This letter is a rebuttal to online comments posted by Michael McNally and Robert T. Williams in response to the cover story, “From the Top Down” (ENR 10/31-11/7/22, p. 18), and its associated sidebar about TGE Top Down LLC, where I am chairman.

MoreRNO, a multifaceted infrastructure program that represents the largest investment in Reno-Tahoe International Airport’s history, got underway in October with groundbreaking for a $32-million expansion to the existing ticketing area and lobby.

Top-down construction—assembling the floor of a building on the ground and lifting it into place—has long presented a possible alternative to the labor-intensive process of building steel frames, floors, walls and all components at height.

Dodge data on projected 2022 construction starts in Detroit.

Dodge offers data on projected 2021 construction starts in the Detroit area.

The serpentine approaches of the Gordie Howe Bridge are necessary because of the right-of-way available to the P3 project's designers and the ground, weakened by previous salt mining, has taken extensive remediation to ready it for not one but four projects counting the ports of entry and the new Michigan interchange.

Fiat Chrysler said May 21 that construction will begin immediately on a new, $1.6 billion assembly plant for Jeep Grand Cherokees, a new Jeep SUV and hybrid cars on Detroit's east side.

“In the city of Detroit, there’s a lot of demand for residential. There is a shortage of residential space, [and] there are a lot of projects. They are not of the size and magnitude of the Hudson’s redevelopment [planned to be Detroit’s tallest building], but it is all significant,” Baxa says.

Bridging North America, a partnership of Fluor, ACS Infrastructure Canada and Aecon Group, reached financial close late last month to design, build, finance, operate and maintain the 1.5-mile-long Gordie Howe International Bridge Project for the Windsor-Detroit Bridge Authority under a 36-year, $4.4-billion concessionaire agreement.