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Washington, D.C. — July 29, 2015 — Despite the adverse weather conditions that curtailed design and construction activity in the first quarter of this year, the overall construction market has performed extremely well to date.
The greatest amount of activity was seen in the building of commercial properties – most notably offices and hotels – with an unusually high spike in manufacturing construction spending triggered by the surge in domestic oil and natural gas production.
The American Institute of Architects’ (AIA) semi-annual Consensus Construction Forecast, a survey of the nation’s leading construction forecasters, is projecting that spending will see a nearly 9 percent increase in 2015, with next year’s projection being 8.2 percent.
“Buoyed mostly by the red-hot commercial sector, spending on nonresidential buildings should be close to $360 billion this year, approaching $390 billion in 2016,” said AIA Chief Economist Kermit Baker. “But the demographic factors that are also fueling heavy demand for healthcare and education facilities are going to lead to a more balanced construction market in the foreseeable future.”
The AIA Consensus Construction Forecast Panel is conducted twice a year with the leading nonresidential construction forecasters in the United States including Dodge Data & Analytics, Wells Fargo Securities, IHS-Global Insight, Moody’s economy.com, CMD Group, Associated Builders & Contractors, and FMI. The panel's goal is to project business conditions in the construction industry over the coming 12 to 18 months. For more information, visit www.aia.org.
