U.S. nonresidential construction starts hit a one-month record of $100.3 billion in June 2026, up $24.8 billion, or 32.8%, from May’s revised $75.5 billion, according to data released by ConstructConnect. The June total ran 35% above the trailing 12-month moving average of $74.5 billion.
The surge was driven almost entirely by office construction, a category that includes data centers. Office starts jumped to $23.5 billion in June, up $14.5 billion from May, and accounted for more than a third of all nonresidential building starts for the month, underscoring how heavily AI-driven data center development is now shaping the broader construction pipeline.
Where the growth concentrated
Education construction also posted sharp gains. Junior and senior high school starts rose to $8.6 billion, up $3.7 billion from May, while elementary and pre-school starts climbed to $4.4 billion, up $1.8 billion. Warehouse starts totaled $4.8 billion for the month.
Not every category moved higher. Prison construction starts fell to $535 million in June from $3.4 billion in May. On the civil side, road starts rose to $15.8 billion, up $3.8 billion, and water and sewage starts increased to $6.9 billion, up $1.3 billion.
Residential starts moved in the opposite direction, falling 7.8% from May to $18.3 billion and running 35.7% below June 2025, a divergence that highlights the gap between institutional and homebuilding activity in the current construction cycle.
Year-to-date picture
Through the first six months of 2026, total nonresidential starts are running 16.6% ahead of the same period in 2025. Nonresidential building starts specifically are 21.6% ahead of last year, while civil construction starts are up a more modest 9.0%.
ConstructConnect Chief Economist Michael Guckes cautioned against reading the June total as a broad-based pipeline signal. “The month’s gains were sharply concentrated rather than broad-based, a distinction that contractors reading headline totals as a measure of available pipeline should weigh carefully,” Guckes said.
What it means
Verified facts: Nonresidential starts totaled a record $100.3 billion in June, led by a $14.5 billion jump in office and data center starts. Attributed interpretation: ConstructConnect’s own economist frames the gain as concentrated in a handful of large projects rather than a market-wide acceleration.
RealtyWire analysis: The data adds another data point to a now-familiar pattern in 2026 construction reporting — data center and AI infrastructure spending propping up headline nonresidential figures while traditional categories, including homebuilding, continue to soften. The report reinforces broader questions RealtyWire has covered about how data center power demand is reshaping industrial and commercial markets.
What to watch: Whether office/data center starts sustain June’s pace into the third quarter, and whether residential construction’s steep year-over-year decline continues to widen the gap between commercial and housing activity.
Source: ConstructConnect
