Building Is Booming In These 30 Cities, But Don't Expect It To Last

Samantha Sharf

Hudson YardsCOURTESY OF RELATED-OXFORD

With $40.8 billion worth of construction starts tallied last year, the New York City metropolitan area, which includes the five boroughs and the surrounding suburbs, once again had the most new construction spending of any metro area. Hudson Yards, the massive real estate development that opened in Manhattan today, is an emblem of, and a recent force behind, New York’s three-decade construction hot streak.

The largest project started in New York in 2018 was an office tower known as The Spiral that’s expected to cost $1.77 billion to build. The 65-story building, which will be enveloped in a series of tree-laden terraces, is adjacent to the main Hudson Yards development. It’s scheduled for completion in 2022.

Thanks in part to projects like this, New York held on to its top construction starts ranking by a wide margin. That’s despite a 13% decline in construction starts from 2017. The decline is not a sign of a weakening market but rather a reminder that the prior year was exceptional, explains Robert Murray, chief economist at industry data provider Dodge Data & Analytics, who ran the numbers for Forbes.

In 2017, Murray points out, work began on huge institutional projects like the renovations at New York's LaGuardia Airport, the Javits convention center and Penn Station. A slowdown in 2018 was inevitable.