NYC construction industry generated $66B in 2016: report

Spending hit $42.4B last year, New York Building Congress claims

Carlo Scissura and an NYC construction site (Credit: NYC.gov and Getty Images)
Carlo Scissura and an NYC construction site (Credit: NYC.gov and Getty Images)

The construction industry in New York City generated $66.3 billion last year, thanks in large part to a record amount of spending.

A new report by the New York Building Congress adjusts 2016’s total construction spending to $42.4 billion, slightly lower than earlier projections of $43 billion. Still, the figure represents the first time in the city’s history that spending crossed the $40 billion threshold. A majority of this spending — $17.1 billion — was in non-residential construction, which includes office, institutional and hotel projects. Government construction followed with $12.7 billion and then residential with $12.6 billion, according to the report.

The total economic impact is up from 2015, when the industry generated $64.9 billion, and in 2014, when it generated $51.5 billion.

“The bottom line is, the construction industry is on fire,” Carlo Scissura, president of the Building Congress, told The Real Deal on Monday.

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But another report released last week highlights the downside of a bustling construction industry. In its annual international construction report, Turner & Townsend noted that the city is one of 24 it classifies as “overstretched” due to high construction and labor costs. The report estimated the average cost of construction to be $354 per square foot, and the average hourly wage for construction workers to be just under $100. The report estimates that construction costs will increase by 3.5 percent in 2017.

Scissura noted that construction has had a “ripple effect” on other industries. The Building Congress estimates that $12.1 billion of 2016’s total construction-related economic output can be attributed to income produced by industry-related services, like those provided by architectural, engineering and legal firms. Another $11.8 billion can be pinned to the “induced impact of construction,” which is indirect spending by construction workers on things like transportation, food, clothing and other “local consumer” products.

(To view a list of contractors in TRData’s companies database, click here)