Just A Bump in Recovery or Something More?

Firms that have an institutional specialization, as well as those with a commercial/industrial specialization, had a fairly significant slowdown in their ABI scores in April, according to AIA's Jennifer Riskus. Business conditions remain particularly weak for institutional firms, despite indications of some growth in late 2010 and early 2011.

Firms with a residential specialization continued to do relatively well in April, posting their seventh consecutive month of billings growth, reflecting improvement in multifamily design activity.

An institutional specialization firm in the Northeast said it does mostly public sector work. Financing is not the issue in the typical sense. Significant and continuing cuts in public budgets are the issue.

- Courtesy of AIA