Commercial building will rise 12% in 2013, building on the 5% gain estimated for 2012, according to the MHC forecast.

Within that sector, warehouse and hotel construction is expected to benefit from lower vacancy rates and retail building will get a lift from the upturn in housing and also feature more upgrades to existing space, Murray says.

The manufacturing building market is expected to rebound in 2013 from this year’s disappointing 31% drop, posting an 8% increase that would generate $12.8 billion in new starts.

The institutional building market should level off following double-digit declines in 2011 and in 2012, according to MHC. That will leave the public building market with $86.6 billion in new starts in 2013, about equal to this year’s estimated mark.

For educational facilities, K-12 construction will slip further while college construction stabilizes. The health-care facilities sector is expected to show a modest rebound after this year’s downturn.

Public works construction is forecasted to dip another 1% in 2013, the fourth consecutive annual decline, the MHC report says. However, the recently signed two-year federal transportation measure, the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21^st Century Act, should help to limit the impact of spending cuts to highway and bridge construction, Murray adds.

After three strong years, the boom in electric utilities isn’t expected to continue in 2013, with new construction starts forecasted to fall 31%, to $35 billion. “This year was boosted by the start of two very large nuclear powerplants and projects of similar magnitude are not expected for 2013,” Murray says.

The full report is available at ">McGraw-Hill Research and Analytics.