FusionSolar system uses a thin-film solar laminate that is already integrated into the roof.
“It can’t break. It’s completely walkable and there’s no roof penetration,” said Joe Chiovare, a representative for the company. (www.custombiltmetals.com)
Email Bill Burnett at wburnett@comcast.net.
|
Bigger Isn’t Always Better
For many PCBC exhibitors, a 10-by-10 booth is plenty to sell builders on their products
By Bill Burnett
They call them the10-by-10s, or sometimes just the 10’s.
These are the smallest plots of real estate at the Moscone Center that exhibitors can rent during PCBC week. And for $3,600, all they get is the floor space. Tenant improvements are extra.
But a tour of these small displays shows that a lot of marketing can be accomplished in 100 square feet. (A handful of exhibitors paid a premium of $4,500 to set up their displays in the Smart Solutions area, prime space dedicated to things green and sustainable.)
This year, the 10-by-10s make up nearly half the booths at the Show – 168 of 350. The exhibitors range from newly formed mom-and-pop companies to well-established mini-corporations. They sell everything from software to saw blades. For 31 exhibitors, this is their first time at PCBC.
Regal Aluminum is one such “newbie.” The company, out of Vancouver, Wash., makes high-end fencing, paneling and a nifty telescoping extension ladder.
As far as coming to the Show, it’s “not because we didn’t want to,” said Ernie Couillard a company representative. “In prior years this show has been sold out. We’re happy to be here because we do a lot of business on the West Coast. We’re hoping to see some of the contractors we’ve worked with for a number of years.” (www.regalrailing.com)
Intertile, on the other hand, has been coming to PCBC for 25 or 30 years, according to Scott Eder, sales manager.
Eder doesn’t have far to drive. His company, which sells stone, tile and flooring, is located across San Francisco Bay in San Leandro. For Intertile, the 10-by-10 booth is a sign of the times. “Over the years we grow or contract with the economy. In better years we’ve taken bigger booths,” he said.
The company offers three distinct products – Italian-inspired but made-in-America porcelain tiles called Stonepeak; a flooring called Marca Corona in which 40 percent of the materials are recycled; and slabs of many kinds of stone which can be finished several ways. (www.intertile.com)
Becky Fry and her husband, Brad, have been regulars at PCBC for a decade. The couple runs New Concept Louvers, making weathervanes, louvers, cupolas and custom metal items for the past 25 years. A true mom-and-pop operation, based in Springvale, Utah, New Concept employs just six other people.
“We’ve always used the 10’s,” Becky Fry said. Perhaps that’s because the couple attend four trade shows a year and does the setup and teardown themselves. (www.newconceptlouvers.com)
Stephen Ross, vice president for Summit Appliances, said 100 square feet is all he needs to get his message across.
“We have specialty projects for each marketplace so we customize a 10-by-10 booth for each show. If we had a larger booth, we’d just fill it up with more stuff,” said the Bronx, N.Y., maker of compact appliances and outdoor kitchens.
Ross, who has come to Moscone two other times, likes the Show this year. “We’re not seeing the usual tire kickers, or the usual entourages. The people here are the ones making the decisions.” (www.summitappliance.com)
Bob Abbott, a distributor for ARXX Building supply, has been coming to PCBC for about 10 years. He said traffic this year is about the same as last year but couldn’t predict what the next two days would bring. “It’s still early. Time will tell.”
ARXX is from Cobourg, Ontario, Canada. The company makes “concrete sandwiches” – insulated forms where concrete is poured between two Styrofoam-like panels. (www.arxx.com)
The crowd was thick around the tiny Bad Dog Tools booth. The company, a Bristol, R.I., maker of drill and router bits and saw blades does most of its business over the Internet and at shows such as PCBC.
Featuring hands-on testing, the booth stayed plenty busy. Amid the sawdust and metal filings, sales manager Charlene Birtles, said a 10-by-10 is plenty of space. “We don’t need to build a big, flashing, shining booth. People like this better.” (www.baddogtools.com)
Email Bill Burnett at wburnett@comcast.net. |
|
Norm Leifke demonstrates a telescoping aluminum ladder as his colleague at Regal Aluminum looks on.
Scott Eder, Intertile sales manager, talks with a potential customer.
Bob Abbot, of ARXX Building supply has been coming to PCBC for 10 years.
Becky Fry manned the mom-and-pop New Concept Louver booth while husband Brad, took a lunch break.
A chance to try out the merchandise keeps things busy at the Bad Dog Tools booth.
Vice President Stephen Ross takes a phone call at the Summit Appliances booth.
|
Tuesday, June 16
|
Forklift Ballet Precedes Show Opening
By Bill Burnett
The view changes constantly in the exhibit hall the day before PCBC opens. It’s like the footage the weatherperson shows on the 6 o’clock news. You know, the one where they compress 12 hours of wind, sun, clouds and whatever into 6 seconds?
This year, PCBC’s 50th, upwards of 15,000 attendees are expected to walk the 88,000-square-foot exhibit floor, checking out the newest and coolest in the industry. What they won’t know as they tread the thick carpets is that less than 24 hours previously there was a forklift ballet in progress. Last Saturday, Moscone Center’s cavernous South Hall was an empty shell. Come Monday, it will be empty again.
It falls on the shoulders of show planner Champion Expositions to work with the 350 exhibitors. Deborah Miessau, show manager for Champion, says her company sets up all public space in the building and coordinates all exhibits. “We set the whole hall up – from soup to nuts,” she said. “If someone needs rigging, we take care of it. Electrical? We do all that, too. We even have a service to help exhibitors with their packing and shipping.”
At noon on Thursday, viewed from one of the perches on the convention center’s mezzanine level, the controlled chaos looks like modern dance – or the scene in Star Wars where the rebels are preparing to launch their attack against the Evil Empire.
Miessau says the cast and crew vary day to day but that about 160 people will be on Champion’s payroll this week.
For the exhibitors, sometimes it’s hard, fast and hectic, at others it’s a cakewalk. It depends on how much space an exhibitor leases and how extensive the "stage set" is.
Sarah Gyolai, an exhibit display manager for Pella Windows, was looking forward to a relatively short day. “We should have everything set up in four hours.”
Indeed, it seemed as if she would have no problem making her deadline as she and four staffers placed displays in the 800-square-foot space. This year the company decided to use wheeled displays from its Livermore showroom rather than use a larger exhibit that would require shipments from back East. “It’s a simpler show this year and we are being simpler and cost-effective in keeping with that.”
Not so a few yards away at the Whirlpool exhibit. Senior manager for trade shows Mark Wilson said his company is using the same 5,400-square-foot floor plan it has employed in the last three PCBC shows.
“The reason we’re here,” he said, “is that we think it’s best to use face-to-face marketing to convey our message. We want to deliver the total experience. People need to touch this stuff.”
Whirlpool started delivering that message at 6 a.m. on Saturday. A staff of up to 23 has been working long days since then.
Wilson said the large booth and time spent putting it together will be worth it, when the floor opens at 10 Wednesday morning: “This show has always been a selling event. The guys that come here are serious. They want to make a purchase.”
A scissors lift beeped by and the pace was picking up at 3 Tuesday afternoon. It looked as if there was a whole lot left to do, but Wilson, who has done dozens of these shows, wasn’t concerned. “We’ll be out of here by 8,” he said.
Email Bill Burnett at wburnett@comcast.net.
|
|
A scissors-lift is an integral part of the Tuesday ballet. By 8 p.m., it would be gone.
Sarah Gyolai intalls a Pella window into a display panel from the company's Livermore store.
The 5,400-square-foot exhibition space at Whirlpool seemed to change minute-to-minute.
|
Things Aren’t as Bad as They Seem, Famed Pollster Tells Builders
Americans making adjustments and showing resiliency, Zogby says at Multifamily Trends Conference
By Bill Burnett
Pollster John Zogby delivered a good-news, good-news message to the building industry Tuesday: America isn’t as messed up as we think it is. Not only that, the future is in good hands.
Described in the media as a “maverick predictor,” Zogby previewed his upcoming book; The Way We’ll Be (due Aug. 12) for about 250 attendees of the Multifamily Trends Conference, held in conjunction with this year’s PCBC, which will run through Friday in San Francisco’s Moscone Center.
Zogby insisted he didn’t set out to write an optimistic book but as he kept polling, “the numbers came back differently than I had expected and I saw a resiliency to the American people.” He said that while the economy may be troubled in the short-term, the American people have made adjustments in the past and they are doing so again.
Zogby said the American Dream is being redefined, from one of materialism (how can I get more?) to what he called “secular spiritualism” (what can I give back?). His latest numbers say what while 26 percent of Americans define the “Dream” as achievement and possessions, a full 42 percent say it means leading a fulfilling life.
The pollster said another fundamental change is that “millions of us aging baby
boomers are realizing we can only be self-indulgent for so long. We need a second act in our life.” He said the word “retirement” is being replaced by “encore.”
“They’re giving something collectively larger than themselves back to the community. This is how they want to be defined,” he said.
The future looks bright, Zogby said, speaking of the next generational wave, those 78 million 18- to 30-year-olds he calls America’s first global citizens. He calls it a culturally diverse generation that’s plugged in and networked, noting that 56 percent have passports and many expect to work in a foreign capital during their life.
These changes will affect builders in a number ways but Zogby said the industry should pay particular attention to two particular trends:
- A society that is moving from materialism to secular spiritualism no longer thinks more and bigger is better. Builders should be embracing “planned smallness,” Zogby said, pointing out that Flint, Mich., a town laid out for 240,000 people now has a population of 110,000.
- The global generation is going to require new forms of homeownership that encourage mobility and not so much private space.
Email Bill Burnett at wburnett@comcast.net.