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After a surprisingly strong showing in January, business conditions at architecture firms showed little improvement in February. With a national ABI score of just 50.3 (any score above 50 signifies growth) firms basically held steady from last month’s growth levels. However, scores for both inquiries coming into architecture firms and new design contracts continued to reflect healthy growth rates. With sustained improvement in inquiries for future projects as well as new project activity, billings are expected to improve in the coming months.
Firms in all of the major regions of the country reported at least limited growth for the month. Firms in the Northeast, Midwest, and West reported very similar average scores of around 51.5, signifying modest improvement in billings. Firms in the South continued to report very strong business conditions, just as they have for each of the past three months. Firms specializing in each of the major construction sectors also reported growth in billings. Mixed practice firms (those with less than 50 percent of their billings in any major construction sector) reported the highest average ABI scores. Among firms concentrating in a single major construction sector, commercial/industrial firms reported the highest average ABI scores at 53.9, followed by multifamily residential (51.6) and institutional firms (50.9). While generally healthy, the February results were divergent from recent design trends in that this month produced the highest ABI score for commercial/industrial firms in over a year, as it also was the lowest score for institutional firms in over a year.