Health care growth is helping the local construction industry.

This month Lexington Medical Center opened a 225,000-square-foot facility in Northeast Columbia to serve a fast-growing area.

“People are always going to need health care, regardless of what else is going on,” project superintendent Tony Atkinson of MB Kahn Construction told Melinda Waldrop of Columbia Regional Business Report.

“There’s a lot of medical work going on right now.”

Local contractors say the education sector has remained strong. School distracts are starting to launch long-planned renovations.

Even hotel and restaurants show signs of recovery.

A drop in surrounding retail activity has provided a greater access to properties under construction.

Local contractors have refused to lay off workers, even during the height of the pandemic.

“We made a business decision to hold onto our people with the thought that they’re our No. 1 asset and nobody, we felt was expendable,” Paul Mashburn, CEO of Mashburn Construction, said. “We knew we would bounce back from this and the work would come. It was the right decision to hold onto the people, and now we’ve got the work to support it for this year.”

Mark Hood, CEO of Hood Construction said, “No one missed a paycheck. No one got laid off in our company, and I don’t think very many people had any of that. If they did, it was knee-jerk early, and they got them right back to work.”