Construction costs in New York City and throughout the region have declined in response to the softening economy, according to a report recently released by the New York Building Congress.
A Building Congress analysis of McGraw-Hill Construction’s F.W. Dodge data on new buildings, shows that hard construction costs which are defined as physical costs of construction such as materials and labor, for offices and banks have declined ten percent between 2008 and 2009, while apartment construction hard costs have declined nine percent over that period. The category of new buildings that includes schools and libraries has similarly dropped by eight percent.