Construction is built on partnerships. A recent effort led by the Helmkamp Cares Foundation shows how those relationships can also strengthen the communities beyond the jobsite.

In partnership with the Gateway Grizzlies and a network of industry trade partners, the foundation’s 2026 matching program generated $18,920 for Community Hope Center in Cottage Hills, Illinois.

Now in its second year, the annual program brings together Helmkamp’s network and the broader construction industry to expand the reach of local giving.

From the Ballpark to Community Support

This year’s campaign kicked off with “Swing for a Cause” on July 30 at Arsenal BG Ballpark, home of the Gateway Grizzlies. Inning sponsorships, raffle basket sales and direct contributions raised the first $6,420 toward the campaign.

Industry partners then helped build momentum through participation and support. Those companies included Air-Therm, Bommarito Construction, Creative Planning, Epic Systems, Friend Acoustical Ceiling, Graycor Construction, Haberberger Mechanical, Hayden Wrecking, JF Electric, Loellke Plumbing, Lowry Electric, Maher & Co., SCI Engineering and TJ Wies Contracting Co.

“We are grateful for the generosity and partnership of our industry friends and the Gateway Grizzlies in making this year’s program a home run for our community,” said Kyle Ogden, president of Helmkamp Construction Co.

Supporting Neighbors Through Difficult Times

For 38 years, Community Hope Center has helped individuals and families experiencing hardship meet essential needs and find a path toward stability. Its services include:

• Food assistance
• Clothing
• Community navigation services
• Assistance with other basic needs

The organization is currently focused on facility upgrades that will allow its food pantry to remain open in all weather conditions, along with improvements to make visits safer for those seeking assistance.

For the AEC community, that connection is especially meaningful. The condition and accessibility of a facility can directly affect an organization’s ability to serve people who depend on it.

“We simply could not do this work without caring community partners who believe in helping their neighbors,” said Ann Crane, executive director of Community Hope Center.

A Shared Commitment Beyond the Jobsite

Helmkamp’s matching program offers a local example of what coordinated industry giving can accomplish. A ballpark event, contributions from trade partners and a shared commitment to helping neighbors came together to support an organization serving the Metro East.

Piggybacking from last week…the construction industry moves from the historic highs of recent years into a period of more measured growth; the outlook for 2027 is not simply about expansion or contraction. It is about realignment.

ConstructConnect projects Midwest nonresidential construction starts to stabilize near $131.5 billion in 2027, following a forecasted moderation in 2026. That figure represents the broader Midwest—not Greater St. Louis alone—but the region is positioned to capture significant activity through transportation infrastructure, healthcare, residential development, institutional investment, and urban revitalization. (news.constructconnect.com)

The result is a Greater St. Louis construction market that remains active but increasingly selective. The strongest opportunities are emerging in projects tied to long-term public needs, regional connectivity and developments capable of attracting residents, businesses and investment.

A $9.2 Billion Infrastructure Pipeline

Infrastructure is one of the clearest strengths in the region’s 2027 outlook.

The St. Louis Regional Freightway’s 2027 Priority Projects List includes 29 projects representing more than $9.2 billionin investment across Eastern Missouri and Southwestern Illinois. As of May 2026, nearly $3.8 billion in funding had been secured, approximately $1.6 billion in projects was under construction and more than $581 million in listed projects had been completed. (St. Louis Regional Freightway)

The list reflects the interconnected nature of the bi-state economy. Highways, bridges, rail facilities, ports and the airport function as one regional freight system—and each investment can influence industrial development, manufacturing capacity and access to developable land.

Among the major priorities are:

• The proposed $3 billion-plus modernization of St. Louis Lambert International Airport, the largest initiative on the Freightway list. Approximately $1 billion had been identified or secured as planning advanced.
• Continued improvements along the I-270 corridor, including projects supporting one of the region’s most important freight routes.
• The $106 million Illinois Route 3 Connector, a fully funded project designed to improve traffic flow, accessibility and network connectivity.
• A proposed $98 million expansion of the Madison multimodal rail yard, intended to increase capacity within one of the nation’s leading rail hubs.
• Future work associated with major Mississippi River crossings, freight rail infrastructure, ports and industrial corridors.

These investments do more than create individual construction opportunities. Together, they strengthen the region’s position as a national logistics and manufacturing center—and support the sites, facilities and workforce required for future private development. (thetelegraph.com)

City Road and Mobility Improvements Continue

Within the City of St. Louis, MoDOT’s 2026–2027 construction program includes several projects that will remain active or reach important milestones in 2027.

Improvements along Route H/Riverview Drive include pavement and safety work scheduled during 2027. Along Route D—Page Boulevard and portions of Dr. Martin Luther King Drive— crews are completing corridor-wide safety, sidewalk, signal, and resurfacing improvements that began in 2026 and will continue into 2027.

The I-64 interchange near Grand Boulevard also remains a closely watched future investment. Its importance extends beyond vehicular movement: the project has the potential to improve connections among surrounding institutions, neighborhoods, transit systems, and pedestrian routes.

For the AEC community, these projects reinforce a growing priority. Infrastructure is no longer evaluated only by how efficiently it moves vehicles. Owners and communities increasingly expect projects to improve safety, accessibility, multimodal connectivity and the surrounding development environment.

Major Buildings Approach 2027 Milestones

Several prominent vertical projects are expected to change the region’s skyline and institutional landscape.

Albion West End

At Lindell Boulevard and Kingshighway, Albion West End is expected to be completed in 2027. The approximately 30-story development will bring more than 300 apartments and ground-floor retail space to one of the region’s most visible intersections near Forest Park.

The tower reached its structural topping-out milestone in 2026, making it one of the clearest physical signs of continued residential confidence in the Central West End. (theljc.com)

New SSM Health Cardinal Glennon Children’s Hospital

Healthcare construction will deliver one of the region’s most consequential projects in late 2027: the new SSM Health Cardinal Glennon Children’s Hospital.

The 14-story, 200-plus-bed pediatric hospital reached its structural topping-out milestone in 2026. The replacement facility is being developed to provide an expanded, highly coordinated environment for pediatric inpatient, neonatal, outpatient, and specialty care.

This project demonstrates why healthcare remains a stabilizing force in the construction market. Hospitals and medical campuses must continually respond to changing clinical practices, technology, patient expectations, and population needs—creating demand for highly specialized design, engineering, and construction expertise.

Lambert Represents a Long-Term Regional Transformation

Although the full redevelopment will extend well beyond 2027, the proposed modernization of St. Louis Lambert International Airport may be the region’s most significant long-range construction initiative.

The program is envisioned as a multibillion-dollar transformation of the passenger experience, with terminal, concourse, roadway, parking, utility and support-facility improvements potentially advancing through multiple phases. Current planning looks toward a transformed airport serving the region’s needs into the next decade. (St. Louis Lambert International Airport)

For the construction industry, Lambert should be viewed as more than one future project. A program of this scale can create opportunities across architecture, engineering, construction management, specialty contracting, technology, security, logistics and supplier services.

Downtown: Momentum, Opportunity and Unfinished Work

Downtown St. Louis remains the region’s greatest redevelopment challenge—and potentially one of its greatest construction opportunities.

Demolition of the former Millennium Hotel has entered its final phase, preparing the prominent riverfront property for possible redevelopment. The Gateway Arch Park Foundation and The Cordish Companies have presented a proposed $670 million, 1.3-million-square-foot mixed-use visionincorporating residential, office, retail, restaurant, cultural and public spaces. (Gateway Arch Park Foundation)

The distinction is important: the site is being cleared, but the $670 million redevelopment remains a proposed, longer-term development rather than a project scheduled for completion in 2027.

Even so, removing the vacant hotel represents meaningful progress. A cleared and development-ready site beside the Gateway Arch creates possibilities that did not exist while the deteriorating structure remained in place.

Downtown redevelopment could also benefit from Missouri’s newly enacted Innovation, Public Safety and Accountability Act. Effective August 28, 2026, the legislation establishes a framework through which qualifying cities may designate innovation zones and access state-administered incentives. These may include employer retention and relocation programs, office-to-residential conversion assistance, opportunity-zone benefits and incentives supporting startup investment. (house.mo.gov)

The law creates new tools, but it does not guarantee development on its own. Local planning, district designation, private investment, financing and infrastructure coordination will determine how effectively those tools translate into actual projects.

What the 2027 Pipeline Tells Us

Greater St. Louis is not entering 2027 with a single dominant construction story. It is entering the year with several distinct markets moving at different speeds.

Infrastructure and healthcare offer the greatest long-term stability. Major residential projects demonstrate targeted confidence in strong neighborhoods. Airport and freight investments strengthen the region’s national competitiveness. Downtown presents substantial opportunity, but many projects will require patient coordination among owners, developers, public agencies and financing partners.

That is the reality of a realigning market: not every sector rises together, and not every announced vision is construction-ready.

For SLC3 members, the opportunity is to understand where projects stand today—proposed, funded, under construction or nearing delivery—and prepare accordingly. That means strengthening owner relationships, anticipating workforce demands, developing the right project partnerships and remaining engaged as public and private investment decisions take shape.

The cranes in the air tell only part of the story. The deeper story is a region building the infrastructure, institutions and development framework that will influence Greater St. Louis for decades to come.

Ameren Missouri is preparing for significant growth in electricity demand as large-load customers, particularly data centers, continue to expand across the state.

In its newly released 20-year Integrated Resource Plan, Ameren Missouri outlines a substantial expansion of its generation portfolio to maintain reliability as customer demand grows. The plan includes a mix of natural gas, solar, energy storage, wind, nuclear and other technologies. 

One of the biggest shifts is the scale of planned natural-gas generation. Reporting on the new plan indicates Ameren could add roughly 11,100 megawatts of natural-gas generation over the next two decades, with data-center growth playing a significant role in projected electricity demand. 

The demand isn’t theoretical. Major projects announced this year include Google’s $15 billion data-center investment in New Florence and Amazon’s $10 billion data-center campus in Montgomery County. Ameren says the Amazon development alone is expected to support thousands of construction jobs.

For the St. Louis construction community, the expansion points to potential work extending well beyond the data centers themselves, including:

• New power-generation facilities
• Transmission and distribution infrastructure
• Substations and switching equipment
• Engineering and utility construction
• Supporting civil and site infrastructure
• Skilled-trades and specialty-contractor opportunities

Ameren’s plan also comes amid debate over the future generation mix. The company says the strategy is designed to maintain reliability and manage costs while serving unprecedented load growth; environmental advocates have criticized the increased reliance on natural gas and its implications for fossil-fuel use.

One of the St. Louis region’s largest education construction programs is approaching an important milestone.

St. Louis Community College’s $450 million STLCC Transformed initiative is expected to reach completion in 2026, concluding a major capital program that has brought six new buildings along with renovations and improvements across the college’s four main campuses.

But the most important part of the story may not be the buildings themselves.

It is what many of those buildings were designed to produce: the next generation of St. Louis workers.

Construction Meeting Workforce Development

The STLCC Transformed program includes facilities dedicated to areas such as advanced manufacturing, nursing and health sciences, emerging technology, financial services and transportation.

That creates an unusual cycle of investment.

The construction industry helps build the facilities.

Those facilities train people for industries that will drive future economic growth.

And that growth creates the need for another generation of buildings and infrastructure.

For St. Louis, where employers across construction, manufacturing, healthcare and technology continue competing for skilled workers, the connection between physical infrastructure and workforce infrastructure is becoming increasingly difficult to separate.

Six Buildings, Multiple Growth Industries

The program includes:

• Advanced Manufacturing Center
• Nursing and Health Sciences Center
• Health Sciences and Technology Center
• Emerging Technology Center
• Financial Services Education Center
• Transportation Education Center

That list closely mirrors many of the sectors currently shaping regional investment.

Advanced manufacturing requires increasingly sophisticated technicians and facilities.

Healthcare continues to represent a significant construction and employment market.

Transportation is being transformed by new technologies.

And emerging technologies are changing virtually every industry, including architecture, engineering and construction.

The facilities where those skills are taught therefore become part of the region’s economic-development infrastructure.

What happens when a community looks at a long-underutilized property and sees an opportunity to reconnect neighborhoods, create new civic spaces and reshape a piece of the city for the next generation?

That is the vision taking shape in St. Charles.

John Mueller, Managing Partner of JEMA, recently shared a look at an ambitious redevelopment vision centered on a roughly 25-acre former manufacturing site — one that has resisted redevelopment for decades.

The plans described by Mueller go far beyond a single building. They envision a collection of new civic, community and commercial spaces designed to work together while respecting the character and history of St. Charles.

A major highway project is also a daily exercise in keeping a region functioning.

That challenge is coming into focus again on the Improve I-70: Warrenton to Wentzville project, where MoDOT’s latest construction notice outlines early-October traffic changes between the Foristell weigh station and Wentzville Parkway.

The notice schedules a westbound traffic shift for October 6 and a 30-day closure of the David Hoekel Parkway westbound entrance and exit ramps. All work is weather permitting, and schedules may change.

A Regional Investment With Daily Impacts

The $600 million design-build project covers approximately 20 miles of I-70, with construction anticipated to finish by the end of 2028. Its scope includes additional highway capacity and improvements to pavement, bridges and interchanges.

MoDOT’s notice says two lanes will be maintained during peak travel periods, with nightly westbound right-lane closures during construction. Those commitments highlight an important project-delivery challenge: creating enough space to build while preserving access for the people and businesses using the corridor.

Some construction projects add a building.

Others require rethinking how an entire campus works.

At the Washington University Medical Campus, BJC HealthCare’s long-running Campus Renewal Project is entering another important stage as work continues through late 2026 around Barnes-Jewish Hospital’s Plaza West Tower and the surrounding patient-arrival areas.

The 16-story Plaza West Tower opened in October 2025 with 224 private inpatient rooms and 56 private intensive care rooms for heart and vascular patients.

But the tower itself is only part of the story.

Current work is transforming the experience around Barnes-Jewish Plaza, including the garage lobby and pedestrian bridge, patient drop-off areas and street- and main-level lobbies.

That makes the project a useful example of where healthcare construction is heading: beyond adding square footage and toward improving how complex facilities function for the people using them.

Building Around an Operating Hospital

Healthcare construction presents a challenge unlike most commercial projects.

The facility does not simply close while construction occurs.

Patients continue arriving. Physicians and nurses continue working. Deliveries must continue. Emergency access must remain available. Building systems must operate reliably, and construction activity has to coexist with an environment where disruption can have significant consequences.

On a busy medical campus, a construction boundary can change someone’s entire route through the day.

WashU Medicine’s Ellen S. Clark Hope Plaza restoration provides a timely local example. A September facilities notice identifies work around the MetroLink platform, the west front entrance of the Eric P. Newman Education Center and sidewalks near Parkview Avenue.

The notice anticipates continued disruption and congestion at the Mid Campus Center circle through October. It also explains that weather and unforeseen field changes may require adjustments to work areas and phase dates.

Small Footprints, Significant Coordination

Exterior restoration may draw less attention than a new building, but its location can make coordination especially important.

At a medical campus, the area between buildings serves many users with different needs.

An employee familiar with the campus may adapt quickly to a detour. A first-time visitor may need more guidance. A person with limited mobility may experience the same route change very differently.

WashU’s notice directs plaza users to south-side sidewalks at the Mid Campus Center circle and identifies later work at the MetroLink platform entrance and the University of Health Sciences and Pharmacy campus entrance.

The AEC takeaway is practical: pedestrian circulation deserves deliberate planning throughout a phased project.

One of St. Louis’ most visible infrastructure corridors is moving toward another major construction project.

The City of St. Louis Board of Public Service opened bidding in September for the Union-Lindell Bridge Replacement, with bids currently scheduled to close October 20.

It is the kind of project that can be easy to overlook among the region’s larger building announcements.

But bridges, streets and the infrastructure connecting major destinations are every bit as important to a functioning built environment as the buildings themselves.

And the Union-Lindell project arrives as St. Louis continues confronting a challenge shared by cities across the country: how to modernize infrastructure that has served the community for generations while keeping the city moving during construction.

More Than a Bridge

The project’s construction documents point to a substantial scope.

Beyond the bridge replacement itself, the work includes demolition and removal, excavation, embankment, aggregate base, pavement, concrete work, drainage-related infrastructure and other associated site improvements.

The City posted the project for bidding September 16.

That creates opportunities extending beyond a single bridge contractor.

Before There Were Lunch & Learns, There Were One-Room Schoolhouses

On World Teachers’ Day, a little Missouri history offers a lesson for today’s workplaces.

Imagine managing a room full of people with different experience levels, different assignments, and very different attention spans—all at once.

Sound like your last project meeting?

For teachers in Missouri’s one-room schoolhouses, that was an ordinary school day. In honor of World Teachers’ Day, October 5, we’re taking a quick look at a few things you might not know about these small buildings and the big responsibilities inside them.

The “little red schoolhouse” wasn’t necessarily red.

According to the National Park Service, Missouri once required wooden schoolhouses, except log buildings, to be painted white—with light blue interiors.

Apparently, even the schoolhouse had design standards.

They weren’t just a pioneer-era phenomenon.

One-room schools remained widely used in rural Missouri into the 1950s, with many in the Ozarks operating into 1959. That puts them considerably closer to living memory than the covered-wagon image might suggest.

Mentoring was built into the classroom.

Older students helped younger children with their lessons, while younger students heard material they would study later. Think of it as an early version of learning alongside an experienced colleague—without the onboarding portal.

One building wore many hats.

Schoolhouses often hosted elections, church services, and even weddings. Long before today’s conversations about flexible spaces, these communities were putting one modest building to work for many purposes.

There’s a useful connection to our industry: knowledge moves forward because someone takes the time to share it.

The superintendent explaining the reasoning behind a sequence. The architect helping a young designer understand a detail. The trades instructor demonstrating a technique. The colleague patiently answering a question for the third time.

Each is doing something teachers do every day: helping someone move from “I don’t understand” to “I can do this.”

Today, thank a teacher who made a difference in your life. Then consider one thing you could teach someone on your team this week.

Your Calendar Shouldn't Be 100% Full

Take a look at your calendar for this week.

How much open space do you see?

If the answer is almost none, we may have found part of the problem.

We've somehow created a workplace culture where a completely full calendar can look like productivity.

Meeting at 8. Meeting at 9. Project call at 10. Lunch meeting. Teams call at 1. Committee meeting at 2. Client meeting at 3.

Then 4:30 arrives and you finally have time to... work.

That's a problem.

A Full Calendar Doesn't Mean Full Capacity

Meetings are work. They require attention, decisions, preparation and follow-up.

But they're often not the only work we're responsible for.

We still have proposals to prepare, projects to manage, drawings to review, clients to contact, estimates to complete, employees to lead and decisions to make.

When every hour is scheduled, all of that work has to go somewhere.

Too often, it goes into the evening.

Or early morning.

Or the weekend.

And eventually, we start calling that normal.

Leave Room for the Unexpected

AEC professionals know better than most that the day rarely goes exactly as planned.

A project condition changes.

A client needs something.

A deadline moves.

A problem surfaces in the field.

Someone on your team needs help.

If your calendar is already operating at 100% capacity, where does the unexpected go?

Usually on top of everything else.

Think about your calendar the way you would think about a project schedule.

Would you intentionally build a project schedule with absolutely no room for the unexpected?

Probably not.

Your workweek deserves some contingency too.

Team Integration: Great Projects Are Built by One Team, Not Many Companies

Construction projects often bring together dozens of organizations—owners, architects, engineers, contractors, construction managers, subcontractors, suppliers, and specialty consultants. Each has a different role, different priorities, and different pressures.

The Construction Industry Institute (CII) has long recognized that Team Integration is one of the most powerful drivers of project success. When project partners operate as a single, collaborative team instead of individual organizations, projects experience better communication, faster decision-making, fewer disputes, and stronger outcomes.

Unfortunately, too many projects still operate in silos.

Design teams may not fully understand construction challenges. Contractors may not be aware of an owner’s long-term operational goals. Suppliers may learn about schedule changes too late. The result is frustration, delays, and missed opportunities.

High-performing project teams intentionally create an environment where information is shared early and often. They encourage transparency, solve problems together, and focus on the success of the project—not just the success of their individual organizations.