Boom? Not bad for a January.

ENR reports today, March 3, 2016: 

"Construction spending posted positive results in January, with the value of completed projects rising 1.5% from December’s level to an annual rate of $1.14 trillion and 10.4% year over year, the U.S.  Census Bureau says."

The bureau, part of the Commerce Dept., reported on March 1 that spending on residential projects put in place in January totaled a $439-billion seasonally adjusted rate. That was flat with December’s mark and up 7.6% from the year-earlier level.

Nonresidential construction increased 2.5% from December to $701.9 billion, and jumped 12.3% from January 2015.

Within the nonresidential sector, highway and street construction did particularly well, with completed projects’ value rising 14.6% month-to-month, to $110.7 billion and surging 33.9% compared with the year-earlier total.

Ken Simonson, Associated General Contractors of America chief economist, said that record high temperatures in January let highway projects continue that would have been put off until later, in some parts of the country.

Lodging also showed solid results, with spending up 6.3% from December and 34.8% year over year."

The good news is the growth, the bad news is the potential of weather change that promote it.  We can use any help we can get to rebuild the industry, but climate change isn't going to be a positive influence in the long run.  Anyway, it is such a burst of new growth, I thought it was worthy of including here.