Dodge Momentum Index up with gains in commercial, institutional

by Christopher Brinckerhoff | September 18, 2024 6:00 am

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The Dodge Momentum Index (DMI)[2], issued by Dodge Construction Network, increased 2.9 percent in August to 220.4 from the revised July reading of 214.2. Over the month, commercial planning expanded 1.9 percent and institutional planning improved 5.7 percent.

Sarah Martin, associate director of forecasting at Dodge Construction Network, says, “Owners and developers continued to prime the planning queue in August, ahead of next year’s anticipated stronger market conditions. With the [Federal Reserve’s] September rate cut all but finalized, the influence of selective lending standards and inflation should moderate next year, alongside a modest upgrade to consumer demand. As a result, stronger planning activity was widespread in August, with most nonresidential sectors seeing growth.”

Commercial planning saw another month of broad-based improvements. After slowing down in recent years, warehouse projects have gained momentum over the last three months. Hotels and retail planning have been steadily expanding as well. Data centers continued to dominate large project activity, but the rate at which planning projects entered the queue in August moderated after several months of very strong growth. On the institutional side, healthcare was the primary driver of this past month’s expansion, followed by recreational planning. In August, the DMI was 31 percent higher than in August of 2023. The commercial segment was up 42 percent from year-ago levels, while the institutional segment was up 8 percent over the same period.

The DMI is a monthly measure of the value of nonresidential building projects going into planning, shown to lead construction spending for nonresidential buildings by a full year.

Source URL: https://www.metalarchitecture.com/news/industry-news/dodge-momentum-index-2/

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