Tag: construction activity

February 23, 2024

Despite this year’s initial sluggishness, Branch said expected interest rate cuts in the second half of 2024 should push some of these projects in the planning queue through to break ground, leading to a rising trend in construction activity as […]

December 14, 2023

While an easing of pandemic-era price spikes is welcome news, construction has been grappling with new challenges this year. High interest rates, strict equity requirements, banks that have restricted or exited commercial real estate and extreme lead times for certain […]

November 14, 2023

The push to bring manufacturing back to the United States is unlike anything Didi Caldwell has seen in her career. Private companies have spent more than half a trillion dollars since 2021 to onshore facilities back to the U.S., according […]

June 29, 2023

Strong nonresidential construction activity is maintaining price pressures on concrete, steel and other key materials, said Chris Delaney, commercial manager in the Americas division at construction consultancy firm Linesight. After a brief drop in the second half of 2022, steel […]

November 30, 2022

High interest rates have begun to take their toll on key construction industry measurements, said Richard Branch, chief economist at Dodge, in a press release shared with Construction Dive. For example, the Architecture Billings Index, a forward-looking indicator for construction […]

September 8, 2022

In July, the index reached a 14-year high, and August’s reading just more than a percentage point below that apex can still be interpreted as positive, particularly as a leading indicator for spending in the next 12 months, Dodge said […]

July 21, 2022

Branch said construction indicators are likely to be more volatile than normal, particularly in the commercial sector. The downbeat nonresidential numbers, which helped drag all of construction down 5% in June, came on the heels of the Federal Reserve’s Beige […]

August 5, 2021

In a 16-page roadmap of the initiative, AGC pointed to the fact that while construction activity accounts for just 1% to 2% of U.S. manmade greenhouse gas emissions, buildings themselves consume nearly 40% of the nation’s energy, and are the […]

January 12, 2021

Last year saw some construction projects stalled because of stay-at-home orders related to the novel coronavirus or just general uncertainty about what the long-term impact of the global pandemic would be on the economy. However, U.S. contractors like Mortenson, AECOM […]

July 6, 2020

U.S. put-in-place construction spending, during the coronavirus health crisis, has benefitted from the carryover of work begun last year. 2019 construction starts included an inordinately large number of mega projects valued at $1 billion or more each. There were 35 […]

April 23, 2020

Associated Builders and Contractors Chief Economist Anirban Basu also sees a steep decline in activity for U.S. commercial builders. He told Construction Dive he believes it will occur in three phases. Phase one includes the current impact of social distancing […]

April 15, 2020

A new, artificial intelligence-driven tool uses live field data to measure the ups and downs of U.S. commercial construction activity since the COVID-19 pandemic began. Unlike many macroeconomic indicators that tend to lag, the OxBlue Activity Index from construction technology […]

February 12, 2020

While the value of multifamily starts declined overall, some of the top markets have been holding fairly steady and even saw starts increase last year. In fact, multifamily was the main driver of construction activity in York City last year, […]

October 3, 2019

Industry experts, economists and construction executives rely on a long list of economic indicators to help them forecast the future of the business. But predicting what’s on the horizon is tricky, said Associated Builders and Contractors chief economist Anirban Basu, […]

October 2, 2019

The U.S. cities of New York City (166 projects), Dallas (162 projects), Los Angeles (158 projects) and Houston (146 projects) grabbed the largest share of the hotel project pipeline. Globally, four hotel companies made up more than half of construction […]