Now matter how semi-sorta-mildly comforting the recent American Institute of Architect‘s Billings Index flat-lining seems to be, it appears that the good news is mostly coming from the residential portion of the industry. The AIA has released their latest Consensus Construction Forecast and things don’t look good at all for architects working in the commercial market. The report states that there was a big hit in 2009, as we’re all aware of, but the AIA is also projecting a double digit drop in the percentage of commercial jobs out there in 2010, with retail and hotels being hit the very hardest (health care facilities and public works seem like the only safe best, but even those outlets are seeing slight declines). Here’s a bit:

“This nonresidential downturn is shaping up to be the deepest decline in nonresidential activity in over a generation,” said Kermit Baker, chief economist for the AIA. “However, we’re beginning to see some moderation in the trends in design billings at architecture firms, so we hopefully are nearing the bottom of this cycle.”

“Commercial facilities such as hotels, retail establishments and offices will feel the decline most dramatically,” said Baker. “The institutional market will fare much better as stimulus funding becomes available for education, health care and government facilities.”