Experts keep spouting grim statistics about the construction industry both nationally and locally. The construction industry’s unemployment rate is hovering around 25%, while for allied tradesmen such as brick layers, marble masons and stonemasons, it is closer to 60%. In the Bay Area, commercial development is supposedly dead, new retail construction is not on the horizon, and some predict that San Francisco may not see another new hotel for years. Construction companies stung by the ongoing recession have been lowering their bid prices 30 to 40 percent.

Yet some Bay Area construction companies have been steadily hiring to keep up with their workload, and for all the grim news, the Bay Area construction industry overall can see cause for hope.

Several companies are currently building residential developments, mostly condos and apartments.

One firm is working on a 250,000-square-foot casino and hotel in the Sierra foothills town of Jackson and on pre-construction for a $200 million expansion of Cache Creek Casino in Sonoma County. There are three other potential casino projects in the pipeline, just north of San Francisco, that have not yet been made public.

As for the public sector, the new $188 million Public Utilities Commission building at 450 Golden Gate Ave is currently under construction, while the $887.4 million rebuilding of San Francisco General Hospital is also underway.

Transportation and road construction projects are numerous. Construction began in 2009 on the 1.6-mile long parkway that will replace the narrow and seismically unsafe Doyle Drive on the approach to the Golden Gate Bridge from the San Francisco side. The $1 billion project will include two tunnels and a reconstructed interchange with Highway 1 and is slated for completion in 2014.

The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency launched a yearlong construction project in March along one bus line, kicking off a system-wide project to put all Muni cables and duct banks underground over the next 15 to 20 years.

Nearly $30 billion in San Francisco Bay Area transportation improvements are underway or near groundbreaking, including the Transbay Transit Center, a replacement of the Bay Bridge, East Span and two expansions of the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit), both Southbound and further into the East Bay.

The San Francisco Redevelopment Agency is still overseeing a huge project, the 303-acre Mission Bay North and South Project, plans for which include several kinds of construction. Full development is expected to take 20 to 30 years, with the timing of projects based on market conditions.

There is plenty of construction work to be found in the Bay Area, if you know where to look. It’s easy to know where to look for the right workers for your construction project — contact Bayside Solutions today.