Construction activity across the Central region is in a period of steady performance and healthy realignment. While certain hubs record a stable baseline, led by Chicago at 1.42% and Dallas at 3.88%, other major cities in the region continue to see steady annual cost growth, including Austin at 4.57%, Denver at 4.59%, and Minneapolis at 4.82%.
The region’s growth is heavily supported by specialized sectors. Across North America, a surge in data center projects has successfully boosted the national construction backlog indicator to 8.8 months, providing a solid, forward-looking runway of work for commercial and industrial contractors. However, the data highlights a growing divide within the sector: large contractors with over $100M in annual revenue are far more likely to be involved in data center work (42%) than smaller firms (7%), and those working on data centers note significantly longer backlogs (12.2 months vs. 8.3 months). Despite these unevenly distributed backlogs, contractors across all size categories maintain a positive sentiment and express high confidence in the industry’s outlook.
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