Forklifts yielded to backhoes Monday as Vertical Cold Logistics and Clayco broke ground on ArcticLoft, a 16‑story automated freezer warehouse rising where meatpackers once ruled Chicago’s Back of the Yards. The $410‑million project will stand 230 feet, eclipsing Houston’s Cubic Cold to become the tallest temperature‑controlled building in North America.

Engineers will stack composite modules around a concrete core, embedding carbon dioxide refrigeration loops and robotic crane aisles capable of moving four thousand pallets per hour. A rooftop ammonia absorption chiller captures waste heat to warm loading docks, while 3.5 megawatts of solar trackers on an adjacent brownfield offset operational power.

Walsh Construction projects 350 union trades on site at peak, reserving twenty percent apprenticeship hours for neighborhood residents displaced when the stockyards closed decades ago. When ArcticLoft opens in late 2027, it will sustain 180 permanent jobs, store 120 million pounds of food, and slash regional diesel traffic significantly by replacing five suburban cross‑dock trips with one downtown rail spur.

Construction supervisors know paperwork can sink a schedule faster than rain. Wijs, a cloud-based health and safety platform, replaces binders and spreadsheets with intelligent workflows that automatically chase signatures, flag overdue inspections, and instantly broadcast injury alerts to the relevant personnel. Crews see simple mobile prompts; managers watch compliance fill up like a dashboard fuel gauge.

Behind the scenes, the Control Centre ripples data across projects, users, and assets the instant it is entered. Failed ladder check? Maintenance receives a targeted ticket while the deficiency registry is being built. Upcoming forklift training? Workers receive reminders until completion, and safety managers skim a color-coded matrix instead of navigating endless rows and columns.

Analytics transform raw submissions into real-time risk dashboards, exposing hotspots before accidents occur and making safety audits almost a copy-and-paste process. Early adopters report double-digit drops in paperwork hours and insurance premiums, freeing up their time for building rather than babysitting forms. With Wijs, safety finally scales as fast as the jobsite.

Excavators rumbled under downtown Austin at dawn Monday as Capital Metro officially launched construction of Project Connect’s first light‑rail tunnel, a 1.6‑mile twin‑bore stretching beneath Congress Avenue between Cesar Chavez Street and 11th Street. City leaders and musicians performed a guitar‑pick ribbon‑cutting while utility crews began staging dewatering pumps near Lady Bird Lake.

Skanska‑Stacy and Witbeck will sink a 120‑foot launch shaft beside the Convention Center, assembling a nine‑meter diameter earth‑pressure TBM named “Violet Crown.” The machine will advance approximately 50 feet daily, quietly installing precast, fiber-reinforced concrete segments with embedded vibration sensors. Spoil will ride covered conveyor barges to a Manor quarry reclamation project.

The $3.4 billion phase combines a recent $1.2 billion FTA Capital Investment Grant, local transit sales tax revenue, community benefit bonds, and an Austin Energy green power surcharge earmarked for tunnel ventilation. Agreements guarantee 2,800 union jobs and 40 percent contracts for disadvantaged businesses. Pilot trains will test speeds late in 2031 ahead of revenue service to North Lamar in 2032.

South Carolina’s Building Codes Council on Tuesday unanimously approved seawater‑based closed‑loop air‑conditioning systems for one‑ and two‑family dwellings along the hurricane‑prone Atlantic coast, effective July 21. The amendment reclassifies titanium heat exchangers as prescriptive HVAC equipment, eliminating engineer variances that previously plagued custom builders despite successful commercial installations in Charleston Marina Village. Officials cited new salinity corrosion data, reassuring regulators.

In a pilot conducted on Wednesday on Sullivan’s Island, Coastal Breeze Homes drilled two 150‑foot supply wells and laid PE‑RT piping before noon; technicians reported 64‑degree inlet temperatures despite a 92‑degree heat index. A 3‑ton water‑source heat pump cooled the 2,200‑square‑foot cottage using 40 percent less electricity than a new SEER‑22 air‑source unit.

Duke Energy forecasts summer peak‑load savings of 1.8 megawatts if 5,000 qualifying homes adopt the technology over two years, enough to defer a substation upgrade on islands. Mortgage lender Truist announced a quarter-point discount for GreenCooling, and State Farm promised insurance credits, which can also double as emergency fire-suppression sources during hurricane evacuations.

Introduction
Good morning, Team! Today’s toolbox talk addresses preventing struck-by injuries from dump trucks. Dump trucks pose significant hazards when backing up or unloading.

Why It Matters
Struck-by incidents involving dump trucks can cause serious injury or death.

Strategies for Prevention

Discussion Questions

Conclusion
Proper spotting, visibility, and clear communication prevent dump truck injuries.

Stay alert, stay safe!