South Florida residential construction starts took a hit in February, but commercial starts surged ahead, according to a newly released report.
Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties’ residential construction starts fell 41 percent in February, year-over-year, to $423 million, according to Dodge Data & Analytics, a Hamilton, New Jersey-based construction data analytics firm.
Yet, commercial real estate construction starts outpaced those of February 2020 by 12 percent, reaching $433 million. Overall, February construction starts fell 23 percent to $856 million, the report shows.
Nonresidential construction includes office, retail, hotels, warehouses, manufacturing, educational, healthcare, religious, government, recreational and other buildings. Residential construction includes single-family homes and multifamily housing, according to Dodge.
Year-to-date, total construction starts dropped 21 percent to $1.7 billion, compared to the same period last year. Residential starts dropped 31 percent to $1 billion, and commercial starts fell 1 percent to $723 million.
For January, Dodge reported that total construction starts fell 21 percent to $863.6 million. Residential construction fell 24 percent, to $573.3 million. Nonresidential fell 15 percent to $290.3 million.
Last year, overall construction starts fell 25 percent compared to 2019, to $9.6 billion. Nonresidential construction fell 30 percent, year-over-year, to $4.3 billion. Residential fell 20 percent to $5.3 billion.
The latest drop in residential construction likely is to lead to an even tighter single-family home market, while homebuying is on the rise. The luxury market is doing especially well as Northeasterners and other out-of-state buyers scoop up waterfront, multimillion-dollar mansions.
One of the biggest commercial projects currently under construction is the 57-story 830 Brickell with 650,000 square feet of Class A office space co-developed by OKO Group and Cain International.