Manhattan construction activity is still trending upwards, despite the COVID-19 pandemic, the New York Building Congress (NYBC) says in a recently released report.
The Construction Outlook Update: Manhattan Snapshot explores Manhattan’s construction spending and activity from 2018 to 2021, highlighting the economic impact that the building industry has had on New York City’s pandemic recovery.
There are $29.5 billion in current projects in the pre-design, design and bidding phases, and construction starts last year reached $7 billion, a $1 billion increase from 2020, NYBC says.
Overall in Manhattan construction spending between 2018 and the third quarter of 2021 totalled $27.5 billion. There were 12,300 commercial, residential and infrastructure projects.
“New York City’s building industry, which employs hundreds of thousands of people, showed its true strength and resiliency over the last two years, and we aren’t slowing down in 2022,” NYBC president and CEO Carlo A. Scissura said in a statement.
“We’ve seen the way the industry kickstarts economic growth and puts New York City on pace for an equitable and robust recovery in the face of extreme hardship. We are ready to bring the nearly two million New Yorkers in Manhattan the high-quality infrastructure, housing and public space they deserve.”
Major infrastructure projects resulted in some of the highest numbers in Manhattan. These included improvements to the Brooklyn, George Washington and Queensboro bridges at more than $100 million each in 2021. Overall 2021 infrastructure construction spending that year reached $2.9 billion that year.
Manhattan currently represents 15 percent of recent affordable housing construction in the entire city, NYBC says in the report.
