Just 1.2% of the active construction projects registered by the National Statistics Office in the Metropolitan Region account for almost half of the area currently under construction in Greater Santo Domingo
SANTO DOMINGO. The construction sector was, once again, the most dynamic in the Dominican economy during the first half of 2026, according to figures from the Central Bank of the Dominican Republic (BCRD), included in its statement on June's performance.
In that publication, construction activity registered "an annual expansion of 14.9%, explaining approximately 30% of the growth of the Monthly Indicator of Economic Activity (IMAE)" for that month, after growing 6.7% in April and 11.1% in May.
The Central Bank itself attributed this rebound to "the increase in the execution of private investment projects and the greater dynamism of public investment," in addition to credit destined for construction that grew 22.6% year-on-year, equivalent to more than RD$34 billion more compared to the previous year.
That aggregate reading, however, hides a different reality when looking at each project individually in the Building Supply Registry (ROE) 2026-1, which the ONE compiles census-style in the Metropolitan Region, and which shows that the physical volume of active construction is highly concentrated in a small number of projects, while the vast majority of registered works are small in scale and contribute little to the total square footage.
According to the report, buildings between 100 and 200 square meters represent 51.0% of the 6,682 active construction projects registered in the region, but account for only 5.0% of the total built area. Combined with projects between 201 and 500 square meters, these two categories comprise 79.3% of the projects, but only 11.0% of the total square footage, according to the same document.
At the opposite end of the spectrum, the ONE found that “projects larger than 5,000 square meters represent only 4.7% of the works, but account for 71.8% of the total square footage.” And within that group, the concentration is even more extreme: works larger than 15,000 square meters, 80 projects out of a total of 6,622 with reported size, constitute just 1.2% of the total, but account for 49.2% of all active built area in the Metropolitan Region.
In other words: fewer than one hundred projects account for nearly half of everything that is being built today in Greater Santo Domingo.
“These results show that construction activity in the Metropolitan Region is characterized by a large number of small works, while the volume of construction is highly concentrated in a small number of large-scale projects,” concludes the ONE in the ROE 2026-1 report itself.
Who's pushing?
The report also offers a direct explanation for the origin of this growth in built area: the Dominican State. Analyzing the map of square meters per municipality, the ONE points out that, “although the number of construction projects decreased, this increase in area is due to the registration of large-scale State projects aimed at building low-cost housing and the inclusion of new projects in the planning stage, with the Dominican Government's projects being large-scale in scale.”.
This observation coincides with the Central Bank's own explanation for the June rebound, when it cited "greater dynamism in public investment" among the drivers of the sector, and has a verifiable correlation in the projects that the Ministry of Housing, Habitat and Buildings (MIVHED) has underway in the Metropolitan Region.
According to the official 2026 project description published by the ministry itself, one of the largest housing developments of the period is that of the Hato Nuevo community, in the Manoguayabo sector, municipality of Santo Domingo Oeste: 2,240 apartments, 1,800 with three bedrooms and 440 with two, with an investment of RD$619,626,359, started in January 2026.
In the Los Ríos sector, in the National District, the ministry reports another project of 80 apartments for RD$80,000,000, and in Santo Domingo East, an improvement program of eight lots that benefited 1,856 families, with an investment of RD$15,920,921.
The then Minister of Housing, Habitat and Buildings, Víctor “Ito” Bisonó, summarized the year's delivery pace in statements collected by El Inmobiliario: “This year we have delivered nearly 900 apartments and we have about 4,000 more on the agenda. On August 8th alone, we will be delivering around 170 apartments in Hato del Yaque,” said the official, who also attributed the delivery pace to the functioning of “the plan and the entire trust structure” that finances the state projects.
The contrast between the discourse of a generally booming sector and the evidence of construction concentrated in a few projects, many of them state-run, reveals how distributed the growth reported by macroeconomic figures really is.
While the built area skyrockets due to the weight of large projects, the ONE warns, in the same report, that half of all small projects in the country, those of 100 to 200 square meters, which are the majority, are paralyzed: a pattern that, read together with the concentration data, suggests two very different speeds within the same sector.
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