Israeli officials have terminated a franchise agreement awarded in 2006 to an international engineering-construction consortium to build a $2-billion, 23-kilometer light-rail network in metropolitan Tel Aviv because the owner and its contractors cannot agree on financial terms. The gap between the government’s cost figure and that of the building team’s, comprising firms from Israel, China and Portugal, is said to be around $100 million. Israel also is set to seize $35 million in financial guarantees the consortium had provided. The team already has spent $65 million on the project, and the state has spent close to $250 million on related

Behind the art-decorated walls along Miami-Dade International Airport’s mile-long north terminal, construction workers are building at a feverish pace the last major piece of an overall $6.2-billion capital improvement program. After a decade that saw delays and disputes, the team hired to build the stalled $3-billion terminal expansion expects an on-time delivery next year, with no major claims. photo: Courtesy of POVJ The renovated and expanded north terminal (above) is almost complete, with almost 4 million sq ft of space. A people mover also is nearing completion (below). Photo: Courtesy Of POVJ Work on the 50-gate terminal began in 2001,

Firms working on the $670-million Mississippi River Bridge in St. Louis have shattered geotechnical records related to one of the bridge’s drilled-shaft concrete foundations while verifying a time-saving, alternate pier plan. Photo: Courtesy MTA Joint Venture Record-breaking load cell makes its final descent at St. Louis. The test, performed this past June, consisted of drilling an 11.5-ft-dia shaft 43.5 ft under the riverbed, then cutting an 11-ft-dia socket more than 23 ft into the underlying limestone bedrock. An Osterberg load cell then was lowered to the bottom of the rock socket, and reinforced concrete was poured into the hole. When

The Texas Transportation Commission has approved the first $250 million of about $2 billion in highway project contracts funded last year by Proposition 12 bond proceeds. Included in the contracts is a major corridor mobility project to widen Interstate 35 north of Waco from four to six lanes. The contract is for $165 million. Nearly 39% of the state’s population lives along the I-35 corridor. Roadway rehabilitation projects in 11 Texas counties account for 12 of the 16 approved projects, which are worth more than $84 million.

When finished in 2011, a flat 3½ -acre piece of land with 20 shipping containers on concrete pads in upstate New York won’t hint at the complexity underneath: 200 flywheel storage devices spinning at Mach 2 to retain and release up to 20 MW of energy on a second-to-second basis. Photo Courtesy Beacon Power LeChase Construction workers put a control trailer in place. Tyngsboro, Mass.-based Beacon Power is developing this first-of-a-kind energy storage facility in Stephentown, N.Y., one of several energy-storage projects that got a push forward from grants, loan guarantees and tax credits made available through the American Recovery

Possibly bowing to congressional pressure, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said on Aug. 23 that it will delay until October its implementation of tougher ground-level ozone rules for powerplants. “We are continuing to carefully consider the proposed options” and public comment received since the rules were proposed in January, EPA said in a statement. The rules had been set to take effect on September 1. But several U.S. senators, citing economic hardships, opposed the new emissions standards in an Aug. 6 letter to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson. The new rules would further tighten limits on sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide

The U.S. Energy Dept. now is seeking alternate locations for captured gas from its planned FutureGen 2.0 coal-fired powerplant project. DOE says it will still proceed with its flagship carbon capture and storage project despite lacking concrete plans on where it will store the carbon emissions. The $1-billion project’s partners were shaken on Aug. 11 when Mattoon, Ill., the long-planned FutureGen site, pulled out of the scheme. Town officials rejected DOE’s altered plans to retrofit a powerplant elsewhere in the state and instead store CO? emissions in a subterranean geological formation beneath Coles County.

Photo: Courtesey Of Texas Christian University Texas Christian University, Forth Worth, said on Aug. 16 that a $105-million renovation of the 80-year-old Amon G. Carter football stadium, the first major overhaul in nearly 55 years, will start later this fall. The renovated stadium will have a seating capacity of 40,000 that can be expanded to more than 50,000 seats. HKS is the project’s designer, and Austin Commercial will serve as the project’s general contractor. Both are based in Dallas.

The Long Beach Board of Harbor Commissioners last week unanimously approved the Environmental Impact Report for the project to replace the aging Gerald Desmond Bridge at the Port of Long Beach with a new, nearly $1-billion span. The Port of Long Beach, in partnership with Caltrans, will oversee the project to design and build a higher, wider bridge that would be parallel to and just north of the existing Gerald Desmond Bridge. Once the new bridge is completed and open, the old structure would be taken down. The project will generate an average of 4,000 jobs a year during the

One of the tallest bridges in the U.S. is about to receive an extensive seismic upgrade, including 2.2 million lb of structural steel. Bids open on Sept. 7 for a $71-million seismic retrofit for the 1970s-era Foresthill Bridge in Auburn, Calif. At 730 ft tall and 2,428 ft long, its retrofit will pose dizzying challenges to the selected contractor. Photo: Courtesy Of Place County Public Works California’s tallest bridge will receive a $71-million seismic upgrade. “We are garnering a lot of interest from contractors,” says Ken Grehm, director of public works for owner Placer County. Grehm has led more than