Free dataset, CC BY 4.0
Commercial building opportunity across all 50 states plus DC
Across 50 published state and district rows, we count 3,003,291 serviceable commercial buildings, then compare buildings per competing plumbing and HVAC location with nominal construction growth. Colorado is retained in the directory but shown as not published because its building row is unavailable.
This is a state comparison, not a forecast or a precise best-market ranking. Use the quadrants to separate room, momentum, scale, and market structure before opening a state's full benchmark page.
49 comparable states are plotted. DC remains in the directory but is excluded from the quadrant and ranked opportunity tiers: its 37 establishments count only locations physically inside the District, while contractors based in Maryland and Virginia also serve DC buildings.
Buildings per rival against state construction growth
State building density is plotted against nominal current-dollar construction GDP growth from 2018 to 2025. Bubble size is serviceable building count; color shows plumbing and HVAC establishment structure.
Top right: more buildings per rival, with faster construction GDP growth.
Top left: fewer buildings per rival, with faster construction GDP growth.
Bottom right: more buildings per rival, with slower construction GDP growth.
Bottom left: fewer buildings per rival, with slower construction GDP growth.
Quadrant lines are the medians of the places plotted, not fixed thresholds, so a position means "compared with everywhere else measured here" rather than passing some absolute bar. The y-axis is nominal current-dollar construction GDP.
Most room per location
Mississippi · 54 buildings per competing location
Ohio · 47 buildings per competing location
Tennessee · 41 buildings per competing location
Most contested
Idaho · 10 buildings per competing location
New Hampshire · 12 buildings per competing location
Maine · 14 buildings per competing location
room and momentum
More buildings per competing location, with faster nominal construction growth than the state median.
| State | Serviceable buildings | Per competing location | Nominal construction growth |
|---|---|---|---|
| Florida | 267,766 | 29 | +66.1% |
| Texas | 246,862 | 28 | +57.7% |
| Ohio | 139,089 | 47 | +59.7% |
| North Carolina | 111,520 | 28 | +76.4% |
| Georgia | 102,555 | 33 | +70.4% |
| Arizona | 78,029 | 30 | +114.1% |
| Tennessee | 76,919 | 41 | +89.1% |
| Virginia | 71,439 | 26 | +61.2% |
| Indiana | 70,718 | 35 | +68.6% |
| Alabama | 57,713 | 35 | +75.7% |
| Missouri | 53,213 | 28 | +62.7% |
| South Carolina | 49,288 | 29 | +67.6% |
| Kansas | 38,463 | 37 | +57.7% |
| Mississippi | 38,432 | 54 | +63.3% |
| Nevada | 32,774 | 36 | +80.9% |
| Nebraska | 22,022 | 26 | +73.9% |
growing but crowded
Fewer buildings per competing location, with faster nominal construction growth than the state median.
| State | Serviceable buildings | Per competing location | Nominal construction growth |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wisconsin | 43,041 | 22 | +54.2% |
| Arkansas | 26,305 | 23 | +71.9% |
| Utah | 25,142 | 17 | +99.2% |
| New Mexico | 16,522 | 24 | +66.7% |
| Montana | 12,818 | 18 | +82.4% |
| Maine | 10,553 | 14 | +64.5% |
| Idaho | 8,619 | 10 | +125.6% |
| South Dakota | 7,155 | 18 | +74.6% |
| Wyoming | 6,442 | 20 | +56.3% |
| Alaska | 6,296 | 24 | +62.1% |
open but slower
More buildings per competing location, with slower nominal construction growth than the state median.
| State | Serviceable buildings | Per competing location | Nominal construction growth |
|---|---|---|---|
| California | 418,980 | 36 | +30.7% |
| Pennsylvania | 108,649 | 26 | +33.8% |
| Michigan | 84,105 | 32 | +52.9% |
| Washington | 74,623 | 33 | +38.0% |
| Minnesota | 49,535 | 27 | +50.5% |
| Oregon | 35,058 | 26 | +48.4% |
| Iowa | 32,929 | 30 | +40.4% |
| West Virginia | 15,101 | 37 | -9.5% |
| Hawaii | 11,729 | 29 | +35.8% |
crowded and slower
Fewer buildings per competing location, with slower nominal construction growth than the state median.
| State | Serviceable buildings | Per competing location | Nominal construction growth |
|---|---|---|---|
| New York | 143,716 | 20 | +19.3% |
| Illinois | 80,230 | 20 | +40.9% |
| New Jersey | 58,088 | 17 | +35.6% |
| Massachusetts | 56,891 | 19 | +39.7% |
| Maryland | 48,313 | 24 | +32.8% |
| Kentucky | 35,152 | 25 | +52.4% |
| Oklahoma | 33,724 | 21 | +44.8% |
| Louisiana | 30,218 | 19 | +27.5% |
| Connecticut | 24,606 | 19 | +40.8% |
| New Hampshire | 8,981 | 12 | +51.1% |
| North Dakota | 8,012 | 24 | +44.1% |
| Rhode Island | 6,740 | 14 | +48.2% |
| Delaware | 6,583 | 19 | +46.5% |
| Vermont | 5,085 | 17 | +46.0% |
regional denominator required
The District of Columbia is retained in the directory, but its establishments are counted only inside DC while contractors in Maryland and Virginia also serve the market. Its ratio is not ranked against states.
| State | Serviceable buildings | Per competing location | Nominal construction growth |
|---|---|---|---|
| District of Columbia | 6,548 | 177 | +8.4% |
unrated
Missing a competitor count or growth figure, so the state is omitted from the chart rather than shown at zero.
| State | Serviceable buildings | Per competing location | Nominal construction growth |
|---|---|---|---|
| Colorado | not published | not published | +45.1% |
Frequently asked questions
What does the state comparison measure?
The horizontal axis is serviceable commercial buildings per plumbing and HVAC contractor location. The vertical axis is nominal current-dollar construction GDP growth from 2018 to 2025. Bubble size is the count of serviceable commercial buildings.
Why use tiers instead of ranking states from 1 to 51?
The axes answer different questions and do not support one best-market score. A state can have more room per competitor but slower construction growth, or faster growth with more competition. The quadrants preserve that tradeoff rather than hiding it inside an arbitrary weighted rank.
Do the competitor counts cover every trade?
No. Building counts are useful across trades, but the competitor denominator is Census NAICS 238220, plumbing, heating, and air-conditioning contractor locations. It is labeled that way and should not be read as electrical, roofing, or fire-protection competition.
Sources, filters, and limitsThe same canonical building, competitor, and growth dataset used by every state and metro page.
Building counts: FEMA/ORNL USA Structures (CC BY 4.0), counted per structure inside each state boundary. Competitor locations: US Census County Business Patterns, NAICS 238220, 2023. Growth: US Bureau of Economic Analysis SAGDP2 current-dollar state construction GDP, 2018 to 2025.
Establishments are physical locations, not parent firms. Buildings per location is an average over a right-skewed population, and most locations in a typical market have fewer than five employees. NAICS 238220 covers plumbing, heating, and air-conditioning locations, not all trade contractors.
Machine-readable, free to cite with attribution under CC BY 4.0: geo-building-stock.json, version 1.0.2.
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