Will Sioux Falls hit $2 billion in permit values?

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) — The city only needs $280 million to reach $2 billion in building permit values for the city of Sioux Falls.

Will the city reach $2 billion by the end of the year?

“I don’t think we will hit $2 billion. I really don’t,” said Butch Warrington, the city’s chief building official. Warrington said he knows of four larger projects of more than $10 million a piece that could get permits this year but those aren’t big enough to reach the needed $280 million.

“That tells me there are a lot of smaller projects,” Warrington said of what’s ahead for building permits. At $280 million, “that’s a lot of smaller projects,” he said.

The pace of permit and valuation increases has slowed some since August.

The number of permits issued through September is almost double that of 2021 with 9,075 permits compared to 5,729. But, it’s an increase of about 2,000 from August when year-over-year increases were larger.

The city did see an increase of $175 million in values from August to September but that’s higher than the average increase, Warrington said. The city posted a roughly double increase in values from August 2021 compared to August of 2022.

Warrington had said in early July that he expected the city to pass $1 billion in building permit values in a couple of months.

By the end of August, building permit values hit $1.5 billion.

While Warrington said the pace slowed in September, the city reached $1.7 billion in building permits by the end of the month.

The $1.7 billion in value is more than double the value posted by this time in 2021. And 2021 was record-setting year for values with $1.1 billion reached.

The numbers through the end of September include $216.6 million in residential permit values, down from same period in 2021 at $246.5 million.

Warrington said he doesn’t pay close attention to the building permits and values in other cities. He does, however, note the numbers in Spearfish. While overall values and permits may be lower in the smaller city, the percentage of increases are often similar to Sioux Falls, Warrington said.

The city of Spearfish had $84,700,266.48 in value through September. It had $63,468,668.32 through September of 2021. The year-to-date total as of September 2022 was $84,700,266.48.