A federal council voted July 24 to advance a rewrite of the historic-review process that sits ahead of most federally funded and permitted work. The Advisory Council on Historic Preservation moved a notice of proposed rulemaking that would significantly revise the regulations behind Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act, the 36 CFR Part 800 process an agency runs before it funds, permits, or licenses a project that could affect historic properties. The draft now goes to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs at the Office of Management and Budget, then to the Federal Register, with an anticipated 30-day public comment period once it publishes. Nothing is final, and the specifics come from published analyses of the draft rather than an official text, so the provisions below are as reported. As drafted, consultation with State and Tribal Historic Preservation Officers and local governments would shift from required to optional, a single agency-prepared report could replace iterative consultation, States and Tribes would lose the ability to object to a finding of no historic properties affected, public participation would move to agency discretion, the duty to avoid or mitigate harm would soften, the area a review considers would narrow toward direct effects, and new exemptions would carve out actions with minimal federal funding or delegated authority. Section 106 sits on the critical path of most federally touched work, from MnDOT and FHWA highways to State Revolving Fund water and wastewater, transmission, aviation, broadband, and Army Corps permits. A narrower, faster review would mean less cultural-resources fieldwork on many projects, set against more legal uncertainty, and cultural-resource subconsultants face both compressed schedules and softer demand for surveys. Design and preservation groups including the American Institute of Architects have already pushed back and asked Congress to weigh in, which points to a contested rulemaking and probable litigation.
Sources: Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, July 24; American Cultural Resources Association analysis; American Institute of Architects, July 27
ENG New York halted a second office-to-apartment conversion this month over structural problems, a caution flag for adaptive reuse. City building officials stopped construction at a Lower Manhattan office tower being converted to housing after the contractor failed to notify the city that two concrete beams on the top floor had cracked. It followed the discovery of two buckled columns at the former Pfizer headquarters in Midtown, also an office-to-residential conversion, which set off a citywide safety sweep. Conversions load old frames in ways their original designers never intended, cutting new openings, shifting loads, and stacking residential demands onto structures sized for offices.
Source: The Wall Street Journal, July 27
BIZ The WSP-Arcadis fight escalated, and Arcadis is still buying even as it fends off a $5.4 billion bid. Arcadis rejected WSP Global’s first unsolicited proposal on July 14 as undervalued, then confirmed a second, roughly $5.4 billion offer on July 23, which its board has declined to negotiate. On July 28 Arcadis pressed its standalone plan and acquired Satel, a Spanish power-design specialist that adds about 250 engineers, with a second-quarter results call set for July 30.
Source: Engineering News-Record, July 28
ENG A 133-year-old rail viaduct got rebuilt five years early and $195 million under budget, and the how is worth copying. The MTA finished Phase 1 of its Park Avenue Viaduct replacement in Manhattan 60 months ahead of schedule and $195 million below its $765 million budget, swapping out 196 bridge structures and about 12,600 feet of track. Crews used custom gantries to lift prefabricated bridge units into place during 28 weekend outages, with an intertrack containment system that let work proceed between live tracks without canceling trains. Prefabrication and accelerated bridge construction move risk off the critical path and out of traffic. On MnDOT and county bridge work, the same playbook of prefabricated elements set in tight weekend windows is how we can rebuild an aging structure without shutting the corridor.
ENG Engineers settled on a four-lane design for U.S. 52 across the border, a reminder of how multi-state work paces itself. In North Dakota, Ulteig recommended a divided four-lane highway with a depressed median for U.S. 52 between Minot and Voltaire, at an estimated $187.5 million to $231.7 million, with public meetings held July 27 and 28 and comments open through August 12. Preliminary engineering is nearly done and the environmental document is close behind, but the project pauses this fall until the 2027 legislature funds right-of-way, final design, and utility relocation.
Source: Minot Daily News, July 29
BIZ A push to buy engineering on value instead of low bid puts a hard number on avoidable error, and the case travels. On the New Civil Engineer podcast, Get It Right Initiative director Cliff Smith said roughly 21 percent of project cost traces to avoidable error, about £25 billion a year across UK construction, and argued the fix runs through better planning, mature designs before construction starts, a culture where people feel safe raising concerns, and procurement that weighs value over price. The initiative grew out of an Institution of Civil Engineers discussion in 2015. When owners pick engineers on price alone, they also buy the rework that thin design and rushed planning produce. Paying for design quality and adequate planning up front costs less than paying for error later.
Source: New Civil Engineer, July 29
Build your bench: ACEC Minnesota’s Leadership Development Series for mid-career professionals runs September 2026 through April 2027 in a 24-person cohort, and the four-session Emerging Leaders program for early-career staff runs this October and November.
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