BuildingConnected Data Reveals Top 15 Cities with Most New Projects Published [Report]

After one of the most difficult years in modern history, the construction industry appears to be taking 2021 to make up for lost time. In March of 2021, the Autodesk Construction Outlook Report found that bidding activity slowly began to recover in 2020 between March and October, hitting a high for 2020 in November and then an all-time high in January, 2021.  

These insights came from aggregated and anonymized data from BuildingConnected, a preconstruction solution within Autodesk Construction Cloud. In March of 2021, economist Ed Zarinski noted that this increase in real-time bidding activity "signal(ed) the industry (was) getting back to work – and doing so quickly.”  

Our team has continued to keep a keen eye on bidding activity throughout the U.S. and Canada, and we recently looked at the number of new projects published in BuildingConnected by an owner, general contractor or specialty trade over the past year. Here’s what we found. 

Note: all numbers represent U.S. and Canadian data.

Projects published on BuildingConnected have grown almost 19 percent year-over-year 

According to aggregated and anonymized product data from BuildingConnected – a collection of over one million owners, general contractors, construction managers and subcontractors soliciting or submitting bids – 2021 was a year of record growth for the industry, with new projects published increasing almost 19 percent year-over-year on the platform. March of 2021 also hit a new all-time record for most projects published in a single month, followed closely by June 2021. 

This aggregated and anonymized BuildingConnected data also shows encouraging year-over-year growth from 2020, a sign that our industry is still working to “climb out of the trough,” so to speak. Year-over-year growth of projects published spiked in April of 2021, followed by May and June. 

Top 15 Cities for new project volume (U.S. and Canada) 

The BuildingConnected team also identified the regions of the U.S. and Canada that are seeing the highest volumes of new projects published (chart below). This chart details the top 15 cities with the highest levels of published projects over the course of 2021 so far. 

Texas, California show strong volumes of new projects 

In January of 2020, the AGC released data showing the impacts in construction jobs, which detailed that Texas lost over 33,000 jobs during the pandemic, followed by New York (22,000), Ohio (12,600), Massachusetts (11,300) and Florida (9,900).  

Of the top 15 cities with the highest levels of new projects published in 2021, cities in Texas (Houston, Dallas and San Antonio) accounted for almost 16 percent of all new projects published among the top 15 cities. California also had a particularly strong showing in terms of projects published, with three cities (San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego) accounting for just over 17 percent of new projects in the top 15 list. 

Our team will continue to review aggregated, anonymized real-time bidding activity throughout the rest of 2021 and into 2022, and we look forward to providing another update down the line. For more information about building, construction and design trends and technology, visit our Digital Builder blog and subscribe to our podcast, Digital Builder with host Eric Thomas. 

About BuildingConnected, an Autodesk Company 

All numbers for this blog post are proprietary product data from BuildingConnected, a platform that more than one million owners, general contractors, construction managers and subcontractors use to solicit and submit bids. BuildingConnected helps save time and increases collaboration while managing the bidding process with automated workflows that facilitate securing the best team for any construction project.  

With more than five million bid invites sent out every month on the platform, BuildingConnected empowers preconstruction teams to:  

• Find and choose the right builders for every project on the most up-to-date network of construction professionals  
• Quickly solicit bids with customizable templates and accurately compare those bids side-by-side 
• Easily collaborate with other estimators on the team, and follow communications and bid versions 
• Gain valuable insight into historical bid data and reports to optimize for future projects 

To learn more about how BuildingConnected can help your team, click here to visit our website.