Construction Outlook report: 2009 will be bleak.[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]Despite a spiraling economy, construction spending Construction Spending An economic indicator that measures the amount of spending towards new construction. Released monthly by the U.S. Department of Commerce's Census Bureau, it looks at residential and non-residential construction in the private sector, and state and federal at in New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of rose 2% in 2008 to $32.9 billion, according to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. a new McGraw-Hill Construction report. If it were not for a handful of big-ticket projects, the situation would have been a lot different. "With the economy eroding in 2008, an imminent decline in construction might have been expected," the Outlook '09 report read. "However, several unusually large projects (each with a construction value of more than a billion dollars) broke ground in 2008 and have buoyed activity." The report was referring to the trio of World Trade Center Site projects ($3.93 billion); water and sewer projects such as the Catskill Delaware Ultraviolet Disinfection Ultraviolet disinfection is a form of wastewater treatment. It is commonly used in garden pond filtration systems to kill algae. Large scale urban UV wastewater treatment is performed in cities such as Edmonton, Alberta. Facility in Mount Pleasant ($1.34 billion) and three others at Newton Creek in Brooklyn ($1.44 billion combined), plus the No. 7 subway subway: see rapid transit. subway Underground railway system used to transport passengers within urban and suburban areas. The first subway line, 3. extension ($1.1 billion). These projects together added $7.8 billion to the value of construction starts in the New York metro For the region, see . Metro New York is a free daily newspaper in New York City started in 2004. Its main competition is AM New York, with which it practices many of the same distribution and marketing strategies. area during 2008. "Without these projects, the total value of construction starts would have declined by 22% to $25 billion," the report noted. The year 2009 doesn't look pretty, according to McGraw-Hill, thanks to the expected and continued deterioration de·te·ri·o·ra·tion n. The process or condition of becoming worse. of the economy, coupled with the greater restrictions on credit. The report estimates that 2009 will see total construction starts declining a hefty 19%, down to $26.7 billion. Specifically, nonresidential construction will fall 21% to $11.6 billion, thanks to projected 32% and 6% drops in commercial/industrial and institutional, respectively. Furthermore, nonbuilding starts will dip 28% to $6.9 billion as the already beaten down housing construction market falls only an additional 4% to $8.1 billion, according to the report. The bleak construction outlook would seem to mirror the local economy as a whole because of what has been happening on Wall Street. "If there's one metropolitan area in the nation that will be negatively affected by the drubbing the financial sector has taken in recent months," the report read, "it's New York. |
|
||||||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion