Mortenson opens 40,000-sq-ft BLUlabs R&D center in Fridley

Fridley, Minnesota, August 30, 2025

News Summary

Mortenson has opened BLUlabs, a 40,000-square-foot research and development center in the Northern Stacks industrial park in Fridley, Minnesota. The configurable facility houses fabrication bays, 3D printers, CAD workstations, CNC machines, a plasma table and trade-specific tools, with on-site engineering and fabrication staff to support prototyping and low-volume manufacturing. The center supports cross-functional teams—including Mortenson’s solar group—aiming to accelerate field-ready innovation. Separately, a crane-mounted sensor provider released a Control Center dashboard with weather-integrated analytics for steel erection, and Buildots announced a three-year enterprise deployment with Juneau Construction for AI-powered visual progress tracking.

Mortenson opens 40,000-sq-ft BLUlabs R&D center in Fridley as construction tech updates roll out from Versatile and Buildots

Mortenson has opened a new research and development center called BLUlabs in Fridley, Minn., a move intended to give project teams a dedicated place to test and scale construction tools and methods. The facility occupies 40,000 square feet in the Northern Stacks industrial park and was designed and built by Mortenson’s in-house team.

What BLUlabs is and who can use it

The new center is set up as flexible industrial space with configurable bays and work areas to support hands-on activities such as real-world testing, prototyping, product development, and low-volume manufacturing. The facility is available to all Mortenson construction project teams and employees to encourage cross-functional collaboration and faster iteration of ideas.

Tools, staff, and use cases

BLUlabs is outfitted with a broad set of fabrication and design tools, including 3D printers, CAD equipment and software, CNC machines, a plasma cutting table, and dedicated toolsets for carpentry, metal, concrete, and electrical work. Dedicated engineering and fabrication staff are on hand to help design prototypes, run equipment, and support experimentation.

Why Mortenson is investing in a lab

The company frames the lab as an incubator for ideas that will shape future building methods. The innovation team is structured to help project teams develop and scale new products, technologies, and businesses across Mortenson’s portfolio. Ideas from employees will be evaluated, prototyped, and tested in real-world conditions at BLUlabs before wider deployment.

How the lab fits with Mortenson’s track record

Mortenson has a long history of early technology adoption, from work in virtual design and construction in the 1990s to later advances in electrical integration, precast concrete, and AI tools. The company also has a dedicated solar business team now working full time in BLUlabs to develop custom tools, robotics, and software aimed at making utility-scale and remote solar projects safer and more efficient.

Parallel industry updates: Versatile and Buildots

Industry vendors also released notable updates this summer. In July, a provider of crane-mounted sensors announced a refreshed jobsite analytics platform that includes the Control Center, a dashboard aimed specifically at steel erection professionals. The dashboard consolidates crane activity, sequence progress, and milestone tracking into one view so project managers and field leaders can follow progress without chasing spreadsheets, calls, or field reports.

The same platform added weather integration to its Explore and Calendar views so teams can plan lifts with temperature, wind, and precipitation data that update as quickly as hourly from project sensors.

Separately, an AI and computer-vision firm announced a three-year enterprise deployment with a Southeast builder that constructs residential and student housing projects. The agreement will implement the firm’s platform across the builder’s entire portfolio to automate on-site progress tracking and provide current project data plus predictive performance metrics. The builder cited immediate improvements in visibility and expects broader gains in organization-wide processes as the platform is used across its projects. An example of the builder’s work is an 800,000-square-foot, three-building student housing complex at the University of Tennessee.

Industry context and next steps

Construction technology continues to evolve rapidly, with both contractors and vendors pushing updates to capture more jobsite data, speed delivery, and reduce onsite risk. Mortenson positions BLUlabs as a practical step toward increased industrialization in construction, giving teams a controlled place to trial tools before broad rollout. The new center is intended to support testing at scale, cross-team collaboration, and the creation of deployable tools and processes for Mortenson projects in commercial, institutional, and energy sectors.

The combined moves — a contractor opening a large R&D facility while vendors expand analytics and AI deployments — reflect a broader focus on turning jobsite data into operational advantage and tighter connections between field work and fabrication or software development.

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Source and author note

Reporting and compilation by Novid Parsi, Contributing Editor, covering AEC industry trends, innovations, and best practices.

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FAQ

Key features at a glance

Item	Primary features	Intended users
BLUlabs (Mortenson)	40,000-sf configurable bays; 3D printers; CAD; CNC; plasma cutting; carpentry, metal, concrete, electrical tools; engineering and fabrication staff; low-volume manufacturing	All Mortenson project teams and innovation staff; solar team working on utility-scale tools
Control Center (crane analytics)	Consolidated crane activity, sequence progress, milestone tracking; weather integration for lifts; project dashboard for steel erection	Steel erection project managers, foremen, project executives
Buildots enterprise deployment	AI and computer vision for automated progress tracking; latest project data and predictive performance metrics; portfolio-wide rollout under three-year agreement	General contractors and builders of residential and student housing

Article compiled from industry reporting and company announcements. Author: Novid Parsi, Contributing Editor — Your source for AEC industry trends, innovations, and best practices.

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Additional Resources

• ENR: Tech Roundup — Mortenson opens BLUlabs center; Versatile debuts dashboard
• Wikipedia: Mortenson
• ENR: Mortenson BLUlabs image
• Google Search: Mortenson BLUlabs image
• BD+C: Mortenson opens research and development center
• Google Scholar: Mortenson research and development center
• Twin Cities Business: Mortenson opens advanced research facility in Fridley
• Encyclopedia Britannica: Mortenson
• Mortenson (official site)
• Google News: Mortenson BLUlabs