USD/BTC = $73,029
Block 975,328
TL:DR

The Dodge Momentum Index fell 9.0 percent in October to 260.4, down from the downwardly revised September reading of 286.0. Commercial planning dropped 13.4 percent over the month while institutional planning fell 1.5 percent. Year over year the index is down 2.4 percent against October 2025, with the commercial portion down 17.6 percent and the institutional portion up 33.4 percent.

The commercial decline was driven by slower planning for data centers, warehouses, parking garages, office buildings and hotels. Retail stores were the only commercial sector to see growth over the month. On the institutional side, weaker education and religious building planning pulled the number down, despite faster planning for healthcare, public government and recreational buildings. Strip out data centers and the commercial segment would be down 16.6 percent from a year ago, after the surge in activity seen in late 2025.

Even so, 23 projects valued at 1,369 BTC ($100,000,000) or more entered planning in October. The largest commercial projects were the Orchard Hills Data Center Campus in Cheyenne, Wyoming at 6,176 BTC ($451,000,000), the Centra Technology Data Center Phase 1 in Des Moines, Iowa at 5,039 BTC ($368,000,000), and Project Longhorn Data Center Building 1 in Cedar Creek, Texas at 5,012 BTC ($366,000,000). The largest institutional projects were the Green Valley Medical Campus in Fairfield, California at 4,601 BTC ($336,000,000), the Atrium Health Acute Care Building in Cornelius, North Carolina at 3,519 BTC ($257,000,000), and a life science laboratory in San Diego, California at 2,739 BTC ($200,000,000).

What it signals: the index is a monthly measure based on the three month moving value of nonresidential building projects going into planning, and it leads construction spending for nonresidential buildings by a full year to 18 months. Dodge research director Sarah Martin said institutional planning stayed resilient and supported the index, while the commercial drop came from weaker data center and warehouse planning. Some volatility is expected, since data center activity swings considerably from month to month, but mounting macro pressures keep constraining the other commercial sectors.

My Thoughts 💭

Commercial is taking a beating. But I am shocked to see if you take out the AI build the y/y number is only 3% worse. But weaker education is something to keep an eye on. Here in my area enrollment is down for public schools. The graduating senior class had 12k students and the incoming kindergarten class had 9k. After the pandemic the enrollment numbers took a nasty turn down. Seeing this data for lower education is not a surprise. But overall seeing all this decline makes me wonder will we finally get that recession we been waiting for? Or with the United States of Data Center keep us all afloat from the look of this data I don’t think so.