When it comes to real estate construction, there's a lot more money coming into St. Paul -- especially downtown St. Paul -- than at any time on record. Meanwhile, home and commercial building vacancies are on the decline. So are vacant building demolitions. Results are fairly varied by ward, of course, and one ward in particular stands out.
As rosy as those numbers appear to be, Ward 2 -- which includes downtown St. Paul -- accounts for 40 percent of the total value of all the 2014 building permits.
Department of Safety and Inspections Director Ricardo Cervantes walked the St. Paul City Council through his 2016 budget request on Wednesday morning, and he opened on a strong note. Building permits are at a record high, at least in terms of their total value.
The number of permits pulled isn't astounding (they're well below Year 2011 in terms of quantity), but the price tags are way up, which is partially a reflection of rising prices within the construction industry. The Scoop suspects the types of developments -- like market-rate apartments with pools and gyms, as well as the $64 million Lowertown trophy that is the CHS Field ballpark -- also account for the uptick in cumulative values.
The 7,950 building permits pulled in St. Paul last year represented $717.86 million in real estate construction. Compare that to 2008 -- the dog days of the national recession -- when 7,420 permits were pulled, and they represented just $324 million in construction. In six short years, permit values have more than doubled.
Real estate construction.
Compared to 2014, even 2013 was a less ambitious year, dollar-wise, with over 7,724 permits pulled but just $453.2 million in construction. This year, St. Paul was well past that figure by August. The year-to-date figure through July 31 is $469.39 million.
When it comes to building permits, Ward 2 stands out. The ward, which includes certain construction hot-spots like Lowertown -- the new home of CHS Field -- and West Seventh Street, accounted for $298.544 million in construction, or about 40 percent of the citywide total.
See all those empty eyesore former businesses and derelict homes? There's a lot less of them. Citywide, there were 2,003 registered vacant residential and commercial buildings in 2008. That number had fallen to 1,049 by the end of 2014, and is now down to 936 through Sept. 9 of this year. In other words, vacant eyesores have been cut in half.
"There's been a decline every year over the last eight years," Cervantes said.
When it comes to record-keeping, there's always some up and down with vacant buildings --- to keep track of new vacancies, the city is largely dependent on neighbors calling them in -- but demolitions are also on the decline.
Vacant building razings, or demolitions, have fallen from 129 in the year 2008 to the dull-roar number of 50 razings last year, most of them led by government. The city ordered 39 of those razings, and property owners did another 11 on their own.
See any other astounding conclusions to be made from the numbers? Feel free to sound off in the comments section, below...
The post Vacant building numbers down as St. Paul hits record for real estate construction -- and Ward 2 is 40 pct of the total appeared first on City Hall Scoop.