Glass Sales Reflect Boom

He who works in a multimillion-dollar glass building shouldn’t throw stones. But if he does, there are plenty of glass subcontractors to call.

The commercial glass market in Northwest Arkansas is estimated to be around $20 million a year, according to area glass subcontractors. That includes everything from small installations like windowpanes to $2 million projects such as five-story storefront buildings. Either way, the commercial glass market is booming.

But specialty subcontractors, like RGC Glass of Fayetteville, say it’s a pain trying to keep up with construction in Northwest Arkansas.

Almon Blair, RGC’s Northwest Arkansas manager, said there are many projects under way in the area that his company doesn’t even know about. Even if it did, a labor shortage keeps some companies from being able to bid on projects that have a short completion time.

Even with a labor shortage, companies have been successful because of increased energy-efficient glass, little competition from outside markets and continued growth in the area.

Glass subcontractors say the Northwest Arkansas market appears to be limitless, and no company has a corner on the market.

But three appear to be in the lead: RGC, which expects to bring in $6 million in sales this year; Arkansas Glass and Mirror Co. of Fort Smith, with $6.5 million in sales; and Little Rock-based Ace Glass Co., which is shooting for $4 million in Northwest Arkansas sales this year.

Those three companies could account for about 80 percent of the $20 million market.

And glass accounts for about 10 percent of the average cost of constructing a commercial building.

“I think some percentages that I heard are that glass and glazing averages probably 8 to 10 percent of the total value of a project,” said Todd Joubert, vice president of Ace Glass, which has two facilities in Northwest Arkansas. “So if you have a $2 million building, you could have a $175,000 to $200,000 project.”

John Garrett Whiteside, RGC’s director of client services and son of owner Joe Whiteside, said company sales should almost double for 2005. As of July, the firm had $3.5 million in sales, which passed 2004’s total of $3.2 million.

RGC, based in Russellville, opened its Northwest Arkansas office in 1999. RGC has a 10,000-SF warehouse in Fayetteville where it stores materials and fabricates aluminum framing for panes of glass. In its first year, Whiteside said, the Fayetteville facility had $350,000 in revenue.

Some of RGC’s projects include $900,000 for glass installed in the Bev Lewis Center for Women’s Athletics at the University of Arkansas, $607,500 at the J.B. Hunt Tower in Lowell, $1.1 million for Springdale Har-Ber High and Middle School, and $814,000 for the Clear Creek office building in Johnson. The company has started work on a $476,000 project for the UA law school and a $751,000 project at the Peaks I, II and III in Rogers.

Whiteside said the company just finished installing a new patent-pending product at the skyboxes of the UA’s Donald W. Reynolds Razorback Stadium. The product, called G2L (Game 2 Live) Window Systems, allows skyboxes to roll back to open up the windows for attendees to hear and feel the roar of the crowd. RGC is finishing the same installation at Ole Miss’ football stadium in Oxford, Miss.

South Central Construction magazine recently ranked RGC 44th in sales out of the four-state region that includes Arkansas, Tennessee, Alabama and Mississippi.

Ace Glass

Ace Glass bought Central Glass and Mirror of Rogers in May 2004. The Rogers office still does service work for walk-in customers, residential or commercial projects. The company’s new Lowell facility has 9,000 SF with plans to add an additional 6,000 SF and is strictly commercial.

Erik Sutton, the Northwest Arkansas manager of Ace Glass, said his company does everything from small jobs to multimillion-dollar jobs. Some of its completed projects are Pinnacle Point Tower, Staffmark’s corporate office in Fayetteville and First Security Bank locations in Rogers and Fayetteville. Ace Glass also did the glass installation for the new Fayetteville Public Library, which amounted to $1.3 million for glass alone.

There are also other projects in the works, such as Parkway Bank at Pinnacle Hills, Arkansas State Veterans Home in Fayetteville and the terminal building at the UA’s South Quad Parking Deck. Even though Ace Glass wouldn’t disclose the amounts of its current project contracts, Joubert did say there are “projects under way in excess of $2 million.”

Sutton declined to reveal sales for Ace Glass in Northwest Arkansas, but he said the company would like to have $4 million in sales this year, which he said is possible. Whiteside agreed that there’s more than enough glass business to go around for now.

“If we get 6 [million dollars in sales] we’re not strangling anybody or choking anybody,” Whiteside said.

Sutton said the vast Northwest Arkansas market is up for the taking by any subcontractor that can handle it.

“Every now and then a company will come in [from out of the area] for a short time,” Sutton said. “Right now there’s a company here that’s out of Dallas that is taking some work that we bid on. It’s an open market. It wasn’t ours to begin with.”

Arkansas Glass & Mirror

Out-of-state glass subcontractors aren’t the only ones vying for a piece of the market in Northwest Arkansas. So are River Valley companies like Arkansas Glass & Mirror, which has about 29,000 SF of warehouse space for fabrication and storage.

Danny Glover, president of AGM, said about 75 percent of his company’s work came from Northwest Arkansas in 2004. So far this year, only 50 percent of its work was in the Ozark foothills.

That’s because AGM, which has two Fort Smith offices, positioned itself to take on many of the area’s school projects, including the $26 million Van Buren High School, of which AGM’s contract is $575,000.

Glover said his company has shifted its focus to the school projects. Grant Glover, the AGM’s vice president and Danny Glover’s son, said he has nine school projects on backlog, or half of his projects waiting to be started.

“Of the major schools that are being built right now, I think we have a major chunk of them,” he said.

AGM finished remodeling projects this summer at two Fayetteville elementary schools, Vandergriff and Happy Hollow. Other projects the company has done are the UA’s Pat Walker Health Center for $450,000 and the Donald W. Reynolds Campus Center at the University of Arkansas-Fort Smith for $630,000.

Those types of contracts have enabled the company to land $5.5 million in sales for 2004. Grant Glover projected sales to hit $6.5 million for the year. The firm will also begin work on the Courtyard by Marriott in Fort Smith, which will get the company $470,000, about 6 percent of the overall cost of the project.

Materials

Glass has become a more visual part of an architects’ handiwork.

“Glass has really become pretty sophisticated over the last five years,” Ace Glass’ Joubert said. “They’re making glass more energy efficient so you can use more glass on a project.”

Whiteside said it’s about having a visually appealing building because it’s a new thing to the area.

“We’re talking about 100-something feet vertically of glass,” Whiteside said. “It’s just the desire for multi-level glass buildings. We are artists to a small degree.”

The 1-inch thick laminated glass comes in a variety of colors, even polka dots, by laying a color screen print on the inside of the glass. There’s even glass that can turn to opaque with a flip of a switch. Being able to use glass on the front of a five-story building is only feasible because of the tinted glass that blocks UV rays.

Joubert said huge strides have been made in glass technology. It’s expensive, but he said the payback is worth it.

Using a high-performance glass on a building can keep a company from installing a large air conditioning unit or heating unit because of the energy efficient glass or glaze.

“It’s a balancing act,” Joubert said. “Spend more on glass and less on a HVAC unit.”

RGC’s Blair said metal, too, has come a long way.

Danny Glover can’t believe how much storefront aluminum has evolved. There were five types of metal in two colors when he started working for his father at AGM in the 1960s in Fort Smith. Now, he said, there are about 1,500 variations.

“It’s all about dressing it up and doing something different for architects with high-performance glass,” Danny Glover said.

Glazing Labor Shortage

The increased demand for glass is causing some companies to juggle schedules. Many subcontractors are feeling the labor pinch, which becomes a problem when contracts open for bidding or negotiations.

“I know everybody has this problem — electricians, plumbers,” Blair said. “The key is finding qualified people to go out to do your storefronts and do your window systems.”

Sutton faces the same problem when approached by contractors. He said he has to take a serious look at his schedule to make sure he can stick to the timeframe the owners want.

RGC, along with Ace Glass, is backlogged until the first of 2006, but that’s not what keeps Blair from jumping on projects. He said the problem is being able to man the job and have experienced workers to oversee the project. RGC has about 24 workers in the field, but Blair said he’d like to add on three or four more.

“Experience is just hard to find,” Blair said. “Some projects have to get done in a certain amount of time and that’s where the decision comes in.”

Sutton said he’s had to decline jobs because the lack of manpower. In order to fix that problem, the company will have to work to find more experienced glazers.

“Ideally, we get people that move in from other areas like Dallas that has 20 years’ experience in the glass industry,” Sutton said. “That happens about once every two years that we get one.”

Ace Glass, like many subcontractors, is constantly hiring. But not only does it have to compete with other subcontractors, it has to compete with other jobs that employ skilled labor.

Those workers need to be knowledgeable in construction, be able to lift 70-pounds and most importantly not be afraid of heights, Sutton said. Ace Glass has about 25 workers in the Northwest Arkansas field, but there is always a need for more.

With such a hot market on their hands, owners and project managers haven’t been able to reach nearly what they could with a good labor supply. Sutton said his company has limitless potential to tap into the $20 million market of glass subcontracting. But it just can’t grow fast enough to keep up.

“The number of projects that are taking place in this quarter of the state, people are going to start not having the manpower or finding qualified people to do the jobs,” Joubert said. “I think you’re going to see general contractors coming in from out of state – the market is saturated.”