The Park City construction industry pulled back from a solid summer in September, the Building Department said, indicating the dollar figure tallied last month was the lowest since April.
The year-to-date numbers, though, remain strong and 2013 will almost certainly represent a recovery of sorts from the deepest points of the recession.
The Building Department said $52 million in construction had been tallied through the end of September. The figure was $44.9 million through the same period in 2012. The number of permits issued this year sat at 958 at the end of September, up sharply from the 695 that had been issued through the end of September in 2012.
Still, though, alterations and additions continue to account for a significant amount of the numbers. Alterations and additions normally are not as valuable as new construction projects. They have had an outsized impact on the construction numbers, though, in the years since the recession as property owners have decided to remodel or expand existing places instead of building new ones.
According to the Building Department, 156 permits were issued in September. They were valued at a little more than $6.4 million. Permits for alterations and additions were valued at approximately $5.1 million combined, or nearly 80 percent of the monthly dollar figure. The alterations and additions were weighted toward residential properties.
Permits for three houses accounted for nearly all of the remainder of the dollar figure in September. The Building Department in September, meanwhile did not issue permits in categories like duplexes, multifamily buildings or commercial buildings.
Permits issued in September that topped $1 million in value were a remodel on Sidewinder Drive, which was valued at nearly $1.3 million, and the finishing of a house on Canyon Court, pegged at $1.1 million. Some of the six-figure permits issued in September included an addition on Norfolk Avenue valued at $256,045, a remodel in the Three Kings neighborhood valued at $100,000 and an interior remodel in Stonebridge worth $100,000. Three permits for new houses ranged in value from $282,808.85 to $556,253.60.
The number of electrical, plumbing and mechanical permits was mixed compared to the previous month and the previous September. The Building Department in September conducted an average of 117 inspections each day, up slightly from August and sharply from the previous September, when the daily average was 72.
It remains difficult to project the year-end numbers with figures from the final quarter of 2013 still upcoming. The numbers typically fall as winter approaches, but there is still a possibility of several high-dollar permits being used by the end of the year.
The year-end numbers will almost certainly not approach the record-setting years during a boom era between the 2002 Winter Olympics and the onset of the recession. The recession hit at a time when the construction numbers in Park City were expected to level and possibly fall anyway as the number of large development parcels inside the city dwindled.