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Airports, Data Centers and Hospitals Lead Trophy Job Construction in 1Q 2024
Large trophy jobs continued to break ground or hit the drawing boards or planning stages in 1Q 2024, including multi-billion-dollar airports and hospital projects, no less than 10 data centers and several massive renewable projects (see chart on page, or click here for full list).
Airport construction has been one of the hottest construction segments over the past five years, with multi-billion-dollar projects at the New York metropolitan area’s LaGuardia, Kennedy and Newark airports, San Diego, Salt Lake City, Kansas City, MO, and several other cities.
Joining these recently completed or current projects are a $2.6-billion, 40-gate expansion at George Bush International Airport in Houston; a new $2-billion terminal at John Glenn International Airport in Columbus, OH; a new $1.5-billion terminal at Hollywood Burbank Airport; and a $1-billion terminal being planned at San Antonio’s airport. Smaller projects are underway or in the planning/approval process in Norfolk, VA; Seattle; and Minneapolis.
EM’s editors watch for any reports of data center construction because these facilities are loaded with electrical equipment, as well as backup power systems and huge amounts of VDV equipment. We recently ran across some numbers at www.dgtlinfra.com that show the massive opportunity these projects represent for the electrical construction market. According to data at www.dgtlinfra.com, the electrical systems in data centers account for 40% to 45% of a project’s total development costs. On a square footage basis, www.dgtlinfra.com says electrical systems can cost between $280 per sq ft to $460 per sq ft. The largest data center projects making headlines so far in 1Q 2024 include the $10 billion Amazon Web Services is investing in several data centers located in Madison County, MS; Tract’s $7-billion Project Tripletail in Eagle Mountain, UT; a $3.5-billion investment Amazon is making in five data centers in the New Albany, OH, area; the $1.9-billion EdgeCore plans to spend on a data center campus expansion in Mesa, AZ; Google’s plans to invest $1.7-billion for the expansion of three Ohio data centers; and the $1.5-billion QTS plans to spend on facilities in New Albany, OH.
Other large projects include the $3-billion Henry Ford Health Center recently approved in Detroit; the $1.7-billion Harbor-UCLA Medical Center renovation and addition in Torrance, CA; the $2-billion contract the state of New York awarded for the construction of the Empire 1 and Sunrise Wind offshore wind farms off the Long Island coast; $8.2 billion the U.S. Department of Transportation allocated for 10 passenger train projects; and the $3.6-billion allocated by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey for multiple mass transit projects.
