Good morning, Construction Pros. Copper hit a new record this week, a former Kentucky smelter is becoming a $4B AI campus, and July's labor data shows hiring has returned to a two-year high.
- Copper over $14,800: AI data center demand and a DRC mine flooding are colliding at the LME and electrical contractors need to know this number.
- Brownfield to data campus: A former aluminum smelter with a live 161-kV substation is being converted into a $4B AI facility by Fluor, with Anthropic signed as the anchor tenant.
- Hiring surges in July: Construction job openings hit 326,000 and the industry hiring rate jumped to its highest seasonal reading in two years.
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📊 MARKET PULSE
LABOR PULSE
This is a seller's market for experienced construction labor, especially in electrical, mechanical, and structural. The 4.4% hiring rate is the highest seasonal reading in two years, driven by data center and power infrastructure builds absorbing spring groundbreakings all at once. Workers are largely staying put unless a real premium is on the table. If you're a foreman building out a crew, your competition is the same projects we cover in The Big Moves every week. Overtime guarantees and relocation packages are now table stakes, not extras.
THE TAKEAWAY
Copper at $14,343/MT and steel up 22.5% year-over-year means any bid without a materials escalation clause is a liability right now. The 2.2% single-month jump in nonresidential input prices is the sharpest move since 2022. Lock in long-lead copper and structural steel procurement at contract award and get a PPI trigger in writing before you sign.
🏗️ THE BIG MOVES
Meta Commits $50B to Louisiana: 10 Million Square Feet and 240 Miles of New Transmission
Construction on Meta’s forthcoming data center in Richland Parish, La. Courtesy of Meta
Meta expanded its Richland Parish, Louisiana, commitment to $50 billion, encompassing a 10-million-square-foot data campus designed for 5 GW of IT load and a co-funded grid buildout with Entergy that includes seven new gas-fired generating units and 240 miles of 500-kV transmission lines. The Turner, DPR, and Mortenson joint venture manages construction at a projected peak of 7,500 workers spanning MEP, civil, and utility right-of-way disciplines across Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas, and Arkansas. A $115 million Meta trade training initiative backstops the labor pipeline alongside the campus build, which runs through 2030.
Davie Defense Breaks Ground on $1B Arctic Icebreaker Shipyard in Galveston
Davie Defense broke ground August 24 on a $1 billion heavy industrial shipbuilding facility in Galveston, Texas, designed to construct Arctic icebreaker vessels for military and commercial use, with deep-water berths, specialized fabrication halls, and heavy-lift dock infrastructure. The project draws on marine pile drivers, structural steel welders, heavy riggers, and marine electricians at a projected peak of 1,200 skilled workers along the Texas Gulf Coast industrial corridor. Civil and marine foundation work is underway and vertical construction extends through 2028.
Walmart Drops $1.3B on a 1.5 Million Sq Ft Automated Fulfillment Center in Georgia
Walmart announced plans to break ground in late 2026 on a 1.5-million-square-foot automated fulfillment center in Carnesville, Georgia, at a total capital cost of $1.3 billion as part of its next-generation Southeast distribution network. Structural steel and concrete crews lead the early phases, followed by millwrights and low-voltage electricians integrating multi-level automated material-handling systems across the facility's full footprint. GC bidding is active with primary contractor selection expected in Q4 2026, drawing regional craft labor from the I-85 corridor between metro Atlanta and Upstate South Carolina.
🔦 PROJECT SPOTLIGHT
ELECTRICAL MEP CIVILTeraWulf Justified Data Campus, Hawesville, Kentucky: Brownfield Power Harvesting at $4B Scale
Image courtesy Ky. Public Service Commission
TeraWulf Inc. is converting the 790-acre former Century Aluminum smelter in Hawesville, Kentucky, into a $4.0-to-$4.5 billion AI data campus, with Fluor Corporation as the GC and Anthropic signed as the 20-year anchor tenant on 401 MW of critical IT capacity.
Fluor is executing in four phases: $16.5 million in asbestos and spent pot liner hazmat abatement, an $11.2 million retrofit of the inherited 161-kV on-site substation, modular data hall assembly on cleared pads, and installation of a zero-water closed-loop air-to-fluid cooling system engineered to operate below 55 decibels at the property line. The substation connects directly to five Big Rivers Electric circuits, delivering 482 MW of transmission capacity without the multi-year utility queue delay that blocks most greenfield data center timelines.
WHY IT MATTERS
Brownfield power harvesting is the fastest path from announcement to energized data hall, and Hawesville is the clearest example in the country right now. Pipefitters here are not running standard chilled water loops. They are assembling HDPE and stainless steel manifolds engineered for liquid-to-server-rack cooling, which requires orbital welding credentials and hydrostatic pressure testing at specs most commercial HVAC mechanics have not touched. High-voltage electricians are terminating existing 161-kV feeds through retrofitted switchgear rather than installing new gear from scratch. If you are in western Kentucky or southern Indiana, this is a multi-year premium-rate assignment with trade skills that carry direct value on the next generation of industrial builds.
The Kentucky Public Service Commission approved the 482-MW electric service agreement on August 21, 2026; power ramp begins late 2027 and construction is advancing toward a peak workforce of 1,500 tradespeople.
⚡ QUICK HITS
Hyperscale contractors are now competing for crews. Turner, Clayco, and DPR are offering student loan repayment, travel stipends, and extended onboarding to staff data center builds rather than relying on short-term traveling crews. Field workers on hyperscale projects now have direct access to employer-funded educational benefits alongside per diems and mobilization bonuses.
JE Dunn builds a dedicated power division. JE Dunn launched a Power Generation business unit on August 31, targeting utility, data center, and industrial energy markets, drawing on 220-plus completed power sector projects. High-voltage electricians and industrial tradespeople gain a direct pipeline into a growing book of power infrastructure work.
IIJA funding goes flat through December 11. The House passed a continuing resolution maintaining current federal spending levels and excluding advance IIJA appropriations, with the surface transportation authorization expiring September 30. Heavy civil and highway crews should watch state DOT project lettings closely; delayed authorization can push bid schedules into Q1 2027.
Foreign switchgear faces a federal procurement ban. A presidential executive order published September 2 bans foreign bulk-power equipment from critical infrastructure and gives DOE 120 days to draft enforcement regulations. Electrical superintendents and procurement teams on energy and data center builds need to audit their specs now.
Suffolk wins a $278M progressive design-build. Suffolk Construction secured a $278 million contract for a new dental school and clinical facility at UCSF's Mission Bay campus, announced September 1, 2026. The build locks in multi-year man-hours for West Coast trade contractors across specialized clinical, laboratory, and collaborative educational spaces.
🔢 ONE NUMBER
Unfilled construction job openings in July 2026, the highest vacancy count since early 2022, up 9.4% in a single month.
🔧 THE TOOL
The executive order published September 2 bans foreign bulk-power equipment from critical infrastructure and gives DOE 120 days to finalize enforcement rules. If your project touches energy generation, data centers, or grid work, that window is your lead time: pull your procurement specs now and flag any transformers, switchgear, or storage systems sourced from restricted foreign manufacturers.
Most commercial contracts already carry a regulatory compliance clause, so properly documented substitutions can flow up as a cost change event, but only if you catch the issue before equipment goes to fabrication. Call your major equipment reps this week, get country-of-origin confirmation in writing, and update your approved materials list. Doing this in October beats doing it in January when the enforcement regulations land and you are already mid-fab on a flagged transformer.
📚 FURTHER READING
Construction Dive: 'It's about taking care of people': How top contractors staff data center jobs - how Turner, Clayco, and DPR are using stipends, loan repayment, and re-recruiting to keep experienced crews on hyperscale sites.
ENR: Presidential Order Bans Use of Bulk-Storage Power Equipment from Certain Foreign Actors - what the new EO means for procurement compliance on energy and data center builds.
Copper at record highs, 326,000 jobs sitting empty, and two industrial groundbreakings in a single week: this build is not slowing down. What is your biggest materials headache heading into Q4? 🏗️
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