Building permits focused on outdoors

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The numbers at City Hall are down slightly this year for building permits, while there were a few more family homes on the books compared to last year.

“The valuation of the permits today is at 9.4 million for the year and last year total we did 14.4 million. I think we will be pretty close,” explained Building Permit Specialist Julie Pomerico. “To date for this year we have issued 55 building permits total, last year at the same time we did 73. Last year total we did one duplex and three single family homes while this year we’ve done 6 single family homes and two duplexes.”

With the majority of the usual local Spring and Summer events cancelled, it would seem that many decided to put their efforts into improving their own yards and outdoor quarters.

“This was the year everyone did sheds and fences because people are stuck home, there have been some house additions because people have been wanting to do these things for a long time also,” Pomerico noted. “We were extremely busy back in April, May and June when things were hitting stronger. I was talking to them over at 605 Sheds, they were just swamped and there was a few weeks where our phone rang nonstop too.”

The big things this year for commercial would be an addition at Trussbuilt plus the greenhouses by the Beadle Conservation District.

“Trussbuilt did a significant addition this year - they did a 94,000 plus 9,000 square foot addition, that amount of square footage is huge,” said Pomerico. “The Beadle Conservation district are also doing greenhouses on Lincoln, that doesn’t really have a huge impact on us but I think it will have a good community impact. They started putting those up early spring.”

It was also highlighted that in addition Tru North Steel are planning to build, while Iverson’s is set to open this fall.

Considering things have slowed down for many this year, it was noted that the numbers have not dropped all that much.

“Having that many single family homes is pretty significant for this year,” Pomerico shared. “I actually thought our numbers would be way down, but that has not proven to be the case. It is a little slower, they are down slightly but for having COVID I think we are doing very well.”