ARTBA Forecasts 4 Percent Growth in ’04 Highway Construction Market

Spurred by continued increases in federal funding and renewed economic growth, the U.S. highway construction market should grow 4.2 percent in 2004, the chief economist of the Washington D.C.-based American Road & Transportation Builders Association (ARTBA) said.

William Buechner, ARTBA vice president of economics and research, said the expected congressional approval of $33.6 billion in federal highway investment for fiscal year 2004 –– an increase of $2 billion over fiscal year 2003 levels –– will drive the market growth. Click for more...

ARTBA Forecasts 4 Percent Growth in ’04 Highway Construction Market

GLF Raises Wilmington Bypass Over Protected Wetlands

Travelers passing through Wilmington, NC, will soon have an alternative route –– the new U.S. 17 bypass.

Divided into four projects, construction of the new bypass will route traffic eastbound on I-40 and southbound on U.S. 17 around Wilmington, improving access to the State Port at Wilmington and Sunny Point Military Ocean Terminal. Click for more...

GLF Raises Wilmington Bypass Over Protected Wetlands

Engine Distributors, CK Power Become Flint Power Systems

Engine Distributors Inc., based in Albany, GA, acquired C K Power of Florida from its parent company, C K Power in St. Louis. With this acquisition, Engine Distributors Inc. and C K Power of Florida merged into a new company, Flint Power Systems.

Flint Power Systems is a full-service power systems dealer, providing sales, parts and service for engines, power units, generator sets and pumps. The company is a factory-authorized distributor of John Deere, Isuzu, Mitsubishi and Hatz. Click for more...

Engine Distributors, CK Power Become Flint Power Systems

Gregory Poole Celebrates Fluid Lab’s One-Millionth Sample

Gregory Poole, a Raleigh, NC-based Caterpillar equipment dealer, celebrated receiving its one-millionth fluid sample on Dec. 1, an achievement illustrating the tremendous growth the company’s fluid analysis lab has experienced over the past six years.

“It took 22 years to reach half a million samples,” said Bill Wolf, Gregory Poole’s S•O•S fluid analysis lab manager, “but it only took six years to get the second half million.” Click for more...

Gregory Poole Celebrates Fluid Lab’s One-Millionth Sample

Athletic Services Rounds Third On Phillies’ Clearwater Ballpark Project

When Ray Kinsella heard the words “If you build it, they will come,” the Iowa farmer plowed through his corn to construct a baseball field.

The 1989 movie Field of Dreamsand Kinsella, played by Kevin Costner, left to the imagination what Athletic Services is making a reality at the new spring training facility of the Philadelphia Phillies in Clearwater, FL. The company is transforming 12,000 tons (10,900 t) of rock, stone, clay, greens mix, sand and sod into a modern playing field that will begin hosting training games this upcoming spring.Click for more...

Athletic Services Rounds Third On Phillies’ Clearwater Ballpark Project

Six Decades Later, Work on World War II Memorial Begins

SPRINGFIELD, IL (AP) For Tom Proctor, there could be no better day than Sunday to break ground for Illinois' memorial to the veterans of World War II. Exactly 62 years earlier, Proctor was sitting down to breakfast at Pearl Harbor when his anti-aircraft weapons unit was called out. The Japanese had attacked, and America was suddenly fighting in World War II. Click for more...

Six Decades Later, Work on World War II Memorial Begins

Building Initiative Making Over Georgia Tech, Downtown Atlanta

ATLANTA (AP) Students returning to Georgia Tech this fall found a half-billion dollars worth of labs, classrooms and other buildings that weren’t there when classes started in 2002.

One-sixth of all space in use at the college this fall is new, in what university officials call the biggest higher-education building boom in the United States. In the next few years, the price tag on construction projects at Tech is expected to near $1 billion. Click for more...

Building Initiative Making Over Georgia Tech, Downtown Atlanta

Head of Animas-La Plata Construction Panel Replaced After Cost Overruns

DENVER (AP) The chairman of a panel overseeing the Animas-La Plata Project has been replaced after cost overruns raised the estimated price of the water storage facility by nearly 50 percent, to $500 million. Pat Schumacher, a Bureau of Reclamation employee in Durango, was removed as chairman and replaced by Rich Ehat, the project's construction engineer, bureau Commissioner John Keys said Dec. 4. Click for more...

Head of Animas-La Plata Construction Panel Replaced After Cost Overruns

Digging Up Dirt for the New Newseum in Washington D.C.

WASHINGTON D.C. (AP) The Freedom Forum broke ground Dec. 4 on its new, larger Newseum and showed off its plans for a six-story building west of the Capitol. "Today we start doing what newspeople are good at, we start digging up dirt," said Charles Overby, chairman and chief executive officer of the Freedom Forum, which funds the Newseum. Click for more...

Digging Up Dirt for the New Newseum in Washington D.C.

Tampa Firm Uses Grinder to Efficiently Rid Green Waste

The Tampa-St. Petersburg area, like most of Florida, is experiencing solid growth at a time when a large segment of the construction industry is feeling a downturn in business in other regions of the country. Click for more...

Tampa Firm Uses Grinder to Efficiently Rid Green Waste

Marines Capture Vintage TD-18 From State Line Machine

On Sept. 24, 2003, the United States Marine Corps 4th Combat Engineers Battalion descended on State Line Machine Inc., in Wilmington, DE, and captured a piece of history — an International Harvester (IH) TD-18 diesel crawler tractor equipped with a Bucyrus-Erie angle blade. Click for more...

Marines Capture Vintage TD-18 From State Line Machine

WI’s Highway 35 Affords Majestic River View

Wisconsin’s picturesque, often gorgeous, Highway 35 sometimes winds between 500-ft.-high wooded bluffs, green woods and the Mississippi River. From the road you may see a white paddle wheel steamboat come into view like a ghost from the past, its large wheel pushing majestically through the water. Click for more...

WI’s Highway 35 Affords Majestic River View

RED HORSE Squadron Paves Way in Omani Desert

The men and women in the RED HORSE Squadron of the United States Air Force are called upon to complete projects all over the globe. Often, they are the first unit in and will be the last one out. They are self-sufficient and have all they need when they travel, including carpenters, medics and cooks. Sometimes their projects are completed under enemy fire. It is the ultimate deadline pressure any builder can face. Click for more...

RED HORSE Squadron Paves Way in Omani Desert

Arcon Transforms NC Farm Into Modern Community

When 500 acres of North Carolina’s Piedmont Triad was first settled in 1903, the land was home to a hunting lodge, a place for one New York man to enjoy a respite from the hurried streets of the Northeast. One hundred years later, the same 500 acres is being molded into Brightwood Farm, a modern mixed-use community with more than 1,600 single and multi-family homes encircled by walking and biking paths. Click for more...

Arcon Transforms NC Farm Into Modern Community

Volvo Makes Tracks in Hilton Head Soil

In the wet soil of Hilton Head, SC, the arms of Volvo excavators reach high up into the blue skies. Beyond them, articulated trucks cut through mud in preparation for new development. And in what is becoming the highly-developed Lowcountry of South Carolina, P.B.G. of Hilton Head, based in Bluffton, SC, is developing an approximately 6,000 acre (2,428 ha) residential development that will include a total of 5,000 new homes. Click for more...

Volvo Makes Tracks in Hilton Head Soil

JCB Entertains, Educates at Third Savannahfest

JCB hosted its third annual Savannahfest the week of Oct. 13 through 17 at its North American headquarters and manufacturing plant in Savannah, GA. Since it began, the event has been an opportunity for hundreds of JCB customers to come to Savannah with their local JCB dealer to tour the plant, operate equipment, experience the equipment show, get to know the people behind the scenes at the company and enjoy lots of good food and entertainment. Click for more...

JCB Entertains, Educates at Third Savannahfest

Knightdale Bypass Rises Near Raleigh

Contractors have one year left before the scheduled completion of North Carolina’s Knightdale Bypass, a project that includes 14 mi. (22.5 km) of six-lane divided highway and 24 bridges near Raleigh, NC. Click for more...

Knightdale Bypass Rises Near Raleigh

Digging Beneath a New York City Landmark Church

When the Gothic-style Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church was built in 1873, its 286-ft. spire was the tallest in New York City. Click for more...

Digging Beneath a New York City Landmark Church

Whitney and Son Counsels Shaw on the Right Metsos

When a company finds a way to significantly increase efficiency in these economically tough times, it wants to spread the word. This is how Shaw Brothers feels about the two pieces of equipment it recently purchased: a used Metso (Nordberg) LT125SBR portable crusher with a 37x47 jaw and accompanying Metso NW300HPS mobile cone crusher and screening plant. Click for more...

Whitney and Son Counsels Shaw on the Right Metsos

Reed & Reed Spans ME’s Kennebec With Link-Belt Crane

Reed & Reed celebrated its 75th anniversary by submitting the award-winning bid to build a new $10-million bridge over the Kennebec River in Augusta, ME. Almost as if to put the final candle on its birthday cake, the company took delivery on a new 250-ton (225 t) capacity Link-Belt LS-278H crawler crane. Click for more...

Reed & Reed Spans ME’s Kennebec With Link-Belt Crane

CK Power Celebrates New St. Louis Facility With Open House

A total of 675 people turned out at an open house held Oct. 16 to celebrate CK Power’s new facility at 11 Research Boulevard in St. Louis. Click for more...

CK Power Celebrates New St. Louis Facility With Open House

Deere Workers Ratify Six-Year Contract

MOLINE, IL (AP) Unionized workers at Deere & Co. on Monday ratified a new six-year contract with the farm equipment maker covering retirees and employees in five states.

The agreement boosts newer workers' salaries, maintains company-paid health care benefits and prohibits Deere from closing plants. More...

Deere Workers Ratify Six-Year Contract

JLG Begins Sky Trak Telehandler Production At McConnellsburg, PA, Facility

JLG Industries, Inc. announced that Sky Trak telehandler production has begun at the JLG manufacturing facility in McConnellsburg, PA. These units were formerly produced at the OmniQuip facility in Port Washington, WI. More...

JLG Begins Sky Trak Telehandler Production At McConnellsburg, PA, Facility

New Mexico Administration Suspends Workers Comp Rule

SANTA FE, NM (AP) The New Mexico Workers' Compensation Administration has temporarily suspended an interpretation of state law that required contractors without employees to purchase workers' compensation insurance.

Sole-proprietor contractors were not required to get the insurance in the past. But earlier this year, the administration determined that all contractors have to buy the insurance, regardless if they employ anyone. More...

New Mexico Administration Suspends Workers Comp Rule

Iron Exports Rise as Economy Recovers

The U.S. construction industry is engaged in a fierce worldwide competition for projects that will be valued at hundreds of billions of dollars over the next 50 years.

As the industry emerges from recession along with the rest of the country, worldwide markets beckon for construction equipment. More...

Iron Exports Rise as Economy Recovers

Arch Bridge Rises in Walden Village

The Route 52 bridge over the Wallkill River in the village of Walden, NY, is not your typical bridge. Instead of being constructed with steel girders lying flat across the river, it boasts a concrete arch design dating back to Roman times.

Arch bridges — one of the oldest types of bridges — possess great natural strength. Instead of pushing straight down, the bridge’s weight is carried outward along the curve of the arch to the supports at each end. These supports, or abutments, carry the load and keep the ends of the bridge from spreading out. More...

Arch Bridge Rises in Walden Village

PHOENIX Appoints EESSCO as New Sales Representative

PHOENIX Process Equipment Co. has appointed EESSCO, of Norwell, MA, as its exclusive sales representative for the aggregate market in the states of Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire.

PHOENIX Process Equipment Co. was established in Pompano Beach, FL, in 1984 with a Department of Energy grant that helped in the development of the company’s initial technology, the separation of clean coal from coal refuse. More...

PHOENIX Appoints EESSCO as New Sales Representative

Sweeney Excavation Looks to the Sky for Direction

Robert Sweeney founded Sweeney Excavation in 1986 and from the very beginning, he’s had his eye on the future of the industry. Now there’s an eye in the sky helping him do his work.

Originally, Sweeney worked with the owner of a pool company installing swimming pools. Over time, his company has grown into a substantial site development business, which also does septic work, sewer and water systems, asphalt paving and maintenance. What’s more, Sweeney owns and operates the Blue Diamond Quarry, with locations in East Haven and Meriden, CT, which manufactures and sells aggregate products and topsoil. More...

Sweeney Excavation Looks to the Sky for Direction

Contractors Profit From Universities’ Growing Pains

College campuses are a growth industry for general contractors. In an economy that is in transition from manufacturing to service and is struggling to regain its footing after the terrorist attacks of 2001, thousands of people are going back to school to reinvigorate their careers or to start new ones.

Add to that influx of second-chance students a general growth in college-age populations and you have campus infrastructure under stress. Construction companies are feeling this stress, but in a profitable way. More...

Contractors Profit From Universities’ Growing Pains

Drive Against Diabetes Reaches OH

Sgt. Craig M. Schultz stopped in at the Ohio Cat headquarters in Broadview Heights, OH, recently on his Drive Against Diabetes, which will take him from New York City to Los Angeles.

Schultz is headed cross-country to raise awareness of Juvenile Onset (type 1) diabetes, which compromised the health of his late father. Schultz is driving a Caterpillar 236 skid steer donated by Cat and Syracuse Supply Company, a Syracuse, NY-based Cat dealer. At a top speed of 12 mph, Schultz hopes to complete his journey Nov. 14. More...

Drive Against Diabetes Reaches OH

Homestead-Miami Construction Nears Final Lap

Race fans from all over will be coming to a new and more exciting track at Homestead-Miami Speedway when it is it finished in November. The new configuration will result in increased excitement for fans and drivers when the Homestead-Miami Speedway becomes the first NASCAR Winston Cup track to be planned and constructed to include a variable banking system. More...

Homestead-Miami Construction Nears Final Lap

At 75, FL’s ‘Greatest’ Construction Job Tells State’s Story

TAMPA, FL (AP) It stretches 274 mi. through the vast open spaces of Florida, skirting the Gulf Coast just close enough for drivers to notice the sky is a little bluer there and then turning to forge through the River of Grass.

Tampa to Miami — Tamiami. Seventy-five years after the trail was built, the remarkable road that carried dreamers, land speculators and tourists to the Sunshine State still tells the tale of Florida. More...

At 75, FL’s ‘Greatest’ Construction Job Tells State’s Story

Bones at Construction Site Might Have Been From Slaves

PASSAIC, NJ (AP) Two individuals whose remains were accidentally unearthed last month at a school construction site might have been slaves, the Herald News of West Paterson reported.

Archaeologists have found bits of coffins and nails recently outside Martin Luther King Jr. elementary school, according to a statement released by the Schools Construction Corp. More...

Bones at Construction Site Might Have Been From Slaves

New High School Opens Near WTC Site

NEW YORK (AP) As awestruck teens explored their new facilities, the first school created in lower Manhattan since Sept. 11 opened Sept. 5 on the 13th floor of an office building less than a mile from Ground Zero.

The governor, mayor and several other public officials called the opening of Millennium High School and the dedication of a residential tower in Battery Park City a symbolic renaissance in the neighborhood days before the anniversary of the attacks. More...

New High School Opens Near WTC Site

IRS Issues New Regulations Regarding Depreciation Bonus

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) issued temporary regulations that provide detailed guidance on the use of the additional first-year 30- percent depreciation deduction (“depreciation bonus”) created by Congress in 2002 and expanded to 50 percent as part of the Jobs and Growth Act earlier this year. More...

IRS Issues New Regulations Regarding Depreciation Bonus

Posillico Uses Finesse to Rehab Third Gen Bridge

Sometimes transportation rehab projects don’t require a massive attack by equipment but just a case of a lot of hand work, supplemented by equipment where necessary.

That’s the case with the rehabilitation of the Long Beach Road/Austin Boulevard bridge over the Reynolds Channel, between Long Beach and Island Park NY. J. D. Posillico Inc., Farmingdale, NY, is performing the bridge rehab under a $12.4-million contract with Nassau County, Long Island, in partnership with the New York State Department of Transportation (NYSDOT). (The funding split is 80 percent Federal, 20 percent county.) Hardesty and Hanover is the outside engineering consulting/inspecting firm. More...

Posillico Uses Finesse to Rehab Third Gen Bridge

Marshall University’s $40M Expansion Thunders Ahead

Enrollment at Marshall University in Huntington, WV, is soaring. And so the school is spending $40 million on four new residence halls, a new dining facility and a parking garage.

The new suite-style residence halls — a far cry from the college “dorms” of yesteryear — were completed in time to be occupied by students arriving on campus for the current fall semester. The adjacent dining facility is slated for completion in December. They join a new 1,000-space parking garage that opened last year — all necessitated by Marshall’s record-high enrollment. More...

Marshall University’s $40M Expansion Thunders Ahead

Safeguarding a TX Causeway

BROWNSVILLE, Texas (AP) Almost two years after barges knocked a 240-ft. gap in the Queen Isabella Causeway and vehicles plunged off the broken span, highway engineers are working to ensure that motorists crossing Texas’ longest bridge are better protected. More...

Safeguarding a TX Causeway