Cities With the Most New Construction

Thanks to the housing bubble, Phoenix garnered a reputation for dusty abandoned homes and half-built tracts of retail sprawl. Arizona’s biggest city suffered a 55% drop in home prices since the 2006 peak and it consistently ranks among the country’s 20 worst cities in terms of foreclosures. Yet a recent rebound in home sales — and more modestly in home prices — has spurred talk of a recovery there. Turns out that budding rebound extends out into overall construction, too. In 2011, the Phoenix metro area welcomed a 41% increase in new construction, totaling $5.3 billion in new starts for both residential and non-residential building projects. “In the case of markets that were categorized by the housing boom and bust, that [construction] correction has already occurred,” explains Robert Murray, vice president of economic affairs at McGraw-Hill Construction, a New York City-based construction data firm. “Now areas like Phoenix are in the process of seeing an upturn in new structures – that aren’t even necessarily housing.”In Phoenix, that construction spending jump comes in part from a new $5 billion Intel semiconductor manufacturing facility for which $1.5 billion worth of building began last year. The up-and-coming facility, located outside of city limits in nearby Chandler, Ariz., helped thrust the Phoenix Metropolitan Statistical Area into the No. 8 spot on Forbes’ list of the American Cities with the Most New Construction.

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