The New York-area construction market got mixed messages from a pair of new reports, with one predicting New York City”™s overall construction spending will have topped the $30 billion mark for the first time since 2008, but another estimating a 25 percent decline in project bidding activity in the third quarter for future work.
The New York Building Congress said construction spending is on pace to rise 9 percent this year, driven by the World Trade Center, demand for luxury housing, public infrastructure investments and university build outs.
The New York City-based organization estimated spending increased from $28 billion in 2011 to $30.7 billion in 2012, and forecasted $30.2 billion in spending next year followed by $29.1 billion in 2014.
Despite the increase in overall spending, construction employment is forecast to decline slightly ”“ to 110,800 jobs, down from 111,500 jobs in 2011. That would be the lowest level of overall industry employment since 1998.
“The city”™s construction industry has experienced a swift and rather remarkable resurgence,” said Richard Anderson, president of the New York Building Congress, in a prepared statement. “The only disappointment in 2012 is that industry employment has not kept pace with spending due to a number of factors, including a higher prevalence of less-labor intensive construction, improvements in technology and increases in costs.”
Separately, construction-bidding activity dropped 25 percent in the third quarter in the New York area compared to a year earlier, according to BidClerk, though private sector projects were up 8 percent. That was not nearly enough to overcome a 32 percent drop in public infrastructure construction bidding activity, Chicago-based BidClerk reported.
