CNBC
Professional investors entered the new year — and a new day for U.S. politics — with high expectations, tempered with caution over what could go wrong. Optimism for economic growth hit a two-year high among those responding to the latest Bank of America Merrill Lynch fund managers survey.

REJournals.com
The cost of new development is rising in the Chicago area and across the country, driven in part by increasing labor costs and risk-adverse lenders. On the plus side, construction firms are getting better at using technology and lean processes to save time and money while improving the quality of projects.

Live Design
Terry Concert Hall had served Jacksonville University (JU) in Jacksonville, Florida, well for nearly 25 years, but it was time for an upgrade. The hall had undergone no major modifications since opening in 1992.

CISCA
Registration is now open for the 2017 CISCA Convention! Early Convention registration ends February 28th and pre-registration for the Convention ends March 17th. Click here to register. Call for Awards entries are now open - click here for more information. Submissions are due by January 31, 2017. An early bird entry fee is available for entries received by January 13, 2017. Click here for information on the new awards criteria and awards submissions process.

Construction Dive
A journalism degree isn’t the typical precursor to a career in homebuilding. But for Pierrette Tierney-Magleby, 37, who earned a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Southern California and worked for CNN’s London bureau, it was an unexpected launching point.

Bonitz, Inc.
Bonitz Flooring Group continues growth and is pleased to announce expansion into the Jacksonville, Florida market. Industry veteran Mike Anderson joins the leadership team and is responsible for the Jacksonville office.

The New York Times
On Dec. 23, on the Upper East Side of New York City, yet another construction worker died. His name has not yet been released, but he was the 31st to die on the job in the city in the past two years. He was working on a nonunion work site, as were 28 of the 30 others. Fabian Para, who worked nearby, explained that "he was on the third floor, and he was wearing a harness but wasn’t hooked to a cable, and when he fell, he just went down."

Reuters
Opportunities exist everywhere — not just in your own home country or hometown. While much has been said about globalization and our increasingly connected world, if you're starting a business, your first thought might not be to launch it in, say, Denmark.