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Construction Dive’s Friday Punch List is a series dedicated to sharing the top building headlines that contractors may have missed during the week.
It was another great week of construction news.
New York enacted a moratorium on new permits for the construction of data centerswhich state builders criticized, and Micron Technology poured the first concrete for its $100 billion semiconductor campus, also in the Empire State.
But that’s not all. Read on for more stories construction professionals should know.
National Building Museum opens ‘The Playground’ for the summer
Catch them while they’re young.
This is the objective of the National Building Museum playground in Washington, DC, a space designed to inspire builders of all ages, but especially young ones.
The centerpiece of the summer installation is The Hill, where layers of birch plywood are sculpted into a landscape of slides, tunnels and other gathering places. From there, visitors can navigate a 100-foot obstacle course, scale a 15-foot climbing wall, lounge on oversized rope hammocks, shoot hoops, wander the Wavy Walls maze, or dig into the Dig Pit, a construction-inspired area filled with natural cork.
“Playgrounds are where many of us first discover the joy of exploring, creating and connecting with others,” said Aileen Fuchs, president and executive director of the National Building Museum, in a news release. “We hope all visitors leave with a smile, a sense of possibility and a deeper appreciation for the role that carefully designed places play in our lives.”
The playground is open until August 30.
—Joe Bousquin
Lunda from tutor Perini presents 3 infrastructure jobs
Tutor Perini subsidiary Lunda Construction achieved an infrastructure hat-trick with three recent project announcements.
The first arrived on July 8 with the Roberts Street Railroad Bridge Replacement project on the mississippi river in st. Paul, Minnesota. The company will remove a 113-year-old vertical-lift truss bridge that spans 189 feet and replace it with a 215-foot-long rolling bascule truss bridge. Construction begins this month and is expected to be completed by December 2029. The contract amount was not disclosed.
Wisconsin-based Lunda followed that up with two additional projects announced Monday. Minnesota DOT awarded the company a $33.4 million contract to work there Highway 77 in Hennepin and Dakota counties. The agency also named Lunda as the apparent low bidder, usually the precursor to an actual award, in a Highway 243 project in Chisago County. The company’s bid was $28.6 million.
Work on the two Minnesota DOT projects is expected to begin this fall and be completed by fall 2028.
—Joe Bousquin
PCL adds data center executives
PCL is strengthening its US digital infrastructure team.
the builder named Tyler Kautz regional vice president of digital infrastructureaccording to an announcement Tuesday. Kautz will aim to help the builder meet growing customer demand in the hyperscale and colocation sectors.
Last July, the company named vice president of data centers at Kautzand tapped him to lead the company’s Mission Critical Center of Excellence. Kautz is also responsible for the original business case study that led PCL to establish its dedicated data center division.
PCL has delivered more than 120 data center and mission-critical projects in North America over the past two decades, according to the announcement.
“Building data centers at speed and scale is one of the most complex challenges in construction today,” Kautz said in the announcement. “In partnership with our customers, we are committed to building this critical infrastructure in ways that strengthen the communities where these facilities are built.”
In addition, PCL appointed Carl Haas as district manager and Peter Losh as operations manager, responsible for overseeing the contractor’s active data center portfolio.
— Matthew Thibault
Skanska creates new AI team
Skanska has formed a digital transformation team and solutionsa move the contractor says will help it scale artificial intelligence across the company to improve project delivery.
The initiative focuses on creating practical tools to support project teams, according to a Tuesday press release. Durham, North Carolina-based executive Will Senner has been named senior vice president to lead the team.
Senner has spent more than 20 years at Skanska in engineering, preconstruction and regional leadership.
“It’s not just about doing today’s work faster; it’s about rethinking how work is done,” Senner said in the press release.
The group will operate within the core business of Skanska USA Building, the US construction arm of the Stockholm-based contractor and developer, and will report directly to COO Chris Toher.
—Zachary Phillips
