America’s $1 trillion deferred maintenance crisis and the invisible construction boom it is creating - by Bryan Northrop

While headlines are dominated by megaprojects and marquee developments, a quieter and potentially more consequential transformation is reshaping America’s built environment. Across the country, decades of deferred maintenance to essential building systems are coming due all at once, triggering what many in the industry now describe as an invisible construction boom.

This surge is not being driven by expansion. It is being driven by necessity.

Mechanical, electrical, HVAC, and life safety systems installed 30, 40, and even 50 years ago are rapidly approaching failure. The scale of the challenge is staggering. The Government Accountability Office reports that the federal government’s deferred maintenance backlog has more than doubled since 2017, rising from $171 billion to $370 billion by fiscal year 2024. The General Services Administration further projects that maintenance needs in federally-owned facilities alone could exceed $20 billion within the next five years if current funding trends continue.

At the state and local level, the problem is even larger. Engineering News Record estimates the national deferred maintenance backlog across public facilities at roughly $1 trillion, nearly 4% of United States GDP. From courthouses and transit hubs to hospitals and university campuses, infrastructure that was once considered good enough is now reaching the end of its useful life all at once.

Behind these statistics are buildings that people depend on every day. Hospitals delivering care, laboratories driving innovation, and higher education institutions training the next generation cannot simply shut down while aging systems are replaced. This is where today’s deferred maintenance wave becomes uniquely complex. Critical infrastructure must be modernized within fully operational environments, often under intense budget constraints and zero tolerance for disruption.

Nowhere is this more evident than in New England, where much of the region’s institutional building stock dates back several decades. Aging infrastructure is colliding with growing demands from healthcare delivery, life sciences research, advanced technology, and digital learning. At the same time, states across the region have adopted some of the most aggressive climate and carbon reduction targets in the country. That combination is forcing owners to address deferred maintenance not just as a reliability issue, but as an urgent sustainability imperative.

Across the region and nationwide, Skanska is working inside active hospitals, research laboratories, and higher education campuses to replace and modernize mechanical, electrical, and HVAC systems without interrupting patient care, scientific research, or daily instruction. This work demands a different level of coordination than traditional construction, requiring phased installations, temporary system switchover strategies, and round-the-clock operations to ensure safety, redundancy, and continuity.

Deferred maintenance has also become one of the most powerful and immediate levers available to institutions working to meet climate goals. Replacing outdated chillers, modernizing building automation systems, upgrading electrical infrastructure for electrification, and improving energy performance frequently deliver the largest emissions reductions in existing buildings. For many owners, deferred maintenance has effectively become their sustainability strategy.

This dynamic is reshaping construction priorities nationwide. Capital dollars that once flowed primarily toward new construction are increasingly being redirected toward system replacements, infrastructure resilience, and lifecycle performance. At the same time, demand for highly-skilled trades capable of executing complex work in live environments is surging, intensifying workforce pressures across the industry.

What makes this moment particularly consequential is that deferred maintenance is no longer a problem that can be managed incrementally. Decades of postponed reinvestment are now converging with rising energy costs, tighter carbon regulations, and growing demands for resilient and reliable facilities. Institutions can no longer afford to treat system failures as isolated events. Infrastructure has become a strategic asset and a strategic risk.

The stakes extend far beyond facilities management. Deferred maintenance directly impacts patient safety, research productivity, educational outcomes, and economic competitiveness. It also plays a central role in whether cities and states can realistically achieve their long-term commitments using the buildings they already have.

The $1 trillion backlog confronting the nation is not merely a construction challenge. It is a resilience challenge, a sustainability challenge, and a workforce challenge rolled into one. And while new construction will always play a vital role in shaping communities, the next major chapter of the United States construction market is increasingly being written inside the walls of existing buildings.

The question facing owners, policymakers, and builders alike is no longer whether these investments must happen, but how quickly they can be delivered, how sustainably they can be executed, and how seamlessly essential operations can be protected along the way.

Bryan Northrop is executive vice president and general manager, Skanska USA Building New England, Boston.