WASHINGTON, DC-Construction industry metric watchers received a slap in the face with May’s Architecture Billings Index. After falling almost three points in April to 47.6, the May score of 47.2 added insult to injury.

“It was very disappointing,” AIA chief economist Kermit Baker tells GlobeSt.com. “We had hoped that the April score was a one-month aberration. But now that there has been a two-month decline we will have to rethink our earlier projections about the construction industry’s direction and recovery.”

For the larger commercial real estate industry this is not good news, to state the obvious. The ABI is a leading economic indicator of construction activity, reflecting the approximate nine to twelve month lag time between architecture billings and construction spending.  Anything under 50 means a decrease in billings for design services. The new projects inquiry index was 52.6, down from 55 in April, which was the lowest level in almost a year and a half.

Baker attributes the weak scores to a larger weak economic recovery. “I don’t think this is particular to the construction industry but rather a reflection of weak economic growth,” he says. “We knew the recovery would be bumpy but it is turning out to be much bumpier than expected.”

The report also showed little variance among the regions, with the West posting a score of 49.3, the Northeast 47.6, the South 47.5 and the Midwest 45.9. For sectors, those numbers are multifamily residential 53.6, mixed practice 49.1, commercial/industrial 46.5 and institutional 44.9.