Hey crew,

Tariffs are hitting wallets hard — material costs jumped 2.8% this year. But there's good news: the industry's heading for $2.24 trillion in spending next year.

Stay tuned, next week we are diving into federal contracting with Stan Uhlig.

Oil ripped past $100 a barrel this weekend, and that is bad news for anybody trying to get a project out of the ground. When fuel jumps, everything gets uglier: trucking, material delivery, equipment, insurance, and even whether developers feel confident enough to start the job at all. Translation: some owners are already moving into wait-and-see mode, and the thin margin projects are the first ones to get smoked. If you’re a GC, this is your reminder that cheap bids with no cushion are how you win work today and lose money tomorrow

On March 6, M. A. Mortenson was awarded a $610 million USDA facility job in Edinburg, Texas, and four firms were put on a $165 million construction-services vehicle for Fort Lee, Virginia.

In Florida, USACE said Palm Beach Harbor dredging is moving under a beach renourishment contract worth more than $20 million.

Takeaway: if you want steadier work in this market, go where the funding is already attached and the owner is already moving

If you’re looking for more project opportunities, add your company to our subcontractor list. We work with general contractors across different markets, and when they need help in a certain trade or area, we check our network first. It costs nothing to join. You just fill out the form and tell us your trade, location, and service range. Click here to join for free.

The biggest data center markets are finally slowing down. CBRE says primary hubs like Northern Virginia, Atlanta, Dallas-Fort Worth, Chicago, Phoenix, Silicon Valley, New York Tri-State, and Hillsboro had 5,994 MW under construction at the end of 2025, down from 6,350 MW a year earlier, while vacancy is sitting at a brutal 1.4%.

Why? Permitting, zoning, and power procurement are jamming up the big markets. That means more activity is shifting into smaller and frontier markets, where 64% of U.S. data center capacity under construction is now being built.

And let’s not ignore the growing local backlash; many residents now see data centers as eyesores that cost communities money while delivering few jobs. In some markets, builders are now getting personal with the communities they affect.

We are not an investment firm and nothing we say in this newsletter will ever point you in any direction, but I did ask my guy who knows a thing or two about the long play. He told me, look to power. Not the Robert Greene kind. This one

Copper. specifically. But when you’re purchasing to build, things are not looking so good.

22%. That’s how much copper wire and cable prices were up year over year in ABC’s latest detailed materials read, and ABC’s newer January update still showed nonresidential construction input prices up 2.9% from a year earlier. The BLS also said nonferrous metals rose 4.8% in January alone. So no, material risk did not disappear just because lumber stopped being the headline.

7.1%. That’s the annualized pace of nonresidential construction input cost increases to start 2026. January alone saw input prices rise 0.7% month over month, with copper wire, cable, iron, steel, and industrial controls getting hit by tariff pressure