McGraw-Hill Construction is Forecasting Mixed Numbers for the Southwest

According to analysts at McGraw-Hill Construction, the parent company of this publication, residential construction will be higher in 2010 in all three states, with Arizona at nearly $4 billion and Nevada rising to $1.4 billion. Both multi-family housing and single family home construction will see increases over the previous year, but will be nowhere near the levels seen in 2006 and 2007.

New Mexico will also see an increase in non-residential buildings to $1.6 billion, but engineering/highway projects will dip significantly to $935 million in 2010.

Nevada, on the other hand, will see a rise in engineering/highway construction but the drop in non-residential buildings will continue, with just $1.8 billion forecast for 2010.

Most sectors will be down in 2010 over the previous year, including public works, utilities, manufacturing, institutional and miscellaneous commercial. Office, hotels, environmental and health care will be a few of the bright spots, with health care seeing nearly $1.2 billion of project starts in 2010.