Good morning, Construction Pros. Record input costs, a mega-campus rising on a former nuclear site, and a labor market that keeps refusing to loosen define this week in construction.
- Ohio uranium plant revived: A former gaseous diffusion plant in Piketon is becoming a $30-40B AI and power campus with up to 35,000 trade positions across its build cycle.
- Copper sets a new record: LME copper hit $14,533 per metric ton, up 16% year-to-date, and switchgear is up 10.3% year-over-year. Your electrical bid margins are the target.
- Multi-skilling changes the math: New national research shows 10 cross-trained workers cover what 14 to 17 single-trade workers accomplish, with 39% more active tool time on the clock.
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📊 MARKET PULSE
LABOR PULSE
This is a seller's market for skilled craft workers. Contractors are holding crews, not expanding: 325,000 open jobs paired with a flat 3.9% hiring rate tells you supply, not demand, is the ceiling. Quit rates ticked up again as specialty journeymen move to mega-project sites chasing higher wages and guaranteed overtime. If you are running a sub or managing a crew right now, retain your best people before a data center or a power plant does it for you. Replacing a lost journeyman in this market takes months.
THE TAKEAWAY
Copper at $14,533/MT and nonresidential input prices up 8.8% year-over-year demand escalation clauses on every metal-heavy scope you are pricing. The Turner BCI at 1,530 means your Q1 2025 cost assumptions are roughly 4.8% light today. Tie your escalation language to specific BLS PPI series codes, not flat percentages, or you are leaving margin on the table.
🏗️ THE BIG MOVES
STRUCTURAL MEP CIVILMortenson Wins $1.9B Royals CMAR in Downtown Kansas City
The Mortenson and McCownGordon joint venture earned the construction manager at risk contract for Kansas City's new 34,000-seat downtown Royals ballpark, a $1.9 billion project anchoring a $3 billion mixed-use district. Structural steel erectors and UA pipefitters face deep subterranean excavation and underpinning work directly adjacent to active transit corridors and existing commercial buildings, all within constrained downtown street closures. At peak, 2,500 to 3,200 trade workers will be on site with an estimated 16,000 construction jobs projected across the life cycle; physical groundbreaking targets May 2027.
MILLWRIGHT MEP ELECTRICAL
USA Rare Earth Breaks Ground on $1.2B Defense Supply Plant in South Carolina
USA Rare Earth broke ground September 9 on an 800,000-square-foot magnet manufacturing campus in Blacksburg, South Carolina, backed by a 10-year Department of Defense off-take agreement with price-floor guarantees. Millwrights and process pipefitters are the critical trade assets here: the plant requires cleanroom HVAC systems, process chemical piping, and heavy machine foundations not common on standard commercial scopes. Peak construction workforce is projected at 1,500 to 2,000 workers drawing industrial craft labor across Upstate South Carolina and the I-85 corridor, with full operational commissioning targeting late 2028.
CIVIL ELECTRICAL
FAA Drops $1.35B in Airport Infrastructure Grants Across All 50 States
The FAA released $1.351 billion in Airport Infrastructure Grants on September 15, the fifth funding tranche under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, covering heavy civil and specialty electrical work at airports nationwide. Airfield paving crews, slipform concrete operators, and airfield lighting electricians are the primary beneficiaries: Davis-Bacon prevailing wage rates apply to every federally funded airport scope. Municipal procurement and solicitations are active now, with site work advancing through the full 2027 construction season across 12,000 to 15,000 cumulative trade positions.
🔦 PROJECT SPOTLIGHT
DATA/TECH ELECTRICAL CIVILOhio's Old Uranium Plant Becomes a $30B AI and Power Mega-Campus
The PORTS Technology Campus in Piketon, Ohio is converting the former Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant into a 10-gigawatt data center and co-generation power complex, with Phase 1 valued at $30 to $40 billion inside a $500 billion multi-decade program.
SoftBank Energy, partnered with the U.S. Department of Energy and AEP Ohio, has already ordered 170 GE Vernova gas turbines for dedicated on-site power, while $4.2 billion in 765-kV transmission upgrades run in parallel. Phase 1 trades include 765-kV high-voltage line workers, power plant EPC boilermakers and pipefitters, hazardous materials remediation crews handling existing nuclear plant infrastructure, structural steel erectors, liquid-cooling mechanical specialists, and low-voltage fiber technicians.
WHY IT MATTERS
This is the largest industrial job site coming online in North America. Phase 1 needs 4,000 trade workers. The full program projects 35,000 craft positions across the build cycle, drawing union talent from Ohio, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Western Pennsylvania. If you hold a 765-kV certification or a power plant EPC license, prime contractors are already moving: guaranteed 60-hour workweeks and per-diem packages are on the table to pull craft workers from across the region.
FAST-41 federal permitting is active, OpenAI and Nvidia anchor tenant leases are finalizing in mid-September 2026, and Phase 1 power and data delivery targets early 2028.
⚡ QUICK HITS
10 multi-skilled workers outperform 17 single-trade workers. National field research from the Simplar Foundation and partners at Arizona State, University of Kansas, and UNC Charlotte shows cross-trained crews boost active tool time by 39%, cutting trade handoff delays and covering the scope of 14 to 17 single-trade workers with just 10 people. Broader trade skills mean higher individual earning potential and fewer idle stretches between sequences.
Jobsite postvention protocols are going industry-wide. Construction wellness leaders are establishing structured 48-hour crisis response plans for the critical period following a worker death, prioritizing immediate peer support and grief counseling to prevent secondary trauma on active sites. The initiative expands the industry's safety focus from prevention to the hours immediately after a loss occurs.
Data center developers are swapping steel for mass timber. With steel mill product prices up 12.4% year-over-year, hyperscale developers are actively testing mass timber framing to cut structural costs and bypass long steel delivery lead times. Skanska reports mass timber compresses erection schedules while expanding work scope for heavy-timber carpenters on tech sector job sites.
The Fed raised rates 25 bps on September 16. A unanimous 12-0 FOMC vote pushed the federal funds target to 3.75% to 4.00%, adding borrowing cost pressure on conventional commercial construction loans already running on thin margins. Tightening capital conditions are stalling marginal commercial starts and widening the gap between mega-project activity and conventional building.
House committee advances the highway bill before the deadline. The BUILD America 250 Act cleared the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee on September 16, reauthorizing federal surface transportation programs before current authorization expires September 30 and securing long-term federal funding baselines for heavy highway crews across all 50 states.
🔢 ONE NUMBER
Multi-skilled crews spend 39% more time on active productive work, covering the scope of 14 to 17 single-trade workers with just 10 people, per national field research published this week.
🔧 THE TOOL
Switchgear is up 10.3% year-over-year and copper wire is up 13.8% to 15%. If you are bidding electrical scope right now, those numbers are eating your margin on fixed-price work. Build BLS PPI series WPU1175 (switchgear and switchboard apparatus) and WPU10260311 (copper wire and cable) into your contract escalation language. Set bid-day index values as your baseline on bls.gov/ppi: any movement beyond 3% in either direction triggers a formula adjustment of base bid times (1 plus material allocation factor times index change divided by baseline). This is cleaner than a flat escalation percentage because neither party can dispute a published federal data series. Log both baseline values the day you sign; BLS updates the first Tuesday of each month.
📚 FURTHER READING
Construction Dive: Multiskilled construction is a win for workers, taxpayers and the industry -- National field study shows cross-training lifts active tool time 39% and opens career advancement paths for craft workers.
Construction Dive: Fed raises rates but construction has a bigger problem -- Why 8.8% annual input price growth is a bigger threat to subs than the Fed's latest hike.
Record copper, a $30 billion power campus rising on a former nuclear site, and 325,000 unfilled jobs: this week's numbers all point in the same direction. What are you seeing on electrical bid pricing right now? 🏗️
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