Colorado Real Estate Journal - December 17, 2014
he message from the voters in this year’s election could be interpreted as, “We are tired of the gridlock and partisanship!” Congress and the White House may be looking for opportunities to illustrate that they can get something done. As architects on the front lines of job creation, we have two easy-to-implement ideas about how to do just that. Each has as its goal a primary concern of voters – increasing jobs and creating opportunity for small business. Better still, each has bipartisan support. First, Congress can take a big step toward reforming how the government spends taxpayer dollars on design and construction. The pool of firms included in expanding “short-lists” under federal procurement policy may be discouraging the best architecture firms from ever competing for government projects. Firms are often forced to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to compete for a contract they have a small chance of winning when a list of three to five firms grows to many more. That means small architecture and design firms face the dilemma of “betting it all” on a contract they have diminished chances of winning, or declining to pursue work for which they might be imminently qualified. Legislation in both the House and Senate (in the House: Design-Build Efficiency and Jobs Act of 2013 - H.R. 2750; in the Senate: S.2652) would alleviate the strain on firms by improving the odds that a qualified design firm can win a contract. The “Design-Build” legislation would provide more certainty and opportunities for design firms of all sizes that wish to enter the federal marketplace. It will ensure that agencies have the ability to select the most qualified design-build teams that will deliver the best buildings for agencies and the public. And it will encourage more of the best talent in the architectural community to bid for federal projects, which will benefit not only job creation, but also taxpayers.
Second, Congress should restore an important incentive for energy-efficient buildings, the Section 179D incentive, which was first included in the tax code in the Energy Policy Act of 2005. Commercial buildings consume roughly 36 percent of the electricity generated in this country, so improving a building’s energy efficiency is a smart shift to energy independence and lower electric bills. In the statute, the more energy efficient the building is, the bigger the deduction (up to $1.80 per square foot). Encouraging savings through conservation is an environmental issue with agreement between Republicans and Democrats. Unfortunately, Congress let the incentive expire at the end of 2013. Restoring it will create jobs and save energy: a win-win for everybody. The media seem to favor concentrating on the discord on Capitol Hill – perhaps the optimistic view is that this election showed that discord is old news. The two measures we highlight here are opportunities to prove to voters that Washington is actually listening – and a chance for Congress and the White House to make news of a different kind