As wonky readers of this column know, we’re watching the local employment data for an uptick in construction jobs.
Construction employment was decimated by the recession, the slow recovery and the large overhang of existing homes for sale. When we see a clear recovery in construction employment, we’ll have more evidence that things are getting back to some semblance of normal.
On the whole, the job estimates for the Savannah metro area released last week by the Georgia Department of Labor were relatively solid. Local payroll employment in March was 1.3 percent higher than in March 2012.
The sector that includes construction, however, gained only 100 jobs over the past year. Given the nature of the estimates, that number could be meaningless.
We also saw a little softness last month in the local housing market, with fewer single-family units sold than in March 2012.
Downtown Savannah has been bustling this spring, and this paper has chronicled a variety of major investments in the greater downtown area.
But some of this recent data inject a note of caution as summer approaches. Both the local and national economy are still facing some steady headwinds.
Project DeRenne open house on Tuesday
Don’t forget about Tuesday’s open house for updates about Project DeRenne, the ambitious $76 million plan to alleviate traffic snarls on one of the region’s key corridors.
The open house is from 3-7 p.m. today in the Eckburg Auditorium of Savannah Technical College.
But even if we have general consensus on the plans, will we be able to pay for it?
The hope is that state and federal funding would cover about $60 million of the cost.
But that seems like a roll of the dice at this point. And if funding for that expensive project does come through, expect less state and federal funding for other regional priorities.
Project DeRenne would certainly have come to fruition if the coastal region had voted last year for the 1 percent sales tax to support transportation infrastructure. By law, all the projects on the final T-SPLOST list would have had to be completed.
The rejection of the tax means that we will simply have less money to spend on transportation and that the governor’s office has more say than ever in setting priorities.
Project DeRenne and other important projects are part of a long and evolving story. How will Americans generally — and Savannah area residents specifically — choose to fund costly improvements to our aging infrastructure?
City Talk appears every Sunday and Tuesday. Bill Dawers can be reached via billdawers@comcast.net and http://www.billdawers.com. Send mail to 10 E. 32nd St., Savannah, GA 31401.