Residential firms nationwide are reporting strong growth, with a third of firms indicating increased billings in March, but firms in commercial and industrial sectors are reporting weaker billings.

Guha said the increase in the residential sector might have to do with interest rates.

“We had a lot of people postpone construction earlier this year because the money they invested in the stock market … seemed to disappear,” Guha said. The lowering of interest rates has spurred recent area growth.

Guha said she is seeing the same thing happen with multi-family buildings, even though the AIA reports a slowdown in commercial sectors.

“Actually we are doing a bit of commercial in comparison to last year, like more projects for individual owners, but not speculative work,” she said. “People aren’t building office buildings. We haven’t done (much) of that or speculative-type buildings.”

But one slowdown she sees in Colorado Springs is in small, retail start-ups.

“I think one thing we are seeing is a decline in small businesses, like mom-and-pop shops,” she said.

The construction industry seems still be speeding through the economic slowdown. Housing starts have remained strong with 1.61 million starts in March nationally. While overall employment growth has been fairly weak with payrolls increasing by less than 400,000 through the first quarter, 150,000 of the new jobs have been in the construction sector.