The Seattle Times
Builders broke ground on the most new homes in nine years last month, a response to strong demand that should lift the economy. The Commerce Department says home construction soared 25.5 percent to a seasonally adjusted 1.3 million in October. That is the biggest gain since July 1982. New construction is also at the highest level since August 2007, months before the Great Recession began.

CISCA
Award winners will be recognized at the dinner on Tuesday, March 28, 2017, during the CISCA Convention in Las Vegas, Nevada. The awards ceremony features a multi-media presentation of all submissions and winning projects. Winners will be featured in the Acoustical Interior Construction magazine and will receive other public relations promotions.

Construction Dive
The National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index held steady from October with a mark of 63 in November, the NAHB reported on Wednesday, noting that the monthly reading of optimism among its membership occurred, for the most part, before the Nov. 8 elections.

CNN Money
Will Donald Trump be able to lift the U.S. economy out of its funk? That remains to be seen. But one CEO who voted for Trump thinks he will be able to make America's roads, bridges and highways great again.

Forbes
Forbes 11th annual Best States for Business list measures which states have the best business climates and are poised to succeed going forward. Leading the way for the third straight year is Utah, which also ranked on top between 2010 and 2012. Only Virginia in 2013 interrupted Utah’s reign this decade as the Best State for Business.

Engineering News-Record
As President-elect Donald J. Trump starts to assemble a team of advisers to staff his administration, the construction industry is parsing his post-election comments for inklings about his priorities and plans when he takes office in January.

Consulting-Specifying Engineer
The very idea of suspending ceilings beneath automatic fire sprinklers sounds topsy-turvy. Sprinklers, the mind insists, must project into the space they protect so they can release their deluge without interference — even if it means cutting holes in ceiling panels and dropping pipes so sprinklers extend to the underside of the ceiling.

Urban Land
With no end in sight to the boom in urban and close-in suburban multifamily housing construction, developers are eager for ways to save money on ever-increasing land and construction costs. So they flocked to the 2016 ULI Fall Meeting session on "Strategies for Urban Apartment Development" featuring Dick Knapp, senior vice president of acquisitions at Foulger-Pratt; Brian Dinerstein, president of the Dinerstein Companies; Bruce Dorfman, managing director with Trammell Crow Residential; and Brandt Bowden, chief investment officer of the Hanover Company.