Data center starts fall to $9.4 billion in September while cost per square foot jumps 31%

September’s two biggest starts, a Pennsylvania project and a West Virginia project, were worth $2 billion each, according to ConstructConnect’s monthly data center report. The slower month pulled the 12-month moving average down to $14.9 billion. Through September, data centers account for $135.8 billion across 178 projects, or 27% of the $500.2 billion in nonresidential building starts the firm has recorded this year. ConstructConnect says 2026 is on track to pass $180 billion, about $20 billion more than its own full-year forecast.

Prices are climbing faster than buildings are growing. Among this year’s projects with a known price and floor area, the average one runs $1.3 billion for 1.1 million square feet. The median price per square foot is up 31% from last year, which lifts the five-year compound annual growth rate for that figure to 16.2%. The report does not say what is driving the increase.

ConstructConnect is tracking 115 planned projects worth $74.8 billion scheduled to start within six months, and none of them is certain to go ahead. The South holds nearly 80% of that value, the Midwest 11.9% and the Northeast 7.2%. This year’s starts have clustered in the belt from Wisconsin through Ohio, at more than $40 billion, in the South Atlantic states at $36.2 billion and in the Census Bureau’s West South Central division, home to Texas and Arkansas, at $33.6 billion. Power infrastructure starts have risen 167.4% compared with the first nine months of 2025.