The builders of Georgia Power’s Plant Vogtle nuclear expansion will have to significantly improve worker productivity in order to meet the project owner’s accelerated completion targets, construction monitors stated on June 6 during testimony to the Georgia Public Service Commission. In order to achieve the respective accelerated completion targets of April 2021 and April 2022 for Units 3 and 4, the monitors said: “Meeting the target monthly percent complete will require a significant increase in production by increasing craft personnel and by more efficient use of those personnel, i.e. improve the productivity of the craft.”  The monitors added that currently the project is earning between 85,000 to 100,000 hours per week on direct construction scope. “This will need to increase to 140,000 earned hours per week by October 2018 to meet” the accelerated schedule. Georgia Power is pushing Bechtel to meet the April 2021 and April 2022 targets instead of the project’s official completion targets of November 2021 and November 2022.

The University of Florida in late May announced it had hired Brasfield & Gorrie to serve as construction manager for the university’s $50-million baseball stadium, scheduled to commence this fall. The university expects the contractor to complete the ballpark—with a capacity of approximately 10,000—in time for the 2020 baseball season. “We look forward to partnering with Brasfield & Gorrie, joining our architect team of Walker & Populous, to deliver a new home for Gator baseball,” stated Laird Veatch, the university’s executive associate athletics director.