ConstructConnect recently announced that September’s volume of construction starts, excluding residential activity, hit $42.8 billion. The month-to-month percentage change versus August was an outsized +31.5% (or plus nearly one-third). The big improvement in the latest period was thanks to go-aheads for three mega projects, combining for a total of $17 billion.
The three projects included an Exxon Mobil petrochemical plant in Texas ($10 billion categorized as industrial); the new Delta Airlines Terminal at LaGuardia Airport in New York ($4 billion categorized as civil/engineering); and the Atlantic Sunrise natural gas pipeline in Pennsylvania ($3 billion, also in the civil/engineering type-of-structure category).
Compared to the same month last year, this September was +43.4%. Relative to January-to-September of 2016, 2017’s year-to-date starts through the first nine months have been +9.4%.
The starts figures throughout this report are neither seasonally adjusted (NSA), nor are they altered for inflation. They are expressed in what are termed “current” as opposed to “constant” dollars.
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