The top builders in New York City are building fewer and smaller projects.
That’s according to analysis by The Real Deal of building permits issued in the Big Apple where the applicant is a general contractor between March 1, 2024 and March 1, 2025.
The top five builders — Monadnock Construction, Leeding Builders Group, Suffolk Construction, Aecom Tishman and Lendlease — remained the same year over year, though their places in the ranking shuffled.
The total estimated square footage of the projects greenlit by the city for these top companies came in at 19.3 million square feet in 2025. That is 13.9 percent lower than the year before. The number of issued permits also fell, by 43.8 percent, to 45.
News of tariffs have rattled scores of industries and the stock market for the first part of this year. But the city’s top contractors earlier this year said they had not felt their effects just yet.
Only one firm, Leeding Builders Group, which was second in this year’s ranking, saw its projects’ approved square footage rise year over year. In 2025, permits issued for Leeding’s projects are slated to yield 4.1 million square feet, which is 7.6 percent larger than the year before.
Two firms, Suffolk Construction and Aecom Tishman, did not see their numbers of permits issued change from 2024 to 2025. For the other three firms, the number of permits issued dropped.
Monadnock Construction ranked No. 1 in TRD’s ranking. The 15 permits issued over the past year to the Brooklyn-based company are expected to bring about 4.4 million square feet to the city. That’s about 2.3 percent less square footage than the year before, when the company was second on TRD’s list.
Lendlease fell the most among the top five builders from 2024 to 2025 — from No. 1 to No. 5. The change in its estimated square footage, per the permits the city issued over TRD’s analyzed time frame, fell roughly 46 percent to 3.1 million square feet.
TRD’s full 2025 general contractor ranking for New York City can be found here.
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