Drive past the heavy-machinery rental companies in Kahului, and you'll notice their lots full of available bulldozers, graders, front-end loaders and excavators.
To builder Tom Cook, that's a sign of the times.
"A year and a half ago you'd have to stand in line to get a piece of equipment," he said. "Now, you can get anything you want."
On the front lines of Maui's economic downturn, construction is seeing a marked decline, according to industry leaders. The county issued 2,521 building permits in the fiscal year ending June 30, down 9 percent from 2007, and a 20 percent drop from a high of 3,141 permits issued in 2006. The combined value of building permits was $786.2 million, down 25 percent from a high of $1.04 billion two years ago.
"It's a big wet blanket," said Cook, head of the Maui Contractors Association.
He said the construction industry has been "very slow," with projects being completed and few new ones on the horizon.
While some major projects are still in the works, they won't add jobs to the industry for some time, he added. A big development like Honua'ula, the just-zoned Wailea 670 project district, could take 18 months to start work even if it were green-lighted tomorrow, he estimated.
"The crystal ball says it's going to be slow through the end of 2010, because it takes time to get anything going," he said.
Historically, construction has ebbed and flowed in Maui County, rising to a peak of 3,675 building permits issued by the county in 1989, and dropping to a low of 1,912 permits in 1995 before increasing steadily in the early-to-mid-2000s.
In the past six months, the national mortgage crisis has dropped the bottom out of the housing market both in Hawaii and on the Mainland, while soaring fuel prices have driven up the cost of business.
David Goode, president of the development firm KSD Hawaii, agreed construction is dropping across all sectors.
"It's becoming across the board," he said. "Until recently, the higher-end stuff was more immune. We're not in that market, but I'm hearing of a slowdown a little bit. In the median stuff, it's slowed down a lot."
The construction arm of his company currently has two single-family homes under way, compared with four at this time last year.
Also telling, Goode said one of his subcontractors complained he had a hard time working because of all the unemployed construction workers stopping by the job site.
"He said, 'I keep getting interrupted by people asking if we're hiring,' '' he said.
Affordable and median-priced projects are especially slow, because the national mortgage and credit crisis has made median-income families more cautious about buying a home.
"If they're not buying, they're not going to build 'em," Goode said.
Maui Chamber of Commerce President Pamela Tumpap said she's aware of slowdowns and layoffs in construction. Builders are "limping by from project to project," she said.
The chamber is offering training, tips and other resources to construction companies and other businesses facing a slowdown on how to adjust to the economy.
"People now are just trying to hold tight," she said.
Cook said the downturn had made the government more receptive to talking about development, and he hoped the slowdown could have some positive results.
"It's a good time to build," he said. "The equipment, talent and resources are here. People will work to break even. So it's a good time to build affordable housing."
Ilima Loomis can be reached at iloomis@mauinews.com.
