While debate rages over whether the Keystone XL pipeline should be built for exporting Canadian oil sands to the U.S., the matter is a moot point in Whiting, Ind. There, more than 8,000 tradesmen are at work on the multibillion-dollar modernization of a BP refinery, an undertaking that will allow BP to process more heavy Canadian crude delivered by pipeline to the Midwest. Situated on a 1,400-acre site touching three cities, the 121-year-old refinery is the sixth-largest facility of its kind in U.S. and the third in the Midwest to recently be upgraded or to introduce equipment for the purpose

 BoschertMike Boschert has been named senior project manager with St. Louis-based contractor, design-build and construction management firm Paric. Boschert joined the firm in 2007 as an engineer and previously was promoted to project engineer. He earned a bachelor's degree in construction management at Kansas State University.     Walter Rymsza has joined Chicago-based engineer Alfred Benesch & Co. as senior project manager/director of railroad structures. A structural engineer with more than 30 years of experience, Rymsza specializes in the design of railroad bridges, foundations and retaining walls as well as soil mechanics and the structural rating of railroad bridges. DarmodyJoseph D. Darmody has

It was during a design charette in 2005 that project executives with Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects and KJWW Engineering Consultants, designers of the University of Illinois Business Instructional Building, first broached the subject of constructing the facility in accordance with LEED standards.

It was billed as a year of recovery, but 2011 proved anything but for the construction industry in the Midwest and elsewhere.

  Although some key market indicators, including a recent survey of backlogs by the Associated Builders and Contractors Inc., show construction activity in the Midwest trailing activity in the South and Northeast, the region led in February's Architectural Billings Index (ABI), according to the Washington D.C.-based American Institute of Architects.The index, which provides a glimpse of future nonresidential construction spending activity, remained in positive territory in February for the fourth month in a row, with a score of 51.0, up from 50.9 in January. By comparison, the Midwest regional average score was 56.0, followed by the South with 51.3, the

Now that engineers have determined that a ruptured diaphragm plate led to the failure of a pair of cables on a 2,200-ft cable-stayed suspension bridge in Minneapolis, they are turning their attention to potential causes of the rupture, as well as fractures uncovered on two additional plates in late February. Photo Courtesy of the Minneapolis Department of Public Works The Martin Olav Sabo Bridge, a on a 2,200-ft cable-stayed structure bridge in Minneapolis, remains closed as investigators attempt to determine why a diaphragm plate supporting one its cables ruptured. Meantime, city officials say they are satisfied with results of an

Related Article: Transportation Institutional Work Dominate Rankings Top Starts In The Tristate Region Rank Project Location Project Cost Owner Project Team 1 Delta/JFK IAT Redevelopment Terminal 4, Concourse B Queens, N.Y. $1.2 billion Delta Airlines GC Turner Construction Architect JV of Skidmore Owings & Merrill and Arup 2 Hudson Transmission Line Ridgefield, N.J.-New York, N.Y. $850 million Hudson Transmission Partners EPC Contractor JV of Siemens and Prysmian Cables & Systems Engineering/Architecture Burns & Roe 3 No. 7 Subway Line Extension — Systems, Finishes, Core and Shell of Site A New York, N.Y. $542 million MTA Capital Construction CM JV of

Although U.S. construction employment hit a two-year high in January, it remains below peak levels in 329 out of 337 metro areas, including Chicago-Joliet-Naperville, Ill, where employment has declined by 35 percent since peaking at 187,200 jobs in 2001, according to data compiled by the Arlington, Va.-based Associated General Contractors of America (AGC). On a percentage basis, job losses in the Chicago-Joliet-Naperville area were the fourth worst in the nation, behind Phoenix-Mesa-Glendale, Ariz.; Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, Calif.; and Las Vegas-Paradise, Nev.Year-over-year data present a mixed picture for the Midwest, with Illinois, Ohio and Indiana showing employment gains from December 2010 to

Although average construction backlogs in the Midwest remained largely unchanged for the fourth quarter of 2011, backlogs slid 3.2% nationwide, from 8.1 months to 7.8 months, for the same period, according to Washington, D.C.-based Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC). Backlogs in middle states, including Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin and Missouri, rose from 6.22 months to 6.53 months between the third and fourth quarters, putting the region roughly on par with Western states, but well behind the Northeastern and Southern regions, whose backlogs for the fourth quarter averaged 7.99 months and 8.92 months, respectively.“The disparity between regional construction is on the

Overhead, an El train rumbles across Chicago's Devon-Sheridan viaduct. Below, amid cracks, spalls and exposed rebar, a network of strain gauges measures the amount of stress that has shifted from the original concrete structure to new supplementary steel shoring. As the structure continues to deteriorate, primarily from exposure to deicing chemicals, the steel columns and their concrete footings are expected to absorb more of the loading imposed by trains, the roadbed and the structure itself.The gauges measure the elastic movement of the steel columns each time a train crosses the overpass—as many as 450 times a day. The greater the