The list of the biggest projects to begin construction last year across the Mountain States bucks a national trend toward more private-sector work and a decline in public-sector starts. It also signals at least a temporary lull in new megaprojects across the five-state region. A surge of residential and commercial projects has helped to offset weaker levels of nonbuilding starts as many of the region's large highway and water projects have been recently completed.
The 2013 starts list contains a healthy mix of infrastructure, energy, commercial, health care and institutional projects, many of them rising along the region's new highway and transit corridors—recently completed or still under construction in major urban areas. Salt Lake City and Denver led the region in construction growth last year, up 11% and 8% respectively, over 2012 levels, according to McGraw Hill Construction's Dodge. Both cities also are among the current national leaders in creation of new construction jobs.