NEW YORK CITY-With no successors to 11 Times Square or the newGoldman Sachs headquarters on the immediate horizon, constructionstarts in the city’s office sector could dip below $500 million forthe year, the New York Building Congress says in a report issuedThursday. That’s about 80% less than the $2.6 billion seen in 2009,and is also well below the $1.3 billion in starts the year before.However, building activity in the sector is likely to climbgradually out of the trough over the next few years.

Following the opening of the Goldman Sachs tower at 200 West St.and the substantial completion of 11 Times Square, “the projects wehoped would replace them, such as the Gem Tower and 250 W. 55thSt., are on hold,” Building Congress president Richard T. Andersonsays in the report.

With the exception of Towers 1 and 4 at the World Trade Centerand Tishman Speyer Properties’ Gotham Center project in Long IslandCity, “new office construction is at a virtual standstill, and thissector is subsisting on work generated by companies that are eitherrenovating in place or relocating to other existing space.”