Mergers and acquisitions have heated up recently in the engineering sector. Recent deals include the merger of Clough, Harbour & Associates (CHA), Albany, N.Y., with RW Armstrong.

Indianapolis, earlier this month. The combined $210-million firm has 1,250 employees, which CHA intends to expand to 2,000 by 2016. Terms of the merger were not disclosed.

Under the deal, RW Armstrong has become a wholly owned subsidiary of CHA.

RW Armstrong, which will retain its name, has 500 employees in 11 offices in the U.S. as well as offices in Azerbaijan, the Middle East, North Africa and the Pacific Rim.

CHA, which has 30 offices along the East Coast, was named ENR New York's 2012 Design Firm of the Year.

In May, Patchogue, N.Y.-based BBS Architects & Engineers announced its acquisition of Ward Associates, a Bohemia, N.Y.-based master planning, architecture, landscape architecture, sports facilities design, civil engineering and surveying firm. Terms were not disclosed.

BBS says the deal expands its footprint, particularly in the landscape architecture and civil engineering fields. The combined company’s project portfolio is valued at $220 million and has more than 50 employees. The company has renamed itself BBS Architects, Landscape Architects and Engineers, PC.

Other M&A deals this year include Thornton Tomasetti’s purchase of Portland, Maine-based Fore Solutions, a seven-employee, green building consulting firm, for an undisclosed sum. The acquired firm operates under Thornton Tomasetti’s new Building Sustainability practice. Thornton Tomasetti says that about half of new construction nationwide will likely incorporate some measure of sustainability by 2015.