NCCER’s construction CTE enrollment fact sheet puts high school concentrators at 269,500, or 1.71% of students, up from 1.09% in 2014-15. Definitions shifted.
NAHB’s September survey puts builders’ labor shortages at 47%, above the 2004-06 boom, with starts far lower. Framing crew shortages jumped 9 points to 57%.
The Faircliff in D.C. won Phius’s 2026 passive house design competition. Affordable multifamily swept the U.S. housing winners, from Roxbury to Far Rockaway.
Togal.AI’s takeoff benchmark gave general AI models 2% to 34% on 33 drawing tasks. Scores jumped in a year, but the vendor built and graded the test itself.
Cal/OSHA proposed $212,500 after the fatal Canyon Tunnel collapse near Knights Ferry. Designer Provost & Pritchard got the bigger fine, and it has appealed.
Louisiana adopts the 2024 I-Codes and 2023 NEC on Jan. 1, 2027. Its amendments cut some sprinkler mandates and add duct testing and backflow rules.
The George Washington Bridge South Walk reopened Oct. 15 after Skanska’s suspender rope work, the 8th of 11 projects in the $2B Restoring the George program.
An 8,000-psi transfer girder with a 53-foot cantilever took 1,800 cubic yards of Heidelberg concrete at Houston Methodist’s $1.4B tower. Carbon data is vague.
Blackford Capital bought E.G. Middleton, a 106-year-old Norfolk electrical contractor serving Navy shipyards and Dominion Energy. No price was disclosed.
Jefferies’ data center forecast says hyperscalers will get 5.86 GW of the nearly 18 GW they plan for 2029. Labor, cooling and power set the pace, not money.
The Wisconsin Laborers’ training center in DeForest is adding 25,000 sq ft and a CDL bay with Findorff building it, so apprentices can train year-round by 2027.
Procore named COMPASS its preferred subcontractor prequalification tool and opened it to all users. GCs see a Q Score while sub financials stay in COMPASS.
Ozinga’s East Chicago slag cement mill can grind 1 million tons a year of low-carbon cement. Morrison Construction built it; the carbon claims are Ozinga’s own.
California’s AB 2321 expands criminal liability for willful Cal/OSHA violations to serious injuries and puts district attorneys on the call list from Jan. 1.
The WOTUS supplemental proposal would limit federal waters to perennial streams and touching wetlands. NAHB and AGC filed comments as the window closed Oct. 9.
The October Beige Book shows construction split two ways: data centers absorb crews and gear while other work stalls, and firms move to cost-plus contracts.
Applied Materials opened its EPIC Center, a 600,000-sq-ft Sunnyvale chip R&D facility with 4 acres of cleanroom. Spending is set to reach about $5 billion.
Nucor’s $105M utility pole plant expansion in Crawfordsville, Ind., adds 120,000 sq ft and 100 jobs for transmission work. No builder or schedule is named yet.