Al Schroder has seen 40 years of booms and busts in the commercial construction business; the current recession tops them all.

His name is attached to a West Des Moines industrial park, and his Schroder Construction Services Inc. has dotted the Greater Des Moines landscape with stone, brick and masonry buildings.

But these days, his crews are becoming masters of repair work, and he is seeking work in the public sector – schools and libraries.

A walk through the Schroder Industrial Park, spread across a little more than 14 acres at Railroad Avenue and South 11th Street, leads to a cluster of small contractors who are doing their best – some with better results than others – to persevere during the recession.

Their offices, warehouses and workshops are located in buildings erected by Schroder’s construction firm. He notes that there has been little turnover in tenants, although a Milwaukee-based printing contractor moved out this summer because it couldn’t justify having a Greater Des Moines office.

Few of Schroder’s tenants see a quick turnaround in the construction business, Schroder among them.

“I can’t see things turning around by next spring – maybe in another year,” he said.

Schroder’s last job in the private sector wrapped up in the spring. His work force has dropped to around eight employees as he tries to keep busy on a variety of odd jobs.

“We’re getting to be repair specialists,” he said.

“There isn’t any private stuff going on,” said Schroder, whose company specializes in the construction of small to medium-size commercial properties.

A big-picture view

Scott Norvell, president and CEO of Master Builders of Iowa, a trade group that represents more than 2,000 Iowa construction companies, agreed.

“It’s so off the radar,” he said. “Basically, the commercial construction, for midsize-to-larger commercial development, is just at a standstill.”

The impact is especially noticeable in Greater Des Moines because the flurry of construction activity that was apparent just a few months ago is slowing down as projects near completion.

“It seemed like in 18 months it just went off the radar screen,” Norvell said, referring to projects and employment.

Competition is stiff for the jobs that remain, with the majority of those being public works projects.

Norvell said bid lists for public jobs, such as schools, have grown from four to 14 or more companies competing for one project. He also noted that taxpayer-financed construction is a world of high risk and low margins. If contractors, large or small, had their druthers, they would work in the private sector.

Like Schroder, Norvell doesn’t see a quick turnaround.

“You can’t see 20 feet ahead of you, let alone two or three years,” he said.

On the other hand, there is a lot of “desire” to build, he said.

“The heart is still beating; it’s just in semi-conscious mode right now,” Norvell said.

Tenants stay put

At Schroder Industrial Park, contractors who work in the commercial and residential markets say they are staying busy, just not, in some cases, as busy as they would like.

Last week, Schroder had a crew placing stone caps on brick piers at a home in Napa Valley. Mostly a commercial contractor, Schroder said he does take on a few “high-end” residential projects.

The company’s last major contract was at Adventureland Park in Altoona. It finished work in October 2009 on restoration of a former Rock Island Railroad building in Valley Junction. Schroder owns the building and about five acres surrounding it.

Also a sign of the weak economy: He can’t find a buyer or tenant.

Schroder said he spent a little more than $1 million replacing the roof, tuck-pointing the brick exterior, and installing new windows and doors. He is asking $1.9 million for the property and estimates a new owner would have to spend about $550,000 to finish out the interior.

Soon after Schroder finished the project, a buyer expressed interest in the building, hoping to build offices inside, but eventually backed out of the deal.

He admits that financing a nearly $2.5 million purchase and interior renovation would be difficult at the moment.

“My timing was just perfect,” Schroder said.

Other people have shown interest in the building, but for the most part, they are “tire kickers,” he said.

“I’ve got some people looking, but they move like turtles,” he said.

Still, he has an entrepreneur’s optimism, and he is quick to point out that most of his tenants have the savvy to “scuffle” through these hard times, just like him.

A ‘walk in the park’

One of those tenants is Jeff Fox, owner of Fox Construction Services Inc.

Fox said he spends a lot of time “gossiping” with other contractors. He knows the economy is down – he calls it a nuisance – but notes that for his company, business has been pretty good, if more competitive.

Fox launched his company in 1990, returning to Greater Des Moines after graduating from Drake University and pursing a career in broadcast journalism before returning to his hometown of Galesburg, Ill., and working at his father’s construction company.

He learned a lesson in Galesburg: Don’t try to be too big.

“We’re not trying to be a Weitz Co. around here,” Fox said, pointing out that his castle is a one-man office with a telephone that he rarely answers, relying instead on his cell phone for important calls.

Fox Construction has six workers; one man has been with the company since it opened. There have been no layoffs during the recession.

Competition is tough for the type of interior commercial construction the company focuses on, including tenant remodels and office expansions. Larger firms that would ignore such jobs in better economic times have become competitors.

Fox noted that potential customers seem to be delaying decisions on whether to enlarge an office or spruce a building up for an eventual resale.

“We’re not seeing the signs of a turnaround that we’d like to see,” he said.

Fox, who sprinkles his conversation with jokes and references to popular culture, said landords remind him of the Les Nessman character on the television comedy “WKRP in Cincinnati.” Nessman outlined the imaginary walls of his office with masking tape.

“There has been a Les Nessman approach,” he said. “Owners have decided they’re not going to divide the office; there might not be another tenant to go in.”

When bidding jobs that do pop up, “you go in with the attitude that ‘I’ve got to squeeze every nickel,’” he said.

Still, the company remains busy, picking up jobs in both the public and private sectors.

Business is slow but steady, and there’s always that mystical component to the Greater Des Moines economy that seems to shake the most dire consequences of a bad economy.

“We’re not awful about whining around here,” Fox said. “We don’t have to look very far to find someplace that is a whole lot worse.”

Fox said prior recessions have had a more devastating effect on people’s lives.

“Compared to what the generation before us went through, this is a walk in the park,” he said.

Optimistic, to a degree

A couple of doors down from Fox Construction is Smart Home Lighting A/V & Control and Landscape Lighting Design. Owner Alan Whitmarsh is as frustrated by the government’s response to the recession as he is by its economic impact.

Smart Home sells and installs home theaters, audio systems, custom lighting and electronic control and security systems.

Business is down, but not way down, Whitmarsh said.

On the landscape side, the trend is up.

“Our landscape lighting business is way over the top this year for some reason, and it doesn’t look like it’s letting up,” he said.

He has six employees. He has not had to lay anyone off, but he has not replaced people who have left his companies.

“I saw trends change, and I just didn’t rehire,” Whitmarsh said.

His concerns have as much to do with government interference and regulations as they do with the economy. He’s not convinced that government stimulus programs have small business owners in mind, and he chafes against rules and regulations, such as sales tax filing deadlines, that place a burden on small companies; they create a “large vacuum cleaner of our income,” he said.

Whitmarsh is not convinced that government programs can lead the state or the country out of the recession.

“We’ve got to get back to people taking care of their pieces and moving forward,” he said. “Isn’t there anything that we can take care of ourselves that doesn’t require a law being passed and some bureaucrat taking care of it for us? I’ll bet if they would get out of our way to a degree, we would be in a lot better shape.”

Whitmarsh does not predict a quick end to the recession.

“I really do hope the economy is improving, but I don’t think it is. … I’m an optimist, but I’m not a fool,” he said.

Working it out

In an office stuck right in the middle between Whitmarsh and Fox, Andy Schmitt presides over 20 employees at BGS Enterprises Inc.

He bought the millwork company – behind the office is an 18,000-square-foot workshop – in October 2009 from a man who had been in the business since 2002.

“Our business is kind of on a short string, where we don’t see very far ahead,” Schmitt said.

The company does commercial architectural millwork, making wall paneling, reception desks and trim, and surface tops for a variety of enterprises, including hospitals and banks.

His customers tend to need BGS products in a hurry, Schmitt said.

“Our volume of business has remained pretty steady,” he said, noting that, if anything, the recession has made the flow of orders a little more volatile.

“We might be sweeping floors one week and working overtime the next,” he said. In other words, the recession is nothing the company can’t handle. “We’re working through it.”