One number in the August Dodge Momentum Index matters more than the headline. Strip data centers out of the commercial segment and planning activity is down 18.9% against August 2025.
The headline itself was quiet. The DMI, which tracks nonresidential projects entering the planning stage, slipped 0.4% month over month, following a 6.9% jump in July. Flat, in other words.
What the flat month hides
“Strength in planning momentum remained relatively broad-based in August,” said Sarah Martin, director of economic research at Dodge Construction Network. “Weaker data center planning predominantly drove the flatter trend, while most other sectors saw an acceleration in planning momentum.”
Offices and hotels both improved. So did education and public buildings on the institutional side. Retail and warehouse planning fell, and healthcare gave back some ground after four straight months of growth.
Year over year the index is up 4.2%, with commercial planning up 2.3% and institutional up 7.8%. That institutional number is doing quiet work. Schools, courthouses and public buildings don’t chase AI capex cycles, and a 7.8% annual gain in that segment is a better read on underlying demand than anything in the commercial column right now.
The distortion is the story
A 2.3% annual gain in commercial planning sounds like a soft but healthy market. The ex-data-center figure says otherwise. Two very different construction economies are being averaged into one line, and only one of them is growing.
That matters for anyone bidding work. A GC reading the aggregate index and staffing up for a broad commercial recovery is reading the wrong number. The recovery is concentrated, and it is concentrated in a sector where vacancy sits at 1.4% and power, not construction capacity, is the binding constraint.
Where the big money went
Thirty-one projects worth $100 million or more entered planning in August. The largest commercial entries were two $462 million EdgeConneX data centers in Bastrop, Texas, the $378 million first phase of a Bitdeer data center in Shalersville Township, Ohio, and a $358 million data center in Secaucus, New Jersey.
On the institutional side: the $350 million Colosseum Sports Resort in Stafford, Virginia, the $350 million Commonwealth Courts building in Richmond, and a $350 million Holistic Health and Fitness building in Newport News. Three of the six largest institutional starts entered planning in one state.
Watch September. A second consecutive soft month in data center planning would be the first real signal that the sector’s planning pipeline has a ceiling.