Healthcare construction is humming right now, as providers across the country build new hospitals, expand or renovate existing facilities and, increasingly, break ground for off-campus clinical buildings.  

Revista, a healthcare real-estate advisory firm based in Annapolis, Md., tells Healthcare Finance that some 1,340 hardhat undertakings launched, continued or entered the planning phase over the past year.

Revista principal Hilda Martin told the HIMSS Media publication that a number of factors are driving the surge, not least a growing need for ambulatory facilities spurred by the growth of the insured population under healthcare reform and the aging of the population at large.

Martin says that, in 2013, there were 4.8 square feet of medical office space for every insured individual. Today that metric has dropped to 4.58 square feet.

An additional 62 million square feet would be needed to fill the gap, she adds.

Most of the hospital projects are renovations, but close to 150 entail putting up a brand new building or completely replacing one.

As for the “hot” locales, the top 10 metropolitan areas for healthcare construction are, in order: Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami-Fort Lauderdale, New York-Newark, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C.

Healthcare Finance has posted Revista’s list of the top 50 sites. The top five projects now in the works, ranked by dollars, are:

1. Tisch Hospital, New York City, $2 billion expansion
2. Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, $1.5 billion new-tower construction
3. Loma Linda University Medical Center, $1.2 billion medical-campus replacement
4. Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital, Palo Alto, Calif., $1.1 billion expansion
5. VA Hospital Fitzsimmons campus, Aurora, Colo., $1.1 billion campus replacement

Click here to see the rest of the top 50 projects, along with interesting qualifying info on top-dollar states California ($11.8 billion in medical construction projects) and Texas ($7.7 billion).