Every February, our phones start ringing with GCs who want a framing crew on site in April. And every February, we have to tell a few of them the same hard truth: the good slots are already gone. If you're planning a spring start in Minnesota, North Dakota, Wisconsin, or Montana and your framing sub is still a line item instead of a signed commitment, this is the week to fix that.
A short season means everyone starts at once
The building calendar up here compresses everything. Foundations poured last fall have been sitting under blankets waiting for crews. Foundations going in this spring won't be ready to load until the frost is out and the concrete cures. Either way the result is the same: a huge share of the year's multi-family and commercial work wants framing labor between mid-April and the end of June.
Framing capacity doesn't stretch to match. We run a fixed number of crews, and one 48-unit apartment building ties a crew up for two to three months. Do that math across a season and each crew realistically handles three or four significant projects between thaw and freeze-up. Those slots get claimed in January and February — not in March when the ground softens and everyone starts calling.
Spring road restrictions add a second clock
Here's the part out-of-state developers rarely see coming: seasonal load limits. Most counties in our region post weight restrictions on secondary roads from roughly early March into May while frost comes out of the roadbed. That hits lumber deliveries, truss shipments, crane mobilization, and panel loads. A site that could take full loads in February may be juggling permits and split deliveries in April. Crews that planned their material flow around restrictions keep moving; projects that didn't lose days waiting on trucks that can't legally reach the site.
What happens if you wait until March
You'll still find a framer. The question is which one. When the first-choice crews are committed, you're choosing from whoever happens to have a gap — often because another project slipped, or because that outfit doesn't hold onto work. Pricing firms up too. In January we're pricing to fill a season and sharpening the pencil to win good projects. By April we're pricing with a full calendar, and the number reflects it. On top of that, a late-hired crew is squeezing your building between other commitments, which is exactly how framing schedules start slipping a week at a time.
How to actually hold a slot
- Send plans now, even at 80 percent. We can price off solid design development drawings, reserve crew time, and true up the number when construction documents land.
- Commit to a realistic foundation date. A framing sub builds its whole season around your start. If your date slides three weeks, the crew doesn't sit idle — it goes to work somewhere else, and now you're renegotiating.
- Talk sequence, not just start date. On multi-building sites we can frame building A while building B's foundation finishes. That flexibility can get you a crew when a single hard date can't.
- Put it in writing. A signed contract or LOI with milestone dates is what gets a crew's name written on your project instead of penciled in.
If you want the phase-by-phase math on sequencing, we broke it down in our multi-family framing schedule guide. And if you're a GC we haven't worked with yet, our page for general contractors covers how we handle scope, manpower, and schedule commitments.
The window is closing now
From where we sit in mid-winter, our spring calendar is mostly spoken for and the remaining slots are in active conversations. That's not a sales line — it's just how a short building season works when every developer in four states is staring at the same weather map. The GCs who are framing on schedule in May are the ones who signed their framers in February.
Planning a spring start? Send us your plans this week and we'll tell you straight whether we can hold a crew for your dates.