Copyright Charleston Post and Courier
GREENVILLE – While incentives in the Trump administration’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act will benefit the construction industry, one of the country’s top technical builders warns that inflation, interest rates, labor shortages and tariff-driven material cost spikes could make it harder to get local projects done. The Trump measure is packed with promising business incentives, like permanent 100 percent depreciation for commercial and industrial buildings and expanded deductions for equipment and loan interest. But the firm of DPR Construction is still urging caution and flexibility as the construction industry faces other headwinds — according to comments from a report the company released and a follow-up interview with The Post and Courier. “I'm bullish and optimistic in general, but cash flow is probably the thing that we talk about even more now than ever,” said Zachary Pannier, Charlotte-Greenville business unit leader for the company. DPR Construction is a general contractor and construction manager that specializes in projects for the advanced technology, life sciences, health care, higher education and commercial markets. The firm employs roughly 11,000 people across its network of companies. DPR has been in the Upstate building for Clemson University and Prisma Health for the better part of two decades, with a local team of builders that live and work in Greenville. One of their most recent projects is an acute care expansion project at the Greer Memorial Hospital campus, announced in July. The expansion will more than double patient beds and significantly expand outpatient care. While the Big Beautiful Bill tax treatment might boost cash flow and speed up projects and Pell Grant expansions beginning in July 2026, material costs are soaring. Some 23 of 26 tracked trades saw price increases from tariffs, according to DPR Construction’s third quarter 2025 market conditions report. Labor still depends on broader workforce and immigration policies. And the bill could increase the federal deficit, affecting interest rates and capital costs. “Labor shortages remain a critical bottleneck, exacerbated by stricter immigration enforcement and executive actions that have disrupted the availability of skilled workers,” Philip Bartkowski, DPR’s national preconstruction leader, wrote in the report. “Although the OBBBA has been signed into law, the gap between legislative intent and on-the-ground implementation — especially when filtered through executive orders — has created uncertainty for project planning and workforce stability,” he added. New incentives and accelerated depreciation could help smaller builders and local contractors because they don't have to expend that cash, but those policies aren’t a major business driver for firms of DPR’s scale, Pannier said. Instead, he’s more interested in seeing whether the legislation breathes life back into commercial and office development, which withered during the pandemic work-from-home era. Recent trends suggest the office sector is stabilizing, with demand growing modestly this year, according to reporting from the Commercial Real Estate Development Association’s magazine, Development. But some financial experts have warned there’s a risk that the bill will lead to higher interest rates, with projections that it also will increase the U.S. deficit by $2 trillion to $4 trillion. Commercial projects are most closely tied to the Fed interest rate; raising the cost of capital for private development efforts could reduce speculative building, Pannier noted. “I'm not sure executive orders or the Big Beautiful Bill are the things that are going to break those (developments) open,” he said. “Those are more, to me, driven by habits, behaviors and signals — and the psychology around that sort of momentum building back in the market again.”
