MANHATTAN — New York City's construction industry did not have a banner year in 2011.
The city saw a 31 percent dip in new construction projects starting in 2011, according to data released Monday by the New York Building Congress.
There was a major slowdown in new construction projects for offices, hotels, schools, hospitals, transit stations, power plants and other non-residential buildings, dropping 39 percent to $8.4 billion from 2010, the report said. The public works sector for roads, bridges, water systems and other infrastructure also saw a decline, dropping 35 percent to $2.6 billion in 2011.
The industry knew it would be hard to top the 2010 construction starts, with the World Trade Center, Madison Square Garden's renovation and Brooklyn's Barclays Center for the Nets alone accounting for $6 billion.
"Still, the 31 percent decline in New York City is very troubling," said New York Building Congress President Richard T. Anderson in a statement.
In 2010, seven projects worth more than $500 million got started. In 2011, there were only two such projects: the $1.2 billion redevelopment of Terminal 4 at JFK Airport and the $514 million project to install furnishings and systems related to the Number 7 subway line extension.
Other big projects that got started in 2011 included the $362 million worth of work on Gotham West apartments in Hell's Kitchen, a $302 million project for the 86th Street station for the Second Avenue subway and a $300 million project for the Whitney Museum of American Art's new building rising in the Meatpacking District. Of the top 20 largest construction starts in 2011, 15 were in Manhattan and five were in Queens, the Buildings Congress noted.
The Buildings Congress noted that residential construction, however, was on the upswing, with $2.9 billion worth of construction beginning in 2011, up 24 percent from the year before.
That figure was sill 51 percent below 2008's level, but the data indicates the residential sector has bottomed out, the Buildings Congress said.
"It certainly is positive that the residential sector is picking up again," Anderson said. "But continued improvement in that sector alone will not be enough to sustain the construction industry and maintain employment levels in the years ahead."
