Somewhere between headline news, trade publication articles, and what your reps are actually seeing in the field, there's a disconnect.
Everyone's calling 2026 a construction "boom" year, and for reps in certain industries, that's true. But for others, the numbers aren't showing up in their sales pipeline, and they don't know why.
The "old pros" know this pattern. It's what happens when the market shifts heavily toward one or two sectors while the rest lags, and it's called a K-shaped market. Right now, that “k-shape” is affecting commercial buildings more than almost any other segment of the economy.
Commercial building services spending by type is growing, just not the way the press describes it. It's concentrated to a few narrow lanes instead of spread across the board, and most territory strategies haven't caught up to that yet.
If you're preparing your sales team for 2027, here's where the current data seems to show the market moving.
Supporting Data
Data center construction spending is up as much as 46% year-over-year, and data centers now account for close to a quarter of all nonresidential building starts nationally. (ConstructConnect, 2026)
Healthcare construction spending grew roughly 2.2% over the trailing 12 months, one of the steadiest categories in the market. (Medical Construction & Design, 2026)
Manufacturing construction spending is on pace to decline more than 11% in 2026 as CHIPS Act-era megaprojects wind down, even as education and institutional spending is forecast to rise 2.8%. (AIA Consensus Construction Forecast, 2026)
General office construction, excluding data centers, is down nearly 12% year-over-year, and warehouse spending has fallen for three straight months. (HVAC/P, 2026)
Eight of 19 tracked construction segments are expected to decline in 2026, even as data centers and infrastructure spending offset the losses. (Roofing Contractor, 2026)
Why Doesn't the Construction "Boom" Feel Real in Your Territory?
One VP of Sales at a regional commercial HVAC company pulls up the quarterly pipeline report on a Monday morning, and growth seems to be exploding across every sector. Another VP does the same thing the same morning, and proposal volume is flat. One sees new account activity that hasn't moved in two straight quarters. The other is scrambling to hire fast enough to keep up with demand.
K-shaped economies move this way. One sector will "blow up" while others fade, and there's a reason for it. Old infrastructure gets replaced by new systems.
This has happened hundreds of times before. Whale oil was replaced by crude, as the pumping and transportation infrastructure changed around it. Men with chainsaws and shovels were replaced by excavation and lumber processing equipment.
Today, data is the new oil. It's required for robotics, artificial intelligence, automation, and every system reshaping how modern buildings get built and used.
That infrastructure doesn't build itself. Someone has to construct the data centers, the automated distribution centers, the modernized manufacturing plants, and the hospitals and schools running on all of it.
Go back to the first VP, the one with the flat pipeline. His company bids on every building type: hospitals, schools, data centers, manufacturing plants, distribution centers, office towers. If construction is genuinely booming everywhere, a shop like his should be seeing it from a dozen directions at once.
He isn't seeing it from any direction, and that's a signal. It isn't that revenue is declining. It's that core growth is happening in the sectors where his team doesn’t currently focus.
The boom isn't happening everywhere. It's happening in a specific list of building types, in specific regions, and if none of those overlap with his territory, it doesn't matter how many verticals his company touches.
K-shaped market: When one part of an industry grows sharply while another part lags or declines, splitting the trend into two directions instead of moving together.
Nonresidential construction spending: Money spent building or upgrading non-residential structures, tracked monthly by the U.S. Census Bureau and reported by trade groups like Associated Builders and Contractors.
Is Commercial Construction Actually Growing in 2026?
Technically - yes, on a national level commercial construction is growing.
Nonresidential construction spending crept up 0.1% in June to $1.277 trillion, according to Associated Builders and Contractors' read of Census Bureau data.
However, that number is slightly deceiving.
Private nonresidential spending is still down more than 7% from its April 2025 peak, and the categories inside it are moving in opposite directions. Manufacturing and general office space, two of the largest categories by dollar value, are both declining for the year.
Data centers, distribution hubs, healthcare, and education are all growing.
The market isn't moving together. It's splitting, and the split runs by building type, not by industry.
Where Is Nonresidential Construction Spending Actually Concentrated?
Data centers are still the standout. Construction spending in that category is up as much as 46% year-over-year, and data centers alone account for close to a quarter of all nonresidential building starts nationally.
But data centers aren't the whole list. Healthcare construction is up roughly 2.2% over the past year. Education and other institutional building spending is forecast to climb 2.8% in 2026. Amusement, recreation, and religious construction have both picked up meaningfully after a slow stretch, according to the same forecast.
The decliners are just as specific. General office space, excluding data centers, is down close to 12% year-over-year. Manufacturing construction is on pace to fall more than 11% for the year as CHIPS Act-era megaprojects wind down. Warehouse spending has fallen for three straight months.
What the Full Breakdown Actually Shows
This isn't one category carrying the whole market (although AI spend is driving a significant amount of it), and it isn't a universal boom either. A specific list of building types is growing, a specific list is shrinking, and most territory strategies are still built for neither list.
What Does the K-Shaped Market Look Like for a Commercial HVAC Rep?
For an HVAC contractor, the winners' list isn't abstract. Hospitals need chillers and air handlers. Schools need new systems on a predictable replacement cycle. Data centers need massive, specialized cooling infrastructure.
General office buildings need very little right now past maintenance, because almost nobody is building new office space. However, mixed use buildings seem to be booming right now.
Indiana is a clean example of what the winning side of that list looks like on the ground. John Deere broke ground on a $125 million distribution center in Lake County as part of a stated $20 billion U.S. manufacturing push. And, small mature cities like Carmel, Indiana have upwards of a dozen commercial and mixed-use developments under construction right now.
None of that is data center construction, and all of it is real HVAC, electrical, and mechanical work - and that’s just one example.
Manufacturing construction spending is actually declining nationally, even with wins like that one. Indiana's growth is regional, not a national manufacturing rebound. The building type matters, but so does the specific radius a contractor operates in.
Using Permit History for Predictive HVAC Sales covers which specific buildings in a territory are actively investing in improvements - if you’d like to learn more about how to read your territory for opportunities, this is a great place to start.
How Do You Know If Your Territory is Actually Growing?
The best way to shift from guesswork to territory confidence is to pull up recent permits and construction starts across the counties that your team covers.
If you’d like to narrow down the list, you can even filter by building type: healthcare, education, data centers, manufacturing, the categories that are actually growing, not the ones that used to be reliable.
That single check replaces a manual pull from county records and secondhand rumor.
It also answers the real question: not whether construction is booming somewhere in the country, but whether a hospital expansion or a school project or a distribution center is breaking ground within driving distance of an actual account.
Once you’ve identified where the growth is happening in your territory, property intelligence can help you see the sales opportunities in your area so your team can take action on them.
Regional operators have run this play for years without a national data team. Mechanical Services and Design (MSD), a 200-plus person mechanical contractor in Dayton, Ohio, sourced over $42 million in pipeline across 18 months by treating its Ohio territory this way, according to CSO Nick Davis.
His approach: treat the territory like your own small business, and qualify every account the way you'd screen a new hire.
What Should Change About How You Target Accounts This Year?
A territory strategy built around chasing one hot category (data centers), or assuming growth is spread evenly across every submarket, will miss the mark in a k-shaped innovation cycle.
The real list of what's growing is longer than data centers, and narrower than “everything.”
Your reps need to be able to “see” what’s happening in their market. Who’s filing permits? Who’s searching for specific services? And, when should your team make contact with them?
To be effective in a k-curve, your team has to stay disciplined and focused or the cycle will pass them by.
If you’re seeing huge attrition in your market, rethinking your ICP is a good place to start.
Using tools like Convex gives your team the data that they need to see who’s actively looking for solutions in your territory. Starting with a map of all the buildings in your market and then adding on layers like permits, buyer intent, and signals. Combined, these provide a clear picture of who’s buying and how to get in touch with them.
One commercial HVAC company operating across Arizona and New Mexico ran into a version of this problem at a much larger scale. Its addressable market (install base) was close to $100 billion regionally, more than any single sales team could realistically cover.
Their Southwest division President said: “when you have a market that big, you have to find ways to focus your search to find the customers that are the best fit.”
After making the switch to Convex, the company more than doubled in size. But it didn’t happen overnight. Four years of staying disciplined and focused on working the best opportunities in their region and the company doubled revenue.
Making the K-Shaped Market Work for Your Team
The "construction boom" trade press keeps describing in 2026 is real, but it isn't one category. It's a specific list of building types, data centers, healthcare, education, growing while general office, manufacturing, and warehouse spending decline.
None of that tells a sales leader whether the growth is happening in their territory. The only way to know is to see it on a map: what buildings exist, who's actively filing permits, and who's actively looking for the services your team sells.
Ready to See Where the Growth Actually Is in Your Territory?
If your territory strategy is still built around a single national growth number, a conversation with Convex can help you see exactly which building types and regions are actually moving. Schedule a demo to see it for your own territory.
FAQ
Is commercial construction actually growing in 2026?
Nationally, yes, but unevenly. Data centers, healthcare, and education are all growing, while manufacturing, general office, and warehouse spending are declining.
Which commercial building types are spending the most on services right now?
Data centers, healthcare facilities, and schools are seeing the strongest growth. General office buildings and traditional manufacturing plants are seeing the least.
Why isn't the construction boom showing up in my sales pipeline?
Because growth is concentrated in a specific list of building types and regions, not spread evenly. Unless a territory has active healthcare, education, data center, or manufacturing projects nearby, national growth numbers won't show up locally.
Does the construction boom affect all commercial HVAC companies the same way?
No. HVAC companies serving hospitals, schools, or data centers are seeing real growth. Companies serving mostly general office buildings are competing in a shrinking category, regardless of what the industry headlines say.
Is fire and life safety affected by the same construction trend?
Not in the same way. FLS growth is driven by NFPA-mandated inspection cycles and private equity consolidation, which don't depend on which building types are under construction nearby.
How can a sales team tell if their territory has real growth potential?
Checking which specific building types, healthcare, education, data centers, or active manufacturing and logistics projects, have real construction activity nearby is more reliable than trusting national or industry-wide reports.
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