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NYC Sees Record Building Boom

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Oct 16, 2007 10:09 am US/Eastern

NYC Sees Record Building Boom

Lower Manhattan, Sports Stadium Construction Included

NEW YORK (AP) ―

Click to enlarge 1 of 1: Construction projects such as the redevelopment of Ground Zero and Lower Manhattan are spurring a record building boom in New York City.
Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP

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Spurred by massive commercial building projects like the World Trade Center, the city is poised to spend $83 billion in three years building office towers, apartments, arts centers and sports complexes, an industry group reported Tuesday.

The New York Building Congress' report described a sustained building boom helped by long-term construction projects like the redevelopment of the trade center site, the Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn and new stadiums for the New York Yankees and the New York Mets.

Spending on new construction, which was a record $24.6 billion last year, will increase to $26.2 billion this year, $27.5 billion next year and $29 billion in 2009, the group said.

The 2009 projection is 18 percent up from last year's total and reflects "an industry in which every sector seems to be booming," the report said.

Residential and commercial building, infrastructure projects like road repair and transit hubs, as well expansions of schools and hospitals are all performing strongly, the group said.

The biggest success in recent years is office construction and other commercial spending, which more than doubled between 2005 ($4.3 billion) and this year ($8.3 billion.) By 2009, $11.3 billion will be spent on commercial construction, with 30 million square feet planned.

The report looked ahead to the multiyear plans for ground zero, where four skyscrapers at least as tall as the Empire State Building are expected to be under construction in the next three years.

A multibillion-dollar transit hub is set to open in 2009, along with a memorial to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Other massive office projects include a new Goldman Sachs headquarters being built downtown, and plans for a new office district near Penn Station and on the far West Side waterfront.

Spending on new homes, which are coming up as new apartment buildings and in conversions of older office buildings, will rise 14 percent this year to $5.6 billion, producing more than 35,000 new apartments -- nearly four times as many as a decade ago, the report said.

The boom will create more than 13,000 new construction jobs by 2009, for a total of 130,000, the report said.