Dive Brief:

• The American Institute of Architects' semi-annual Consensus Construction Forecast predicts that nonresidential spending will increase nearly 6% in 2016 and 5.6% in 2017, a downward departure from its February projections of 8.3% and 6.7%, respectively.
• The AIA said that although construction growth will be more "tempered" in comparison with 2015's activity, hotel, office and amusement/recreation demand will drive solid expansion for the next 18 months.
• The AIA Consensus Construction Forecast Panel projects construction business conditions for the next year to 18 months. Dodge Data & Analytics, Wells Fargo Securities, IHS-Global Insight, Moody’s economy.com, ConstructConnect, Associated Builders & Contractors and FMI are all members of the panel.

Dive Insight:

AIA Chief Economist Kermit Baker said in a statement that said the biggest industry slowdown should come from the industrial construction category, but he added that jobs, consumer confidence and low interest rates are a few positive overall economic conditions that should allow construction growth to continue. He added that the impact of Brexit, sluggish U.S. manufacturing, and the impending presidential election could all affect construction's performance through 2017.

According to the Construction Consensus Forecast, the best performing commercial markets of 2016 and 2017 will be hotels (17.9% in 2016; 7.6% in 2017), office (14.7%, 7.5%) and retail (7.4%, 5.2%). For the institutional market, amusement/recreation (10%, 5.7%), education (6.5%, 6.3%) and healthcare (2.3%, 5%) will be the big performers.

Compatible with the AIA's projections for the hotel industry is that category's current U.S. performance. Last month, research firm Lodging Econometrics revealed that in the first quarter of 2016, the U.S. led the world in the number of units under construction or in the planning stages. New York City, beating out all the world's largest metros, had 32,136 rooms underway.