Enough isn’t said about general contractors on rocky, out-of-control projects who take the lead in solving problems they didn’t create. That’s what I found troubleshooting projects for a Chicago bank. A good example is a $200-million Florida apartment complex being built in 2007, when labor was as tight as it is now and in some places even tighter.

当老板叫我进入他的办公室时，我是银行商业贷款部门的新手。他指示我找出佛罗里达墨西哥湾沿岸700个单位公寓开发的开发商是否缺失。该银行无法通过电话到达公司，工作情况很差。他还告诉我，要报告该项目的状况并评估银行的敞口。

几天后，当我到达工作岗位时，我感到惊讶。两阶段项目是巨大的。它拥有公寓度假胜地可能提供的一切：车库，游泳池，健康俱乐部和放蔬菜。建筑物的混凝土框架，屋顶和墙壁已经竖起；固定装置和完成工作几乎没有开始。该项目很容易雇用500名工人，但我只看到几十名工人。

The few discouraged foremen I found told me of rumors of expected lawsuits. The pipes leaked, elevators didn’t work, and several subcontractors had walked away. Most of the subs, the foremen said, had disappeared in a mass exodus to pursue big money in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Insurance settlements were paying for a lot of work there. One foreman said the available manpower situation was so bad that the only available workers were from a labor contractor they had nicknamed “Rent a Bum.”

我仍然没有回答一个主要问题：拥有该项目的人在哪里，我们的借款人？现场工作人员要么不知道或被指示不说话。我从一位健谈的工作人员那里得到的最好的猜测是，他逃到了巴哈马，以避免总承包商的要求。

高堆更改请求

Although he had a 2-ft-high pile of rejected change requests on his desk, the general contractor and his staff were taking all the blame from subs. The subs and others involved accused the general contractor, a middle-size company that had operated for more than a decade, of using the cover of the change requests to try to recover losses it anticipated from a very low bid.

While the developer was AWOL and the project was falling further behind schedule, hundreds of condo buyers waited to close on their completed units. That’s what mattered the most.

The general contractor eventually tracked down the developer—I’m not sure where he really was—and presented the owner with a plan of action. That plan was to finish the Phase 1 units for immediate occupancy while holding off on Phase 2 and finishing those units later. If enough Phase 2 buyers who had signed contracts but had not yet closed agreed to temporary occupancy in unsold and unoccupied Phase 1 units, it could avoid alienating them before closing, while allowing the project to continue. To hold up his end, the general contractor would have to bring in subs and workers from as far away as Atlanta, at his own expense.

这仍然留下了未解决的变更请求，要求更多付款。在发生这种情况之前，我的银行无法释放可用的贷款资金数千万美元。

根据我将转移到芝加哥办公室的转移，银行巧妙地传达了开发商和承包商，当他们解决争议变更命令的积压时，它将考虑立即资金。推动奏效了 - 第二天，开发商和承包商在变更订单的堆栈中达成了要求。

That left it to the general contractor to scrape together new subs and crews in the post-Katrina labor shortage. Exactly how the firm did it, I don’t know. I suspect it involved bids that were much higher than the original subcontracts, or bonuses to workers.

Those crews built the electrical and mechanical systems, fixed leaks, finished walls and walkways. What could have ended up as a loss for the developer turned into a success.

承包商也赚钱，被开发人员闻名为站立人，并在接下来的几年中在许多项目上都享受了盈利的工作。18luck官网

If you have an idea for a column, please contact Viewpoint Editor Richard Korman atkormanr@enr.com。