Structural Steel Stronger Than Ever
Contractors Steer Clear of Delaying Traffic

Dan Friedman
Editor-in-Chief

With three domestic manufacturers of structural steel now up and running, building with steel is becoming ever more economical.

This year Steel Dynamics Inc. of Indiana joined Arkansas-based NuCor and TXI Chaparral, which has plants in Texas and Virginia, in supplying steel to the nation’s construction industry.

"Steel right now is selling for $400 a ton," said Charles Carter, chief structural engineer for the American Institute of Steel Construction Inc. "You’re going to see steel become even more economical, and prices today are lower than they were 30 years ago."

The cost of the material used to be 30 to 40 percent of the total cost of steel construction; now it’s 25 percent.

The other big advantage of the increasing number of domestic manufacturers and the advance in technology is decreasing lead time.

"In New York our foundations typically take six or seven months," said Allan Paull, vice president for civil and structural engineering for the Tishman Construction Corp. of New York. "If we buy steel a month into foundations, our steel is there when the foundation is done. We’ve seen lead times on steel go from 20 weeks to 16. I’ve even seen some arrive in 14 or 12 weeks from the time we awarded the job."

The availability of steel is being aided by the Internet. The Metals Service Center Institute’s Web site, www.msci.org, will soon be ready to help fabricators locate the steel that’s out there.

"It’s rarely ever been the case that a piece of steel you wanted didn’t exist," Carter said, noting the value of the Web site. "It just didn’t exist where the fabricator for the project was looking."

More than 5,000 service centers across the United States buy steel from the mills, process it in some way, and sell it in a slightly different form. They distribute the steel and other metal products in the exact quantities, and the exact form at the exact time that customers require. Fabricators are generally the customers of service centers. Technology has impacted the distribution of steel greatly and has reduced costs and increased efficiency, according to MSCI. Service centers that adopt the new technology help keep inventories low and shipments remain high. One service center that services the Northeast, Infra-Metals for example, built two new service facilities in order to incorporate new technology. This too is speeding up the distribution process.

In these ecologically conscious times, an added advantage of structural steel in the United States is that it is virtually all recycled content, mostly from old cars.

All of these market and technological developments point toward good times for steel contractors.

Indeed, as is documented in the following pages, steel is being used in at least three new residential buildings in Manhattan, an unprecedented development in a market where concrete has been used for multifamily construction for generations.

Steel’s flexibility is also shown to advantage in two projects discussed in this issue. The new Hearst Building designed by Sir Donald Foster that will rise on 57th Street and Eighth Avenue and the New York Times Tower designed by Lorenzo Piano being planned for Eighth and 41st Street will both use steel to create significant architectural icons in a city already known around the world for its wondrous structures of steel and glass.