Through July 2025, 39 megaproject construction starts totaled $115.6 billion, led by TSMC’s $25 billion fab.
Megaprojects now represent 21.1% of nonresidential spending, nearly double pre-COVID levels, driving a 58% annual increase and preventing overall construction spending from declining.
Heavy reliance on megaprojects poses risks, with over 80% concentrated in the South and West, leaving smaller or misaligned firms fewer viable opportunities.
ConstructConnect announced this week that US Nonresidential Construction Starts dropped to $69.8 billion in July 2025, down 13.9% from June’s record-setting $81.1 billion.
This year, through July, there were 39 megaproject construction starts across the US totaling $115.6 billion. Forty percent of this spending occurred within the Industrial vertical, led by the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company’s Fab 3 plant in Arizona, with a total value of $25 billion.
Following behind at nearly 30% of all megaproject spending was Civil construction, led by Tunnels and followed distantly by Airports and Power Generation.
The only other vertical that controlled a significant portion of megaproject starts spending during this period was Commercial construction at $27.2 billion, slightly less than 25% of all megaproject spending. Of this, over two-thirds supported Data Center starts, which totaled $18.3 billion for the period.
The remaining five percent of all megaproject spending occurred in Institutional and Mixed-Use construction.
In July, megaprojects accounted for 21.1% of all Nonresidential construction dollars when measured using a 12-month moving average, a new high. This is well above the post-COVID average of 17.3% and nearly double the pre-COVID average of just 12.3%.
Additionally, YTD 2025 spending on megaprojects is $42 billion above last year’s comparable level, representing a 58% increase.
Thanks to this tremendous growth in megaprojects, total construction spending is up by $21.8 billion or 3.7%. In other words, without the exceptional growth of megaprojects, YTD total construction spending would not have been up 3.7% but rather down 3.5%.
The fact that megaproject activity is sustaining the industry’s expansion this year raises concerns about the robustness of the industry’s overall health. Given their unique features, not all construction firms are suited for megaprojects.
Smaller firms may lack the capacity, scope, or connections to obtain such work. Additionally, over 80% of megaproject spending in the last 12 months has occurred only in the western and southern census regions.
This leaves many smaller or geographically ill-positioned firms to battle for a shrinking pool of dollars and opportunities in the remainder of a market that looks far less healthy and profitable.
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Construction Starts Here™ at ConstructConnect, where our mission is to help the construction industry start every project on a solid foundation. A leading provider of software solutions for the preconstruction industry, ConstructConnect empowers commercial construction firms to streamline their workflows and maximize productivity. ConstructConnect operates as a business unit of Roper Technologies (Nasdaq: ROP), a constituent of the Nasdaq 100, S&P 500, and Fortune 1000.