Groundbreaking was held July 12 for the $5.5 million Heights at Thorn Hill, a flex office being developed by Elmhurst and built by Burchick Construction. A. Martini & Co. is starting construction on a $2.7 million renovation of PNC Firstside Center's cafeteria. Rycon is building a new 24,600 sq. ft. medical office for WVU Medicine in Waynesburg. Facility Support Services was awarded the $1.2 million renovation at UPMC Hampton Fields.

Bidding has slowed to a crawl, which is not unusual for mid-July. Two interesting divergent trends are continuing. Bids in the public construction market remain highly competitive. In the wake of last month's bids on Peters Township High School, Woodland Hills took bids last week on an addition and alterations to Dickson Intermediate School and the numbers were well under the published budget and on top of one another. (See the results at the Builders Exchange site.) On the other hand, bidding on large private projects (especially those that won't start until 2019) are coming in higher, with fewer bidders. This trend seems to reflect concerns from specialty contractors about available labor and productivity in the coming 6-18 months. The higher numbers also reflect increases across most material categories. The combination of anticipated tariffs and pent-up profits has pushed construction material costs up at twice the rate of overall inflation.