As-Built

Data-driven looks at how NYC construction actually behaves — patterns nobody else is tracking.

Seasonality by agency, bid spreads over time, where the engineer's estimates actually land, and what the city's capital budgets say is coming next. The patterns that tell you whether to sharpen your pencil or walk away — before you spend a week on a number.

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October 2026

• The Bid Board Grew by 24 Jobs. Pricing Didn't Follow.New Jersey and Dormitory Authority postings drove an overnight gain in open work, but bidder counts and the gap to engineers' estimates haven't budged — and DOB's filing dollars show Queens punching above its weight.October 18, 2026
• Bid Prices Are Running 32% Over Engineers' Estimates Right NowThe gap between what agencies expect to pay and what contractors actually bid swung from under-budget to way over in one data cycle — treat the posted estimate as a floor, not a target.October 17, 2026
• New Jersey's DOT Is Out-Bidding New York's Own Highway ProgramNJDOT alone is running 18 open solicitations and 101 recent bid results — more than NYSDOT and NYC DDC combined — and the pricing data says the competition isn't any softer for it.October 16, 2026
• The Bid Board Lost 22 Jobs Overnight. Pricing Didn't Move a Decimal.Open solicitations dropped from 500 to 478, but spreads, bidder counts, and estimate accuracy held exactly where they were — a sign this market isn't tightening or flooding, just rolling over.October 15, 2026
• Five New Bids Landed Overnight. The Market's Pricing Didn't Move at All.Bidder counts, spreads, and estimate variance are frozen at yesterday's numbers even as the board grew and DOB filings dropped by 140 citywide.October 14, 2026
• The Board Added 20 Jobs Overnight. The Pricing Didn't Budge.Open postings jumped 4% in a day, but average bidder count, spread, and estimate accuracy held at the exact same numbers as the prior cycle — a sign the market's temperature hasn't moved even as the workload has.October 13, 2026
• NYC Building Filings Dipped by 57 Overnight, Ending a Flat StretchThe 30-day rolling filing count slid from 12,529 to 12,472 while the open-bid board didn't move at all — here's why one number is noise and the other isn't yet a trend.October 12, 2026
• Bronx Filing Costs Jumped $30 Million Overnight While Counts Stayed FlatThe citywide filing count barely moved, but the Bronx's 30-day filed construction value rose sharply in a single pull — worth watching, not yet worth acting on.October 11, 2026
• The Bid Board Added Six Jobs. Every Pricing Number Stayed Exactly the Same.473 open postings, up from 467 overnight — but average bidders, spread, and estimate accuracy didn't move a decimal, which tells you more about the market than the growth does.October 10, 2026
• The Bid Board Grew by 10 Jobs. The Pricing Got Tighter, Not Looser.More work hit the street overnight and bidders priced closer to the estimate than they did a day earlier — a signal worth checking your own numbers against before the next bid.October 9, 2026
• The Open Bid Board Shrank by 23 Postings, and New Jersey Still Owns ItTwo agencies — NJDOT and NJ Treasury's DPMC — account for more than one in six bids in the results feed, while most of the open board still won't say who's behind it.October 8, 2026
• NYC Building Filings Jumped $550 Million Overnight. Manhattan Still Leads.The city's 30-day filing count rose across almost every borough in a single day's turn — early paperwork on work that hasn't hit a bid board yet.October 7, 2026
• The Open Bid Board Gained 16 Postings as Three Jobs Lost Their 'Unknown' TagNYCHA and State Parks each added a posting, and three postings that had no agency attached yesterday do today — check the board if you filter by agency.October 6, 2026
• The Bid Board Grew by 24 Overnight. One in Seven Postings Has No Agency Name.Open bids jumped to 466 in a day, but 65 of them don't say who's buying and 273 don't say what trade.October 5, 2026
• Two New Jersey Agencies Now Account for One in Six Bids We TrackNJDOT's open postings climbed to 16 this week, on top of a historical share of results no single NYC agency matches.October 4, 2026
• A Single Filing Moved Manhattan's DOB Total by $260 MillionManhattan's 30-day filing cost dropped nearly $260 million overnight with barely any change in job count — because one $66 million alteration aged out of the window.October 3, 2026
• The Gap Between Low Bids and Estimates Just Widened Two Points OvernightAverage bidder turnout and spread barely moved — but low bids are now landing 5.6% under engineers' estimates, up from 3.7% a day earlier.October 2, 2026
• New Jersey DOT Quietly Runs the Busiest Bid Pipeline on the BoardNJDOT and its sister Treasury division account for one in six of the last 1,000 bid results we've tracked — more than NYSDOT and NYCSCA combined.October 1, 2026
• One Queens Filing Just Moved $348 Million OvernightA single $350 million alteration filing on 31st Avenue is skewing the borough's entire 30-day construction total — here's how to read it.October 1, 2026

September 2026

• NYCHA's Open-Bid Count Fell From 24 to 10 OvernightNYCHA alone accounts for the entire net drop in open bids across every agency on the board this cycle.September 30, 2026
• Low Bids Just Closed Two Points of the Gap With EstimatesThe average low bid moved from 5.5% under the engineer's estimate to 3.7% under overnight — bidder counts and spreads didn't budge.September 30, 2026
• Bidder Turnout Is Up. So Is the Squeeze on Price Padding.Average bidders per job climbed to 9.1, and the gap between low bids and engineers' estimates shrank to 5.5% — both signs the market has less room for a soft number.September 29, 2026
• The Board Grew by Ten Jobs. Bidding Behavior Didn't Move at All.444 open bids now, up from 434 — but average bidders, spread, and estimate variance are all flat.September 28, 2026
• The Bronx's Filed Construction Value Dropped $16 Million OvernightCitywide DOB filings grew by 120 applications, but Brooklyn and Queens gained construction dollars while the Bronx lost them.September 27, 2026
• Low Bids Are Now Running 7.5% Under the Engineer's NumberThe gap between posted estimates and actual low bids nearly doubled overnight, from 4.3% to 7.5%, while bidder spreads held steady at 17.3%.September 26, 2026
• The Bid Board Shrank by Ten. DOB Filings Grew by 148.Public work contracted at the margins overnight while private filings added $23 million in Manhattan alone — two pipelines moving in opposite directions.September 25, 2026
• More Than Half the Open Bid Board Has No Trade TagThe board shrank by six overnight, but the untagged share of listings grew — from 52% to 54% of all 454 open packages.September 24, 2026
• Manhattan's Filing Total Dropped $88 Million Overnight — Same Amount of Work FiledOne mega-filing aged out of the rolling 30-day window and took $88 million with it.September 23, 2026
• 1,000 Results, Zero Movement OvernightThe bid-results file didn't add a single record in a day, even as the open board shed 13 postings.September 23, 2026
• New Jersey's DOT and Property Office Own 17% of All Tabulated BidsNJDOT and DPMC together post more results than New York's next dozen agencies combined — and the market's core numbers haven't budged.September 22, 2026
• The Board Grew by 37 Bids Overnight. Half Still Have No Trade Tag.NYCHA alone added ten open packages in a day — but untagged listings still cover more than half the board.September 22, 2026
• Six New Bids Hit the Board. None of Them Got a Trade Tag.The open-bid board grew by six packages overnight, and all six landed in the same unsorted bucket that already holds 57% of the market.September 21, 2026
• One $200M Filing Aged Out and the Bronx Lost $217M OvernightBronx filing counts barely moved between pulls, but the borough's 30-day dollar total fell by nearly half when a single jumbo alteration rolled off the window.September 20, 2026
• New Jersey's DOT Quietly Outpaces Every Agency on the Board101 recorded results and 10 open jobs make NJDOT the busiest single agency in our data — bigger than any NYC counterpart.September 19, 2026
• Half This Board Has No Trade Label. That's Where the Work Is Hiding244 of 429 open bids carry no trade tag — barely changed from yesterday, and it's costing filtered searches real jobs.September 19, 2026
• Staten Island Files More Jobs, Less Money Behind Them627 filings, down to $43.4 million — the only borough where volume and dollars split overnight.September 18, 2026
• Manhattan Filed Fewer Jobs Overnight. The Dollars Went Up AnywayTwenty fewer Manhattan filings, but $18 million more on the books — a sign the borough's pipeline is skewing toward bigger jobs, not more of them.September 17, 2026
• Two-Thirds of Open Bids on the Board Have No Trade Listed281 of 446 open postings carry no trade tag at all — a gap that's been holding steady for weeks and quietly hiding work from anyone trusting the filter.September 16, 2026
• One $200 Million Bronx Filing Is Propping Up the Borough's NumbersManhattan's 30-day filings are worth four times Brooklyn's on nearly the same job count — and the Bronx's total leans on a single alteration permit.September 15, 2026
• 430 Open Bids Now. Two-Thirds Still Have No Trade ListedThe board grew by 14 jobs overnight, but 276 of 430 postings — nearly two-thirds — still carry no trade tag, same ratio as yesterday.September 14, 2026
• New Jersey DOT and DPMC Now Drive One in Six Results. Bidder Counts Haven't Moved.1,000 results, two days apart, the same 10.1 bidders and the same -2.9% spread against estimate — steady in a market where New Jersey DOT and DPMC alone carry one in six results.September 14, 2026
• One Bronx Alteration Outweighs All of Staten Island's Permits This MonthA single $200 million filing on Waters Place beat Staten Island's entire 30-day permit total — and Manhattan is still pulling more than half the city's construction dollars.September 13, 2026
• New Jersey Posts Ten Times the Bid Results New York DoesTwo Jersey agencies account for 173 of the last 1,000 posted results. New York's biggest players barely crack double digits — not because the work isn't there.September 12, 2026
• SCA Stacked Four School Jobs Into a Three-Week WindowFlood elimination in Brooklyn, electrification in Queens, roofing in the Bronx — SCA's fall bid calendar just got crowded.September 12, 2026
• The Bid Board Added 38 Jobs Overnight. Most Still Have No Trade ListedNJDOT, MTA, and SUNY drove the growth, but two-thirds of the board still won't say what trade it needs.September 11, 2026
• Manhattan's Permit Dollars Rose. Every Other Borough's Fell.Citywide permit volume barely moved in 30 days, but $64 million shifted toward Manhattan while Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and Staten Island all lost ground — and it's alteration work driving it, not new towers.September 10, 2026
• A $200 Million Bronx Alteration Beats Every New Building in the CitySix of last month's ten biggest NYC permits were renovations, not new construction — even at the top of the market.September 9, 2026
• New York's Public Bids Still Draw Nearly Ten Rivals Apiece932 recorded results show the average low bid landing almost 3% under the engineer's estimate — a market that hasn't gone soft.September 9, 2026
• 206 of New York's 361 Open Bids Don't Say What Trade They NeedThe rest of the board splits into more than 50 trade tags — and forty of them show exactly one open job.September 8, 2026
• Every Borough's Permits Cooled. Brooklyn's Big Jobs Cooled Twice as Fast.Citywide filings fell 4.3% between two rolling 30-day windows — but Brooklyn's permit dollars fell 9.6%, nearly double its drop in filing count.September 6, 2026
• Eighty-Five Percent of NYC's Permits Are Alterations, Not New BuildsOf 12,473 permits filed in the past 30 days, only 1,426 are new buildings — and seven of the ten biggest-dollar filings are alterations too.September 6, 2026
• Strip Out the Unlabeled Bids, and MTA Owns More Than Half the FieldOf the 319 decided bids with an agency attached, MTA contracts account for 186 — and bidders are still averaging 9.6 a job, with low bids landing under estimate.September 6, 2026
• Manhattan Takes Half the City's Permit Dollars, Off a Third of the Filings12,601 New York City permits in 30 days, $3.7 billion combined — and three out of every four are alterations, not new construction.September 3, 2026
• Eleven Bidders a Job, and the Estimate Comes Up ShortAcross 748 recorded results, bids landed 16.4% apart on average — and the low number beat the engineer's estimate by 2.9%.September 3, 2026
• One $200 Million Permit Is a Third of All Bronx Construction This MonthDOB permit data shows the Bronx's construction value leaning hard on a single Waters Place alteration — while Manhattan's $1.79 billion is spread across a dozen big jobs.September 1, 2026

August 2026

• One Competitor: Nassau County's $21.6 Million Sewer Program Drew Exactly Two BiddersJR Cruz Corp. swept all three contracts at roughly half the price of the only other firm that showed up.August 31, 2026
• Permits Bounced Back: New York Added 589 Filings and $209 MillionA month after the pipeline shed $316 million, it just added most of it back — and the bid board didn't move an inch.August 31, 2026
• New York's Permit Pipeline Just Shed $316 Million in a MonthFiled construction dollars fell in every borough at once — the public bid board didn't move an inch.August 29, 2026
• The Board Shrank By 19 Jobs. General Contractors Absorbed Nearly All of ItOpen bids fell from 340 to 321 in a week, and General Construction, paving, and HVAC packages accounted for more than the entire pullback.August 28, 2026
• Manhattan Filed Half of NYC's Permit Dollars in 30 Days12,715 building permits crossed DOB's desk last month — and one $200 million filing in the Bronx did 40% of that borough's entire total by itself.August 27, 2026
• A Third of H-1B Offers for New York Engineers Sit Exactly at the Legal Wage Floor1,023 sponsorship filings for construction jobs in nine months. Nobody pays below the minimum — but how far above it a firm sits splits this market in two.August 26, 2026
• DDC Has $43 Billion to Build and 86 Openings to FillNearly four in ten help-wanted listings on the board are government's own — the biggest single employer hiring right now isn't a GC, it's the city's builder-for-hire.August 26, 2026
• One in Nine Open Bids Right Now Isn't From the Agency — It's From the GCThirty-eight of the 346 packages open on our board today were posted by a prime contractor looking for subs, not by an agency looking for a prime.August 26, 2026
• 731 Bid Results In: Low Bids Are Landing Almost Exactly at EstimateEnough tabs have closed this cycle to trust the averages — and the spread between the winning number and the engineer's own guess is about as tight as it gets.August 26, 2026
• Ten Days, Nine Bid Dates: September's About to Get CrowdedThe board's quiet on new bids this morning, but pull back and you can see the real story — a stretch of the calendar where five agencies all want your bid at once.August 20, 2026
• The Crowd Curve: Sixteen Bidders at $15 MillionThe more a job costs, the more bidders show up — until $25 million, where the room suddenly empties. Nineteen months of tabs draw the curve every estimator feels but nobody had charted.August 17, 2026
• The Two-Envelope EconomyThirty-four openings in our ledger drew exactly two bids — and they add up to $549 million, including the biggest school contract we've ever logged. Five of the six largest have the same word in the title: elevator.August 17, 2026
• Decided by $3,000Thirteen bidders priced a $25.6 million school electrification job in the Bronx. First and second place landed three grand apart — 0.01 percent. It wasn't a fluke: 51 openings in our ledger were decided by less than one percent.August 17, 2026
• The $5.26 Billion Bid RoomWe opened the results desk's own ledger: 709 bid openings, 7,712 bids, nineteen months of tabs from January 2025 through last Tuesday. Here's what $5.26 billion in low bids looks like when you add it all up.August 17, 2026
• The Last BoilerFor years, boiler replacement was one of the steadiest tickets on the SCA board — around twenty packages a year. Then the market fell off a cliff. And what's showing up in its place tells you exactly where the next decade of school mechanical work is going.August 12, 2026
• Follow the Council Money: The Reso BoomA decade ago, Reso packages were a rounding error on the SCA board. Since 2022 they've never dropped below 64 a year — peaking at 85 in 2025. The fastest-growing package type in school construction is sitting in the City Council's line items.August 12, 2026
• The $3 Million LineThe most important number in SCA contracting isn't on any bid form. It's the line where the mentor lane ends and the Project Labor Agreement takes over — and the bid board is full of packages built to sit under it.August 12, 2026
• The SCA Almost Never Bids a New School — the Real Money Is in RenovationsIn fourteen years of bid data, fewer than three packages in a hundred involve a new building or addition. The SCA the public imagines builds schools. The SCA you actually bid to is a renovation machine.August 12, 2026
• The Envelope Economy: What the SCA Actually BuysForget the renderings. Fourteen years of bid titles say the SCA's biggest market is keeping water out of buildings that already exist.August 12, 2026
• The SCA's Year Happens in Eight WeeksThe RFI Wire's own analysis of more than 4,200 SCA solicitations, 2013–2026. Nearly half of the bid dates land in May and June. July barely exists. If you want school work, your calendar just got a lot simpler.August 12, 2026
• 556 Days of Darkness: The Shed Census, and the Money Underneath ItNew York still has 7,625 sidewalk sheds standing — 334 miles of them. Three years of reform have finally started moving the number, and moving the money from renting steel to fixing brick.August 11, 2026