Matthew Guarracino, Principal and CEO of JM Electrical, was featured in New England Real Estate Journal’s 2026 Industrial Review, offering his perspective on the trends and challenges shaping the industry during the first half of 2026.
Matthew notes that much of what’s keeping his team busy right now comes down to clients trying to do more with less, particularly around energy. Automation and controls remain a major focus as owners look for ways to cut energy costs without sacrificing performance. Colleges, universities, and hospitals continue investing in their facilities to better serve students and patients, keeping those sectors especially active. Renewable technologies like EV infrastructure, battery storage, and microgrids remain areas everyone is watching, though the pace of those projects often depends on government policy. Matthew also points to AI as a piece the industry can’t ignore, calling the effort to integrate it into day-to-day operations both a challenge and an opportunity, alongside a growing regulatory landscape that’s making service work increasingly important for facilities.
On broader market trends, Matthew observes a real shift taking place. For more than a decade, the Boston construction market was driven largely by life sciences and pharmaceutical work. Now, the industry is moving back toward college, university, and hospital construction, work that mirrors the sectors that built much of Boston’s history in the first place. A significant portion of JM Electrical’s current pipeline consists of retrofit projects within these sectors, whether upgrading existing systems or bringing older buildings up to current standards. Matthew describes this as a natural evolution that plays to the strengths JM Electrical has built over years of working in complex, occupied environments.
When it comes to challenges, Matthew points to macro-level pressures facing Boston as a whole. Overbuilding in a number of sectors has led to higher vacancies, softening demand for new or renovated space. Combined with interest rates, government policy, and the overall cost of doing business, developers are increasingly looking at other parts of the country for opportunities. As Matthew explains, it’s not any single factor driving this shift, but the combination of all of them at once, and keeping Boston competitive will require addressing these broader economic and policy pressures together.
Read the full feature: https://nerej.com/2026-industrial-review-matthew-guarracino-jm-electrical-company