According to a recent study released by McGraw Hill Construction, “Contracts for future commercial construction in the Baltimore-Towson Metropolitan statistical area for January 2011 were up 72 percent when compared to the same month in 2010.”
In an article that appeared on Citybizlist Maryland this week, it stated that, “January 2011 saw future construction contracts top $41 million, a 72 percent increase over January 2010. Although residential construction contracts fell 17 percent, total building in the Baltimore region topped $103 million in January 2011, a five percent increase over the same month in 2010.”
The statistics released cover only Maryland’s Baltimore-Towson area, which consists of Anne Arundel, Baltimore, Carroll, Harford, Howard and Queen Anne’s counties.
The recent surge in activity in Baltimore seems to mirror the experience of the rest of the country. As Anirban Basu, Chief Economist for the Associated Builders and Contractors, Inc., stated in a Q&A conducted by Construction Law Signal on January 24, 2010, “In terms of U.S. production, we are now more than one and a half years into the current economic recovery… some construction indicators, such as the architecture billings index, have begun to show signs of life.”