Millstone Weber, LLC began 2023 planning for the future, with the announcement of four promotions within the company.

Chris Gottman, was named president and chief operating officer. He was previously senior vice president of construction.

Justin Brooks, formerly structures manager, promoted to director of operations.

Brett Lennon is the new director of project management. He was previously a senior project manager.

Paul Beatrici, formerly a project superintendent, was promoted to director of field operations.

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From NPR: Justin Mwandjalulu, 20, loves to build stuff.

These days, as a carpentry apprentice, he installs drywall in houses with the rest of his construction crew. But he said he likes concrete the best.

“At the end of the day, you see how you poured everything. The result of your hard work,” he said.

Mwandjalulu dreamed of becoming a carpenter or electrician as a child. And now he’s fulfilling that dream. But that also makes him an exception to the rule. While Gen Z — often described as people born between 1997 and 2012 — is on track to become the most educated generation, fewer young folks are opting for traditionally hands-on jobs in the skilled trade and technical industries.

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From The Korte Company: Every challenge is also an opportunity.

You can learn more from things that go wrong than those that go perfectly to plan.

This was definitely one of those moments.

Something major happened in 1990. A rare mistake forced the company to rethink who we were and how we did business. It pushed us to blaze new paths and pursue new opportunities that drive our success to this day.

The Korte Company and the U.S. Postal Service have worked together since 1990. We owe a big part of who we’ve become since then to that work. But without this learning opportunity, our 50-plus USPS projects might never have happened.

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There has been much conjecture from employers, union leaders, school administrators and others on what role high school should know before going into the skilled trades. University of Missouri Extension researcher Doug Swanson, EdD, decided to ask workers who had been in the industry for two decades two things: What they learned, or wished they had learned when in high school, and what skills they feel that today’s high school students need to succeed in the field.

His findings were published in the Winter 2022 issue of the the International Journal of Vocational Education and Training, official publication of the International Vocational Education and Training Association.

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This week the camera of Construction Forum Louis Kelly, owner of Drone Eagle LLC, drone captured bustling activity on Olive Boulevard just east of I-170.

The Costco Store which anchors the site 31-acre-site being developed by Larry Chapman, CEO of Seneca Commercial Real Estate and Bob Clark, CEO of Clayco and its CRG development was completed in October. The 31-acres being developed by the partnership, dubbed U City LLC, on both the north and south sides of Olive, does not include the 16-acre Costco site. Site preparation on those out parcels is shown in this drone footage.

Just west of I-170, KDG and Keat Properties are developing the $151 million Olive Crossing. The development will include 181 apartments, an office building, retail space, and a 160-room dual-branded Marriott Courtyard and Element Hotel.

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Cathy Westerheide, Director of Sales for G&S Acoustics and FabricWall, will retire effective December 29, 2022, marking the conclusion of a notable 29-year career with Golterman & Sabo, the parent company of G & S Acoustics.

“Cathy’s relationships with our customers and reps have been outstanding,” says Herb Golterman, CEO. “She has that rare talent of being extremely technical and organized, yet outgoing and customer focused. We’ve heard from many customers that she is one of the best in the business and we could not agree more!”

“Seeing our department grow from just Herb and me to a talented team of 15 people has been incredibly rewarding,” says Westerheide reflecting on her career. Under her leadership, G & S Acoustics has grown into a multi-million- dollar business.

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From St. Louis Public Radio: Aurora Bihler has spent the past nine years as a union ironworker in St. Louis. It wasn’t always her career plan, but, with a degree in fine arts and sculpture, she realized she needed to find a more stable career.

The path wasn’t easy, but Bihler hopes that others — particularly more women and minorities — can follow a similar journey to well-paying jobs.

“I think that there’s really a lack of understanding of the amount of opportunities and how there are so many different types of trades, and so many different types of things that need to be done in order to build America,” she said. “If people don’t know that these things exist, then how would they know that they’d be a good fit?”

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From The Guardian: They have stood through the fall of an empire, the carnage of great wars and the foundation of a new country. But quite why structures made using Roman concrete are so durable has remained something of a mystery.

Now researchers say they have discovered one possible explanation: the technique used to make the material may have helped to give it self-healing properties.

“The Pantheon would not exist without the concrete as it was in the Roman time,” said Admir Masic, MIT professor of civil and environmental engineering and the lead author of the paper.

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From Construction Dive: Builders are bullish on infrastructure work this year thanks to federal funding, but expect supply chain snarls and hiring difficulties to persist, according to Associated General Contractors of America’s 2023 Construction Outlook National Survey.

COVID-19 continues to impact the industry, hitting supply chains in particular. That’s the top concern for builders in the survey, as the uncertainty has caused a variety of negative ripple effects that ultimately mean higher costs and lower profits. As inflation and the specter of a recession continue to loom, contractors are feeling less confident about private sector work.

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From St. Louis Business Journal: A proposal to build a new subdivision of 274 rental houses that was blocked last fall by a Metro East village is now being considered for approval by the city of O’Fallon, Illinois.

Under the proposal from developer Next Chapter Neighborhoods, based in Evans, Georgia, 50 acres would be annexed into O’Fallon for the development, which would be called White Oak Commons.

The new housing community would be built on farmland at 1446 Thouvenot Lane, adjacent to Frank Scott Parkway, east of Old Collinsville Road and west of Hartman Lane.

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From Leader Publications: A new fire rescue training facility has opened on property behind the Valle Ambulance District, 12363 Hwy. 21 north of De Soto.

The facility was a joint project for the De Soto Rural Fire Protection District, the De Soto Fire Department and the Hillsboro Fire Protection District, as well as the Valle Ambulance District, which donated the land to use for the facility.

John Scullin, spokesman for De Soto Rural Fire, said the entities began using it for basic training in October and live burns about a month after that. However, fencing and other final touches were still needed and were completed in December.

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From St. Louis Public Radio: The Metropolitan St. Louis Sewer District has hit a significant milestone and has finished drilling the Jefferson Barracks Tunnel.

When fully completed, the seven-foot-diameter pipe will run up to 220 feet underground for more than three miles from northern Oakville to the confluence of the River des Peres and Mississippi River.

The $155 million tunnel system will allow MSD to take wastewater out of the older pipelines to prevent backups, said Metropolitan St. Louis Sewer District representative Sean Stone.

“It’s been in need for a long time,” Stone said. “The network of pipes and pump stations that are there right now are old and inadequate.”

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From Construction Dive: With its ability to learn, solve problems and recognize patterns at a velocity and scale no human will ever match, artificial intelligence is poised to reshape how buildings are designed, built and operated — and 2023 will be the year it takes hold.

“Artificial intelligence will transform our industry in the next 10 years more than any other technology in the past 100 years,” said James Barrett, chief innovation officer for Turner Construction, the nation’s largest contractor. “It’s going to be huge because it has such broad application in so many cases. It’s not a question of if. It’s a question of when.

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When the Save A Lot in Pagedale closed in November of 2021, it was a major blow to a community that had worked hard to bring the kinds of things to Pagedale and the surrounding communities that are commonplace most anywhere else. Like a grocery store.

Opened in 2010, the Save A Lot was the first grocery store in Pagedale in over 40 years, transforming what had previously been a food desert. The significance was greater than a grocery store. It was a tangible sign that things were changing for the better.

In 2008, Beyond Housing—a comprehensive community development organization behind the Once and for All effort to transform the under-resourced communities within the Normandy schools footprint, also known as the 24:1 Community—began working in partnership with residents and community leaders to combat the serious challenges facing the community. That work now spans many fronts from housing to education, health, municipal government, economic development, and more. The comprehensive effort has created significant progress with more than $175 million raised and invested in the community since 2010.

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From St. Louis Public Radio: The 22.5 acre Belle-Clair Fairgrounds & Expo Center in Belleville will soon have new ownership.

The Belleville City Council and St. Clair County Board voted Thursday night in separate meetings to approve an intergovernmental agreement to purchase the property for $2.35 million. It was listed for sale for $2.4 million earlier this year.

St. Clair County is covering the cost with federal COVID-related relief funds from the American Rescue Plan. That’s because the county wants to use the property for emergency services, as well as continued hospitality and tourism, according to County Board Chairman Mark Kern.

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From Construction Dive: Construction continues to be one of the deadliest industries in the U.S., with 986 construction workers dying on the job last year.

That represented a 2.2% decrease from 2020, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data released Dec. 16, but still puts construction as one of the top sectors for total fatalities. To put construction’s numbers in context, transportation and warehousing deaths totaled 976 in 2021.

Construction workers died at a rate of 9.4 per 100,000 full-time equivalent workers in 2021, the BLS reported, down from 10.1 in 2020. That rate has hovered in that threshold for at least a decade. The new per capita figures are the lowest since 2011, but still don’t break the trend.

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From Leader Publications: The Mississippi River should soon be safer for those who ply its waters on Jefferson County’s eastern edge.

The Herculaneum Fire Department, which has a 25-foot “safe boat” for responding to emergencies on the river, has been accepted for a $300,000 federal Department of Homeland Security Port Security Grant.

Chief Kevin Baker said the grant will be used to build a boathouse on the river to house the “safe boat.”

“We’ve had the boat since 2013 or 2014,” Baker said. “We’ve used it to respond to barge fires, drownings, other water emergencies. One time, we responded to an incident where a boat hit a fleeting barge. Almost anything that can happen on a highway can happen on a river. Really, if you want to think of it that way, the Mississippi is just a different roadway.”

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From Illinois Business Journal: Media reports have shared that U.S. Rep. Rodney Davis (IL-13) has secured $20,308,790 in Community Project Funding (CPF) for 15 different communities through the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2023. Complete details of each of the 2023 funding requests can be viewed here.

All requested projects have been included in legislation passed out of the House Appropriations Committee and the full House has passed projects with a (*). Projects are listed alphabetically by recipient below

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From St. Louis INNO: An Albuquerque, New Mexico-based clean energy startup that has ties to the St. Louis region is expanding its presence locally, with plans to establish a hydrogen production facility in St. Charles County.

The startup, BayoTech Inc., has broken ground on a new hydrogen production facility in Wentzville through a partnership with Ranken Technical College. BayoTech said the new facility will be located on Ranken’s Wentzville campus, at 755 Parr Road, and is slated to annually produce 350 tons of “low-cost, low-carbon hydrogen for local users.”

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From Mid Rivers Newsmagazine: Two surprise and significant announcements were made at the O’Fallon City Council meeting on Dec. 15 regarding the cancellation of two large rental unit developments.

Council member Dr. Jim Ottomeyer (Ward 4) read a letter from Ed Schultz, developer for the previously approved Fairways at Turtle Creek, a 128-unit rental complex that was to be on 14.65 acres on the south side of Mexico Road. The site is currently a golf driving range and is directly across from Fort Zumwalt West High and adjacent to a single-family home subdivision. The development, which was to include a clubhouse and pool, had met with community opposition.

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From REjournals: A total of 259 million square feet. That’s how much spec bulk distribution space was bult during the last six years in major Midwest markets. And companies didn’t hesitate to fill that space, with 86.8% of this spec construction occupied as of the third quarter of 2022.

That’s one of the highlights of the Midwest Speculative Construction Report released in December of this year by Cushman & Wakefield.

What’s interesting is that spec industrial development has been strong throughout the Midwest, not just in a few select markets.

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From St. Louis Business Journal: Especially on the for-sale housing side, the construction market is slowing in the wake of higher interest rates and concerns about a recession in 2023.

In November, total construction starts declined by 18%, with nonresidential building starts — encompassing sectors like offices, warehouses, hotels and shopping centers — losing 25%, nonbuilding (inclusive of infrastructure projects) dropping by 21% and residential starts declining by 5%, according to Dodge Data and Analytics LLC, a Hamilton, New Jersey-based data analytics company that closely tracks the construction market.

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The VaxFactsSTL.com COVID vaccination information website built and maintained by Construction Forum offers 21 “Toolbox Talks” videos on various vaccination topics.

The video project was based on a presentation by Dr. Patrick Mazi, fellow at the Division of Infectious Diseases at Washington University School of Medicine. Dr. Mazi spoke to the St. Louis Construction Cooperative about many of the common misconceptions and questions surrounding COVID and the available vaccines.

Newly available COVID-19 Toolbox Talks resources include: 

Video Playlist (English Versions) on YouTube

Video Playlist (Spanish Translations) (dubbed and subtitles) on YouTube

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