The pipeline just got fatter. The Dodge Momentum Index, which tracks nonresidential building projects entering the planning stage, jumped 20.8 percent in July to 280.4, reversing a small June dip and posting one of its stronger monthly moves. Since the index leads actual construction spending by roughly a year to 18 months, July’s reading is a preview of what crews will be building into 2027.
What the index measures
The DMI is a leading indicator, not a snapshot of today’s jobsites. It counts the value of nonresidential projects moving into planning, the stage before design finishes and shovels hit dirt. When it climbs, it means owners are committing to future work, and history says spending follows a year or more later. A 20.8 percent monthly jump is the kind of move that gets forecasters’ attention, because it signals conviction, not hesitation.
Guess what’s driving it
The surge leans on the same force reshaping the rest of the industry: large commercial and data center planning. Hyperscale campuses are enormous line items, so a handful entering planning can swing the index on their own, and they’ve been entering planning in bunches. Institutional work, hospitals, labs, campus buildings, has been the steadier contributor, the kind of demand behind projects like AbbVie’s Durham campus. The mix matters, because a pipeline propped up mostly by data centers carries the concentration risk everyone in the industry now recognizes.
The read for contractors
A rising DMI is good news for firms trying to fill 2027 backlog, and it lines up with the record numbers big contractors have been posting, including AECOM’s record backlog. Per Dodge Construction Network, July’s index hit 280.4. The caution is the same one that shadows every bullish construction number this year: strip out the data centers, and the picture gets a lot more ordinary.