TheJobWalk E.90

What a week for construction, the numbers are staggering!

Ferrovial was selected to deliver Tennessee's $9.2 billion I-24 corridor, SpaceX unveiled plans to build a $100 billion Starbase in Louisiana, and Gravis Robotics secured $200 million from SoftBank in the largest Series A in construction robotics history. Genentech will invest roughly $750 million in a new fill-finish manufacturing facility at its Hillsboro, Oregon campus, Micron Technology launched Micron Research Labs, a Boise-based research hub backed by a planned $10 billion investment over the next decade, and Tesla proposed a $10.1 billion solar cell manufacturing facility in Fort Bend County, Texas, dubbed Project Crystal Sun. Let's dive in!

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Ferrovial has landed the largest private infrastructure deal in Tennessee history, tapped to deliver the I-24 Southeast Choice Lanes project in the fast-growing Nashville region.

The 26-mile project will add choice lanes in both directions along I-24 between Nashville and Murfreesboro, targeting one of the corridor's most congested stretches. It marks the first public-private partnership in state history.

A consortium led by Ferrovial, called DriveTN and including Transurban and Tikehau Star Infra, will finance, design, build, operate and maintain the project.

The price tag comes in at 9.2 billion dollars, with a projected concession value of 24.8 billion dollars for Tennessee.

The lanes will run from I-40 east of downtown Nashville to I-840 near Murfreesboro, giving drivers a paid option for steadier travel times while easing pressure on the free lanes too.

Ferrovial points to similar projects in Dallas-Fort Worth, Charlotte and Washington, D.C. as proof the model works, with Virginia's 66 Express lanes cutting peak travel times by up to 50 percent.


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SpaceX has unveiled plans for its largest launch site to date, a $100 billion facility in Louisiana called Starbase, Louisiana. Construction is set to begin next year on the 125,000 acre property.

The new base will support thousands of Starship flights annually, with missions targeting Earth orbit, the Moon and Mars. SpaceX expects to launch its first Starship flight from the site in 2029, expanding beyond its current operations in Texas and Florida.

The project is projected to create more than 3,000 direct jobs, with the Louisiana Economic Development agency estimating average wages nearly triple the regional average. Another 8,100 indirect jobs are expected to follow.

State officials described the development as a chance to position Louisiana as a major hub for next-generation aerospace work, citing the scale of infrastructure needed to boost launch frequency.

The announcement comes months after SpaceX's record-setting Nasdaq debut, with shares still trading above their offer price despite recent declines.

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Genentech will invest approximately $750 million in a new device fill-finish manufacturing facility at its Hillsboro, Oregon campus, doubling the site's size. The project is expected to create 250 high-wage manufacturing jobs and roughly 200 construction jobs, with commercial operations beginning in 2031. The facility will produce advanced drug delivery devices like pre-filled syringes and autoinjectors, strengthening Genentech's U.S. manufacturing network and building on nearly two decades of operations in Hillsboro.

Micron Technology has unveiled Micron Research Labs, a long-horizon research hub headquartered in Boise, backed by a planned $10 billion investment over the next decade. The institution will unite academia, government, startups and industry to pursue breakthroughs in memory, compute architectures and semiconductor manufacturing. Micron expects to break ground on the flagship facility in 2027, with the campus designed to host hundreds of researchers. The investment builds on more than $250 billion the company has separately committed to U.S. manufacturing and R&D.

Amazon has announced a new manufacturing facility in Austin, Texas, extending its investment in the state to more than $100 billion since 2010. The multi-billion-dollar facility will create 300 to 500 high-paying jobs in manufacturing and engineering, producing robotics systems that assist employees with repetitive tasks and heavy lifting. The project adds to Amazon's current Austin workforce of 17,000, part of 86,000 employees statewide.

Tesla has proposed a $10.1 billion solar cell manufacturing facility in Fort Bend County, Texas, called Project Crystal Sun. The plant would produce photovoltaic cells and solar modules, employing 9,712 workers once operational and more than 1,000 during construction. Tesla is seeking state tax incentives and could begin construction this year, targeting operations by early 2029. The project would significantly expand Tesla's solar manufacturing footprint beyond its current California engineering and Buffalo, New York assembly operations.

Gravis Robotics has secured $200 million from SoftBank in a Series A round, marking the largest such raise in construction robotics history. The investment will fuel the company's expansion of autonomous heavy machinery across jobsites worldwide.

The company, founded in 2022 as a spinout from ETH Zurich, builds artificial intelligence systems built for the chaos of excavation, where equipment actively reshapes the ground instead of simply moving through it.

Gravis trains its models in simulated conditions, helping close the gap between digital rehearsal and the realities of a live site.

At the core of the system is the Gravis Rack, a retrofit kit built to work across major equipment brands, including Caterpillar, John Deere and Volvo. Because the software adapts to different machine sizes without custom reprogramming, it addresses a fragmented equipment market where contractors often run mixed fleets.

Gravis says its technology delivers productivity gains of up to 30 percent over manual operation.

The company also recently joined an $8 million UK government-backed initiative to retrofit excavator fleets, partnering with Flannery Plant Hire on the effort.

The European Southern Observatory's Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) is taking shape atop Cerro Armazones in Chile's Atacama Desert, where it will become the world's largest optical and infrared telescope.

Its primary mirror, spanning 39 meters, will be assembled from 798 hexagonal segments, each roughly five centimeters thick and 1.4 meters across.

ESO awarded the contract for the dome and telescope structure to the ACe Consortium, made up of Astaldi, Cimolai and subcontractor EIE Group, in 2016. Cimolai has led the effort since Astaldi entered insolvency in 2018.

The mirror segments begin as glass-ceramic blanks made by SCHOTT in Germany, then travel to Safran Reosc in France for polishing and testing.

Construction crews in Chile are currently assembling the massive dome and central support structure that will house the mirrors and instruments. ESO says the main structure is on track for completion in 2027.

The project broke ground in 2014 and passed the halfway mark in 2023, a milestone ESO Director General Xavier Barcons credited to sustained support from member states and industry partners.

Scientific observations are planned to begin in 2028, positioning the ELT to investigate fundamental questions about the origins and structure of the universe.