The Association of General Contractors of American recently reported that construction employment expanded in 223 metro areas between July 2013 and July 2014. Dallas-Plano-Irving, Texas added the largest number of construction jobs in the past year (9,400 jobs, 8 percent), followed by Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown, Texas (8,900 jobs, 5 percent).

Houston has by far the most new office space construction underway of any U.S. market with 17.6 million square feet coming out of the ground at mid-year 2014. Coming in a distant second is Washington, D.C., with 5.3 million square feet of office construction underway. Houston is not the only Texas market with significant new office construction. Dallas comes in at number three with just over 5 million square feet underway. Rounding out the top five are the tech driven markets of Silicon Valley and San Francisco.

Here are the top U.S Office Markets at mid-year 2014 ranked by new office space currently under construction:

New Office Construction Underway (Mid-Year 2014)

Market — Square Feet Underway

1. Houston: 17,768,142 SF
2. Washington DC: 5,309,410 SF
3. Dallas: 5,071,048
4. San Jose-Silicon Valley: 4,993,108 SF
5. San Francisco: 4,990,366 SF
6. Seattle/Puget Sound: 4,610,207 SF
7. Boston: 3,721,400 SF
8. New York-Midtown South: 3,600,000 SF

Source: Colliers International Research

Coy Davidson is Senior Vice President of Colliers International in Houston. He publishes The Tenant Advisor blog.