The (Almost) Daily Brief

Comments Close Oct. 19 on FAR Rewrite of Architect-Engineer Contracting

By Megan Dayton · 10/13/2026

PROJECTS  Faribault’s city engineer has recommended a three-lane Seventh Street with a compact roundabout at Second Avenue. City Engineer Mark DuChene presented the city council two options for the Seventh Street reconstruction, a two-lane corridor with street parking along part of the north side and a three-lane corridor with a center turn lane for driveway movements, and recommended the three-lane layout with a three-year trial before the first seal coat. Both options carry a multi-purpose trail on the north side and a sidewalk on the south. Second Avenue has the corridor’s highest traffic volume and crash rate, and the city is weighing a compact roundabout there that large commercial vehicles can cross over a bump; DuChene put its added cost at $350,000 and said the intersection would not meet state traffic signal warrants. Intersections at Fourth Street, Eighth Street, and Central Avenue could become four-way stops. DuChene said he is targeting November for the feasibility report and cost estimates, to support a federal funding application for 2030 to 2031, with construction starting in 2030. He also said he would meet with the Canadian Pacific Kansas City Railroad about the corridor’s low-clearance railroad bridge; lowering the road beneath it would mean piping runoff directly to the river, and leaving it as built would require a variance from Municipal State Aid Street rules that he said Faribault is unlikely to get.

Source: Faribault Daily News, Oct. 13

BIZ  Billion-dollar projects are absorbing the bulk of nonresidential construction spending this year. Associated Builders and Contractors chief economist Anirban Basu told an Oct. 7 Construction Executive forecast webinar that projects valued above $1 billion, many of them data centers, have taken most nonresidential spending in 2026, and that ABC puts one in six firms under contract on those builds, the highest share on record. Outside that tier, bidder counts are climbing. Basu said contractors in Jackson, Mississippi told him jobs that once drew two to four bids now draw 12 to 16. Among attendees surveyed at the October webinar, 32 percent expect profit margins to fall over the next 12 months, up from 26 percent in July, and the share expecting margins to hold dropped from 42 percent to 34 percent. Insufficient demand was the top challenge for 21 percent, up from 19 percent, and tighter project financing for 17 percent, up from 13 percent. Materials prices have risen 8 to 9 percent over the past year and labor costs 4 to 6 percent. Basu said he expects the administration to press tariffs harder in 2027, holding up steel and copper prices. He does not forecast a recession next year. “Things have become more extreme,” he said.

Source: Construction Dive, Oct. 13

PROJECTS  Rochester starts drawing down Silver Lake on Oct. 19 for dredging and dam replacement. The city expects the drawdown to begin Oct. 19, after the city council approved a $19 million construction contract earlier this month. Winter work stays below the waterline, covering sediment dredging and the replacement of the existing low-head dam with a rock arch rapids and wave pools, which the city says lower winter flows make easier to stage. Lowering the water gradually keeps sediment in the lakebed to be dredged rather than carried downstream. Hauling will add truck traffic on Seventh Street Northeast, 13th and 14th streets northwest, and West Silver Lake Drive, and sections of sidewalk and trail will close for truck access. Spring work moves above the waterline and includes a north-shore trail connection with an option beneath the Broadway Bridge. Deputy Public Works Director Aaron Luckstein announced the start. The city expects the project complete by Sept. 1, 2027.

Source: Rochester Post Bulletin, Oct. 12

POLICY  The Forest Service cut the minimum comment period on an environmental assessment to 15 days. A final rule published Oct. 13 at 91 FR 64760 rewrites 36 CFR part 218, the objection process for projects carrying out forest land management plans, and takes effect Nov. 12. The minimum public comment period becomes 15 days for a project documented in an environmental assessment and 30 days for one documented in an environmental impact statement, with no extension; the current minimums are 30 and 45 days, and the February proposal would have cut them to 10 and 20. The Department put the existing comment-and-objection process at a minimum of 120 to 150 days for an assessment and finding of no significant impact and 135 to 165 days for an impact statement and record of decision. The rule writes the 2014 statutory exemption of categorically excluded projects into the regulation, standardizes procedures for Healthy Forests Restoration Act and other projects, moves public notification to the web, and sets publication of a final finding or decision after the fifth business day following the objection period. Comment and objection periods run on calendar days, and a period ending on a weekend or federal holiday extends to the next federal working day. The Department received 2,270 comments on the proposal from 129 organizations, among them 16 state governments and 16 business and industry groups.

Source: Federal Register, Oct. 13

PROJECTS  Ramsey County opens the Victoria Street trail design to public review on Oct. 26. The county will hold an open house Monday, Oct. 26 from 5pm to 7pm on the design for a new shared-use path on Victoria Street, County State-Aid Highway 52, between County Road C and Harriet Avenue in Roseville and Shoreview. The county’s project page says the design work builds on a 2022 corridor study. The county says the open house will cover the proposed trail design and take feedback.

Sources: Ramsey County, Victoria Street Trail Design; county bulletin, Oct. 12

WORKFORCE  Adolfson & Peterson’s Midwest president puts the trades shortage on what employers do after the hire. David Grandstaff wrote in Construction Dive on Oct. 12 that recruiting is the easier half of the problem. Associated Builders and Contractors estimates construction must attract 349,000 net new workers this year. A survey by the Associated General Contractors of America and the National Center for Construction Education and Research found 87 percent of contractors have openings for hourly craft workers, and among those trying to fill craft positions, 88 percent say the jobs are as hard or harder to fill than a year ago. He puts the weight on three employer habits: promoting from within when a tight schedule makes hiring a seasoned leader the easier call, handing someone responsibility before they look ready, and hiring for reliability and willingness to learn where technical skill can be coached. He writes that apprenticeships and training programs supply structure while most growth happens in ordinary work, and that leaders carry knowledge the next generation needs.

Source: Construction Dive, Oct. 12

POLICY  The Public Utilities Commission takes up two Minnesota Power matters Wednesday. The commission meets Oct. 14 at 11am. Docket E015/AA-26-195 is Minnesota Power’s 2026 Annual Capacity Revenue and Expense Rider for June 2026 through May 2027, with its associated rates and tariff language updates, subject to true-up; the agenda marks it undisputed. Dockets E015/GR-21-335 and E015/GR-23-155 return from a Court of Appeals remand on whether Minnesota Power may include its claimed prepaid pension asset in rate base and earn the commission’s authorized weighted average cost of capital, and if so how much of the asset and at what return; the agenda marks that item disputed and carries a modified decision option. A third item is a Dooley’s Gas Pipeline interruptible service agreement with Riverview LLP serving the Stevens milk plant.

Source: Minnesota PUC, Oct. 14 agenda

FUNDING  Transit agencies are turning to local ballot measures as the infrastructure law’s money runs out. At the American Public Transportation Association’s annual conference in Chicago Oct. 3-8, president and chief executive Paul Skoutelas called the Build America 250 Act a good first step and said its proposed $167.6 billion for transit and rail “falls short,” with APTA seeking $268 billion over five years. Jessica Grennan, who runs APTA’s Center for Transportation Excellence, said 34 of 39 transit ballot measures this year have passed, with 22 more set for November. New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority put congestion pricing’s contribution to its $68 billion five-year capital plan at $15 billion, chief financial officer Jaibala Patel said. Northern Illinois replaced its Regional Transit Authority with the Northern Illinois Transit Authority in September, consolidating oversight of the Chicago Transit Authority, Metra, and Pace.

Source: Engineering News-Record, Oct. 12

POLICY  Federal regulators threw out the core of PJM’s plan for connecting data centers to the grid. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on Oct. 9 rejected PJM Interconnection’s Interim Resource Adequacy Service package, which would have curtailed large loads arriving without matching new generation, along with its bring-your-own-new-capacity rules. The commission approved the pieces that define a large load and create a registry carrying a facility’s location, ramp schedule, and capacity supply. FERC found the proposed tariff would put obligations directly on retail customers, dictate which retail customers get curtailed, and set what amounts to a retail rate, and it pointed the question back to the states: “States have a crucial role to play in this challenge.” Commissioner David Rosner wrote in a concurrence that excluding those loads from the capacity auction demand curve could leave the market signaling surplus capacity while the region sheds thousands of megawatts of involuntary demand. The order comes five weeks after FERC rejected key parts of PJM’s backstop capacity auction.

Source: Utility Dive, Oct. 12

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