ConstructionForum 🕸

From The St. Louis America: Vincent R. Bennett is CEO of MBA Properties, Inc. and president of McCormack Baron Salazar, where he oversees all aspects of operations and manages a multi-disciplinary team of design, construction, legal, finance, and project management staff across the country. Headquartered in downtown St. Louis, McCormack Baron Salazar employs almost 600 employees across […]

From Construction Dive:  Not long ago, it was unusual to find more than just a few women working in a skilled trade or leading a team on a construction project. While women still only make up a little more than 14% of the construction workforce, more join the industry as superintendents, project managers, department directors, CEOs and tradesworkers every […]

From FOX2now: At the Teamsters Local 682 union hall off Elizabeth Avenue, women in the construction industry were trying to showcase the opportunities that awaited others. “You can be a painter, a floor layer, an ironworker, a sheet metal worker, and an electrician,” said Beth Barton, co-founder of Missouri Women in Trades & Carpenter Local 1596. […]

This week Forum Drone Photographer Louis Kelly of Drone Eagle, LLC captures progress at Wildhorse Village. Wildhorse Village has been planned as an 80-acre walkable community around a 15-acre lake at the intersection of Wild Horse Creek Road and Chesterfield Parkway. When complete, Wildhorse Village will offer wide-ranging housing options, including 500 apartment units across […]

Godfrey Fire Protection District has broken ground on the new $7.5 million fire station and administrative building in Godfrey, IL on February 16. Members of the fire department and residents from the local community came out to celebrate the groundbreaking ceremony that marks the beginning of construction. Construction is anticipated to be completed by the […]

St. Louis architecture, planning, urban design and interiors firm Trivers has converted what was once a vacant office building located at 1500 S. Grand Ave. in St. Louis’ Midtown neighborhood into 28 boutique apartments for AHM Group. Built in 1912 by developer and constructor Nicholas Pelligreen, who also built the St. Louis City Hospital and […]

by Mary Lamie Construction on the new I-270 Chain of Rocks Bridge over the Mississippi River marks another significant milestone for infrastructure investment in our area. It also is a testament to the strength of the continued collaboration that is helping to add capacity and redundancy to the St. Louis region’s world-class freight network. Over […]

From Labor Tribune: The proposed sale of the Granite City steel mill could eliminate at least 1,000 jobs – but not without the union’s consent. Dan Simmons, president of United Steelworkers Local 1899, said that without the union’s approval, the deal to sell the two blast furnaces to SunCoke can’t go forward. That’s because there’s a […]

From St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Two state lawmakers are attempting to get federal compensation for Missouri residents affected by the St. Louis region’s role in developing the atomic bomb. On Tuesday, a House committee will hear testimony on a resolution filed by Wentzville-area Republican Reps. Tricia Byrnes and Richard West, each of whom have relatives who had cancer. The […]

From St. Louis Business Journal: An apartment developer’s plan for a boutique office project in Midtown that was delayed for years by the pandemic is starting construction and has expanded into a larger development with an apartment complex. Pier Property Group first said in 2019 that it would renovate the vacant former Rock Hill Spring School […]

From emissourian.com: Demolition work on the deck of the Highway 30 bridge over Interstate 44 in St. Clair could cause traffic snarls this week. The bridge and all entrance and exit ramps will close to traffic at 7 a.m. Thursday, March 2, according to a Missouri Department of Transportation news release. Bridge demolition will take place […]

From Builder Online: Panelists James Tobin, Keta Kosman, and Ed Brady shared the short-term outlook for legislation surrounding housing issues, lumber, and the labor market during the education session “The Outlook: A Complete Guide to Housing Trends, Forecasts, & Insights for 2023” at the 2023 International Builders’ Show in Las Vegas. During the session, moderated by NAHB […]

From Contractor Magazine: “With interest rates projected to normalize in the second half of 2023 as the Federal Reserve taps the brakes in its fight against inflation, the pace of single-family construction will bottom out in the first half of 2023 and begin to improve in the latter part of the year,” said Robert Dietz, chief […]

From NEXTSTL: This past week, a Missouri House committee advanced HB580, a bill that would place statewide limits on residential building energy codes and potentially make it illegal for St. Louis area municipalities to enforce portions of locally adopted ordinances. If made into law, the bill would weaken the 2018 suite of International Code Council (ICC) […]

From The Edwardsville Intelligencer: Don Garber has taken in plenty of new teams’ home openers during his time as Major Legaue Soccer commissioner. Since he assumed office in 1999, the league has grown from 10 teams to 30. Garber said he’s never seen anything quite like Saturday night’s St. Louis City SC inaugural home game at […]

From St. Louis Post-Dispatch: One of the first major construction projects around the perimeter of the under-construction National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency took a major step forward Wednesday after a city board voted to approve variances for the construction of an office building and hotel. The projects are proposed on the site of the infamous Pruitt-Igoe public housing […]

From Contractor Magazine:  The construction industry will need to attract an estimated 546,000 additional workers on top of the normal pace of hiring in 2023 to meet the demand for labor, according to a proprietary model developed by Associated Builders and Contractors. “The construction industry must recruit hundreds of thousands of qualified, skilled construction professionals […]

From Korte: When Darlene Rutkowski-Hanks became an architect, she knew she’d design residential houses and apartment complexes. With any luck, she’d work her way up to hospitals and office buildings. But a fence strong enough to stop a tire flying at 200 miles per hour from hitting patrons at a NASCAR race? “That was crazy. […]

This past Monday (Feb. 27) Richard “Richie” Boyd Jr. was supposed to be doing his intake interview for the Laborers Union at their training facility in High Hill. Instead, his father, longtime laborer Richard Boyd Sr., was planning his funeral. Richie Boyd Jr. was one of four teens killed when a hit-and-run driver rammed the […]

From Construction Dive:  Hundreds of thousands of hard hats went unfilled as 2022 came to a close. The construction industry had 413,000 job openings in December, according to an analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data from Associated Builders and Contractors. The BLS data measures the number of jobs for which employers are actively recruiting. […]