By Roland Murphy for AZBEX – BEXCLUSIVE
Water is the only outside consumable allowed in the auditorium at the Arizona Heritage Center in Tempe.
Attendees of the initial session of BEX’s 2024 Construction Activity Forecast event this week wouldn’t have noticed, as they were hit with firehose-sized volumes of data from Minute 1.
Following the format and structure attendees have come to know and love, BEX Founder and President Rebekah Morris welcomed the audience and then launched into her ever-engaging overview of historical and current economic and construction market conditions, with current rates of change and quickfire causal explanations that held the audience’s attention even through a sea of charts and graphs.
Having set the scene, she then covered the first round of market segment recaps, covering K-12 and Charter Schools, Higher Education, Public Spaces, Transportation and Parks, and Utilities—her self-described new favorite category.
Regular Forecast attendees who expected to see the stage then turned over to DATABEX Manager Lya Parrish may have been surprised that Researcher Andrea Howard stepped up next to cover the year’s development in Housing. Howard made her first-time appearance before a Forecast audience and kept the attendees engaged with her overview of one of the state’s most dynamic construction segments.
Following Howard was another new-to-the-audience face, with Researcher Aaliyah Koelzer stepping up to present the Industrial update. Koelzer’s summary of the state’s most productive market was concise but detailed and left the audience both better informed and wanting more.
Next up, Parrish took the stage to bat cleanup, covering Healthcare, Hospitality, and Office & Retail, covering some sweeping changes and interesting surprises in these smaller but still vital market segments.
We will have a detailed recap of the event in next Friday’s issue, but even as expansively as some of our original columns can run, it will only scratch the surface of the degree of detail in-person attendees will experience. There are still seats available for the Jan. 31 session. Event information and tickets are available here.