August construction spending rose 0.9% to a $2.2 trillion rate, but it’s still 1.7% below last year. Office and power climbed while factory work fell 19.8%.
NAVFAC Northwest awarded a $9B construction contract to 15 builders on Sept. 30. Walsh Federal took the first $76.2M task order at Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor.
A tractor-trailer hit an attenuator truck in an I-10 work zone near Blythe, Calif., killing three workers on a $241M Caltrans rehab now 88% finished.
Construction layoffs hit 99,000 in August, the fewest since JOLTS began in 2000, while openings fell to 251,000. Contractors are holding crews and hiring less.
SESCO’s Tampa cement terminal is fully running after its first two bulk ships arrived. Each cargo splits between Gibsonton and Houston. No tonnage was given.
EPA’s final rule expands two dredged material disposal sites off Corpus Christi, one fourfold, making room for 46M cubic yards from a deeper ship channel.
Fluor booked $7.5B as its half of the LNG Canada Phase 2 contract. JGC says it’s mostly lump-sum turnkey, a big fixed-price bet for a firm that avoided them.
The NRC issued TVA a construction permit for a 300-MW small modular reactor at Clinch River, four months early. TVA hasn’t set a start date or a cost split.
A 46-firm group including SOM, HOK and HKS picked Acelab to help write an open materials data standard. There’s no schema or timeline yet, and that matters.
Six stadium contracts worth about $11B were awarded this summer, with Mortenson on three. Now an engineering firm is buying a sports-field specialist too.
Milwaukee Tool joined the Google-founded skilled trades alliance and says its U.S. trades training spend will top $200M by 2030. That total counts back to 2010.
USGS says U.S. cement shipments hit 8.94 million metric tons in May, up 0.3% on 2025 but 6.8% under the five-year May average. Masonry cement fell 14.1%.
OSHA’s new naloxone fact sheet tells employers to stock overdose reversal meds beside the AED and train crews. Construction has the highest overdose rate.
Alabama issued notice to proceed on the $3.2B Mobile River Bridge and Bayway. Kiewit Massman Traylor builds, tolls start in 2031, and the Bayway waits to 2036.
HUD set the Section 108 loan guarantee fee at 1.05% of principal for FY 2027 commitments, up from 0.58%, even though no Section 108 loan has ever defaulted.
RLB’s construction cost index rose 1.28% in Q3 2026, its fastest quarter in two years. Annual escalation hit 4.45%, from 1.74% in Chicago to 6.49% in Honolulu.
Megaproject starts pushed East North Central nonresidential starts up 77.5% through August while West Coast civil work fell 20% or more, ConstructConnect says.
Caterpillar agreed to acquire Fabick Cat, a 37-location dealer covering Missouri, Illinois, Wisconsin and Michigan’s U.P. No price. Close is due in 30 days.