Even as construction on Tenaska Westmoreland winds down and work is underway on three other combined-cycle plants in Southwestern PA, market forces are disrupting the power generation industry again. Headlines suggest that coal-fired generation is dead but a number of coal-fired plants that had invested in becoming EPA-compliant still operate. Moreover, the cost basis of most of these plants have been amortized, which means they can be cheap bidders on the energy grid supply auctions. With costs rising for construction of new gas-fired plants, this cheap supply dynamic is beginning to stress the pro forma for future combined-cycle plants. Projects like the $350 million, 550MW Invenergy plant in Elizabeth or Ray Bologna’s $420 million, 651MW project near Burgettstown will be harder to pencil out. The results of the 2021/2022 PJM capacity market auction, which closes May 16, will be an indicator of how tight the market will be, and how feasible the additional plant capacity is.

Another of Downtown Pittsburgh’s large adaptive re-use projects is out to bid. Arbor Construction – the construction management arm of Stark Enterprises – is taking bids on renovations to the former 441 Smithfield Street office building, now branded as Icon on Smithfield. The 220,000 square foot building was originally a department store that Stark Enterprises is proposing to adapt to apartments on the upper floors with about 60,000 square feet of retail/dining on the first two floors.

Mascaro Construction was selected as CM for the Health and Fitness Center at Carnegie Mellon, a $45 million renovation of Skibo Hall. RIDC awarded the second phase of Mill 19 to Jendoco Construction. The $12.4 million, 90,000 square foot building should start later this year. Carlow University has its $7 million St. Joseph Hall project out to bid to FSS, Franjo, Massaro, Mosites, Rycon and Volpatt. St. Clair Hospital has short-listed Mascaro, Massaro and Volpatt on its $15 million central plant project.