Follow the construction dollar. Data centers went from $8.5 billion a year to $66.7 billion; hotels and offices for people built less.

Four of 14 building types grew faster than the prices of what they are built from. Two shrank in dollars.

Это Census Bureau counts the value of construction put in place every month and splits it by type of building. We took 14 private types, from new single-family homes to data centers, and set the average of the last 12 months, October 2025 to September 2026, against the average of 2019. Private construction as a whole went from $1,046.3 billion a year to $1,657.4 billion, 58.4 % more.

A dollar of 2026 does not buy what a dollar of 2019 bought. The producer price index for the goods that go into nonresidential construction rose 48.9 % over the same span. So we draw a line at that rise. A type above it put in more than its price rise; a type below it spent more dollars on what may be the same or less building.

Four types are above the line: data centers +687.4 %, manufacturing +121.0 %, health care +55.8 % and warehouses +54.8 %. Eight are below it, from +46.8 % к +14.5 %, among them new homes, apartments, stores and power. Two took fewer dollars than in 2019: lodging 27.1 % less and offices other than data centers 27.7 % за вычетом.

Tap a band to see its types and what each spent in 2019 and in the last 12 months.

The line is a yardstick, not a deflator. The index covers goods only, steel, concrete, lumber, wiring and the like, not labor, land or fees, so it can overstate the price rise of a whole building, and it is one index for every type. A type that sits a few points under the line, power at +44.8 % or new homes at +45.6 %, may well have built about as much as in 2019. A type far under it, or below zero, did not. Why this line

Nor is a band a verdict on the next year. Warehouses are above the line on the 12-month average, yet September 2026 is 39.1 % under their April 2023 peak. The ranking in Part 2 adds the last year and the distance from the peak.

Data centers and power set records in September. Factories are a third under their peak.

Это 12-month average hides the turn. Take September 2026 against September 2025. Data centers are up 90.3 % and power 12.1 %. Manufacturing is down 17.9 %, the largest fall of the 14. Of the 14 types, 4 are higher than a year ago and 10 lower; private construction as a whole is 3.8 % lower.

Only two types are at the highest monthly reading of their series: data centers, whose series begins in January 2014, and power, from January 1993. Manufacturing peaked at $249.1 billion in September 2024 and is at $167.2 billion, 32.9 % under. Inside it, plants for computers, electronics and electrical equipment peaked at $126.4 billion in June 2024 and are at $52.6 billion, 58.4 % under; in 2019 they were $8.3 billion a year.

The share view shows where the dollar went. Data centers went from 0.81 % of private construction in 2019 to 4.03 %, the largest gain of the 14, and manufacturing from 7.70 % к 10.74 %. The largest losses of share are other offices, 6.58 % к 3.00 %, new single-family homes, 26.75 % к 24.59 %, and lodging, 3.09 % к 1.42 %. Switch the views to see all five measures.

Inside office, the mix has turned over. In 2019 data centers were 10.9 % of office construction; in September 2026 they are 66.2 %. Office construction as Census counts it is at a record, $145.6 billion a year in September 2026; that is right in dollars and misleading about offices: the rest of office is 35.3 % under its February 2020 peak. What Census counts as a data center

What it means for a lender or an investor. A construction pipeline is not one market. A loan book that leans on warehouse or factory construction faces a smaller pipeline than in 2024; a market whose new space is mostly data centers and power has demand tied to a few large tenants and to the power grid, not to office leasing. Both read the same total. The check is by type and by month, not by the headline.

Factories rose and turned in 2024. Data centers have not turned.

The chart sets each type at 100 for its 2019 average and follows the monthly annual rate from January 2019 to September 2026, 93 months, on a log scale so that a doubling looks the same at any level. Data centers end at 1138, more than eleven times their 2019 rate. Manufacturing climbed to 309 in September 2024 and is at 208.

Most other types sit between 113 и 157. Lodging fell to 50 in October 2021 and has not come back: it ends at 73. Other offices end at 71.

Pick a type to bring its line forward against the grey of the other 13. The shape to look for is the turn: a type that rose and rolled over has a smaller pipeline coming than its 12-month average suggests.

For an underwriter the path is the point. A development or a construction loan sized on the spending of 2023 or 2024 for its type may be priced against a market that has since cooled; one sized in 2021 for a data center is now in a market several times larger. The September reading is preliminary and Census revises the last months, so read the last point as a first estimate. How we read the table

Что с этим делать

If you lend on, build or buy commercial property: read a construction pipeline by building type and by month, not by the total. The same national figure hides a record in data centers and power and a turn in factories and warehouses.

Реалист reads the files of a property deal or a construction loan, the offering memorandum, the budget, the rent roll and the operating statement, and returns the issues and the questions for the sponsor. The review can set a deal against the construction spending of its type, so the check is the same for the 200th deal as for the first.