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February 6, 2013 • Vol. XXV • No. 3 • 470 Maryland Drive • Ft. Washington, PA 19034 • 215-885-2900 • Toll Free 800-523-2200 • Fax 215-885-2910
Inside
Batter Up … Barons Eager to Play in New Home By Cindy Riley CEG CORRESPONDENT
JCB Helps to Unearth Buried Spitfires…8
AED Hol ds Annual Summit, CONDEX Show…18
Construction teams in downtown Birmingham, Ala., are working at a near-record pace to complete a $64 million baseball stadium that will be home to the Birmingham Barons. The minor league team, affiliated with the Chicago White Sox, will play its opening game at the new Regions Field in mid-April 2013. City leaders and Barons executives broke ground on the development in February 2012. The park is located at First Avenue South and 14th Street South, directly across from the nationally recognized Railroad Park. Regions Field, as it will be known, will seat 8,500 fans, 3,300 fewer than Regions Park in Hoover, where the team played for more than two decades. Currently filled with construction cranes, cement trucks and steel beams, the property is undergoing a dramatic transformation. The actual stadium — or seating bowl — Birmingham Barons photo being excavated is among the numerous tasks laid out for Currently filled with construction cranes, cement trucks and steel beams, the construction crews, who are working long hours to meet the property is undergoing a dramatic transformation. spring 2013 deadline. According to Jimmy Shaw, senior program manager of general contractor Robins & Morton, “The playing surface sits about 18 to 20 feet below the street level. So, as you walk into the stadium from First Avenue South and 14th Street, you’ll enter the stadium and actually walk down see STADIUM page 66
Helicopter Takes Out Crane in London…2 4
Table of Contents ................4 Attachment Section ....27-29 Truck & Trailer Section ........ ......................................31-34 Recycling Section ........35-43 Parts Section ................44-45 Auction Section ..........60-69 Business Calendar ............64 Advertisers Index ..............70
Firms Optimistic: Outlook for 2013 Appears Strong Significantly more construction firms are planning to add new staff than plan to cut staff while demand for many types of private sector construction projects should increase this year according to survey results released Jan. 15 by the Associated General Contractors of America and Computer Guidance Corporation. The survey, conducted as part of Tentative Signs of a Recovery: The 2013 Construction Industry Hiring and Business Outlook, provides a generally optimistic outlook for the year even as firms worry about rising costs and declining public sector demand for construction. see OUTLOOK page 48
Bridge, Highway Project Promises to Ease Traffic By Peter Hildebrandt CEG CORRESPONDENT
For those heading to Myrtle Beach from central and northern parts of South Carolina, it can, at times, feel like the old saying, “you can’t get there
Most of the roadway work will be involved with widening and overlaying the existing pavement on SC 327 and constructing new ramps and loops at I-95.
from here,” is the truth. Over the years there has been talk of an interstate link to Myrtle Beach to make it a bit more accessible. But apparently any plans for such a highway at this point remain on the drawing board. In the meantime construction work to make existing traffic flow a bit more smoothly continues. One critical exchange is the place where four-lane highway 327 intersects I-95 which takes motorists north or south. Many travelers here need to reach I-20 and head up to the state’s capital at Columbia. Since the late fall 2011 improvements to this interchange have been under construction. The completion date for the work is late 2013. see ROADWAY page 62