The $377-million, 700-room Hyatt Regency Salt Lake City broke ground in early January. The hotel is located southeast of the Salt Palace Convention Center. The 25-floor property will offer 60,000 sq ft of indoor meeting space—including the 23,138-sq-ft Regency Ballroom and a 14,682-sq-ft junior ballroom—as well as 7,400 sq ft of outdoor event space. The hotel will have a restaurant on the first floor, a lobby bar and another restaurant and fitness center on the sixth floor, adjacent to an outdoor amenity area that includes a pool and terrace for events. The hotel, led by Atlanta-based developer Portman Holdings, will host its first guests in October 2022.

Saunders Construction To Open LoDo Office

Saunders Construction Inc. says it will open a new corporate office in Denver’s Lower Downtown neighborhood. The new office will be located in the historic Struby-Estabrook building at 1660 17th St. Saunders will continue to manage its main operations out of the company’s Englewood, Colo., headquarters. However, some key business functions, including Saunders Commercial Development Co. and the Healthcare Express Group, will work permanently out the 3,200-sq-ft LoDo office, which will include private workstations, huddle rooms, conference rooms, a co-working space and a break room. The design features stone foundations, timber framing, steel columns and brick walls.

Honnen Opens New Cheyenne Location

Honnen Equipment has opened a state-of-the-art facility at 7808 Hutchins Dr. in Cheyenne, Wyo. The new site marks the 11th location in the Rocky Mountain region for the firm and expands its capacity for customer support in sales, rentals, parts, service and technology in the Cheyenne area. Honnen Equipment distributes John Deere construction and compact equipment, Hitachi excavators, Manitowoc Group lifting equipment and Wirtgen Group road building equipment, among other lines.

WSP USA Acquires LT Environmental

Engineering consultants WSP USA  has acquired LT Environmental Inc. (LTE), a U.S.-based environmental consulting firm. WSP says the acquisition aligns with its 2019-2021 global strategy and expands WSP’s geographic footprint in the West.

LTE consults in the areas of site investigation, remediation, water resources, air quality and chemical and materials management. The firm is based in Denver, with offices in Texas, New Mexico, North Dakota, Utah and Wyoming. LTE reported just over $5 million in annual revenue for 2018, ranking it in the top 60 design firms in Colorado and Wyoming.

Granite-Wadsworth Awarded $348M Design-Build Contract in Utah

A 60-40 joint venture of Granite Construction Inc. and Ralph L. Wadsworth Construction Co. LLC has won a $348-million progressive design-build contract to upgrade a stretch of U.S. 89 in Utah.

The Utah Dept. of Transportation contract, announced by Granite on Jan. 6, includes widening nine miles of U.S. 89 in Davis and Weber counties and adding four interchanges. Construction is expected to start in early 2020 and extend into 2023. Ralph L. Wadsworth is a subsidiary of Sterling Construction Co.

Colorado’s Monroe & Newell Joins IMEG Corp.

Monroe & Newell Engineers Inc., a structural engineering firm with offices in Denver and Vail, has joined IMEG Corp., a national full-service engineering firm with more than 40 U.S. locations. Monroe & Newell offers a range of consulting services, all supported by expertise in the areas of post-tensioned concrete, precast concrete, structural steel and wood.

The firm joined IMEG at the end of December. All of Monroe & Newell’s principals will remain with the firm. The team will continue to operate out of its locations in Denver and Vail. IMEG has an existing office in Greenwich Village, Colo.

Dewberry Selected for Lidar Data Collection In Southern Idaho

Dewberry, a privately held professional services firm, has been selected by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) to acquire, process and develop QL1 and QL2 lidar-derived elevation products for nearly 42,300 sq miles in southern Idaho as well as areas in the neighboring states of Oregon, Montana, Wyoming, Nevada and Utah. The initial lidar survey began in fall 2019 and will continue through this spring, with all lidar acquisition expected to be complete by Oct. 31. The data collected will support land management for several government agencies, including the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Bureau of Land Management.

Nielsen Commercial Opens Montana Office

Nielsen Commercial Inc. (NCi), a general construction firm serving the Northwestern U.S., has expanded into Montana with a new office location in Great Falls. NCi will focus on specialty construction markets, including life science, health care, technology, retail, manufacturing, corporate facilities, government, hospitality, clean energy and defense.

“I was born and raised in Montana,” said Jeffrey Nielsen, founder of Nielsen Commercial and former co-founder of BNBuilders. “We’re looking to get back to basics and keep things simple, which can be a radical idea in a climate where complex technology and elaborate delivery methods have become the norm.”

Colorado Infrastructure Grade: C-, ASCE Says

The Colorado Section of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) released its 2020 Report Card for Colorado’s Infrastructure, giving 14 infrastructure categories an overall grade of a C-.

The association’s civil engineers graded individual infrastructure categories as follows: aviation (B), bridges (C+), dams (C+), drinking water (C-), energy (C+), hazardous waste (C-), levees (D+), parks (C), rail (B-), roads (C-), schools (D+), solid waste (C-), transit (C-) and wastewater (C-).

Schools received one of the lowest grades (D+), exhibiting needs that far exceed the funding available for necessary replacements, repairs or upgrades. Those add up to a nearly $14-billion funding gap. In general, Colorado’s transportation network has seen positive jumps since the 2010 report card, but it faces challenges due to age, weather damage and lack of investment. The overall condition of Colorado’s bridges (C+) is above average. Of Colorado’s 8,786 bridges, 5.4% are rated structurally deficient, compared with 7.6% nationally, but 15.4% require repairs with an estimated cost of more than $680 million.