BROOKINGS – The City of Brookings issued 469 building permits in 2018, with a total value of $41 million, said City Engineer Jackie Lanning and Jared Thomas, building service administrator.

The 469 permits are down a bit from 2017’s 488, but Thomas said 2017 was an exceptional year for permits.

“Looking back in our recent numbers, that 450-460 area is kind of what I would say … our average is at,” he said. 

The total number of permits for 2014-2016 is 454, 458 and 451 respectively. In 2012, they issued 552 permits, which was the highest total since 1961.

Although the number of permits is down a bit, the total valuation of those permits at $41,114,715 is up from 2017’s total of $38,794,154, they said.

“It’s up about $2.5 million,” Thomas said.

The city’s building permit summary goes back to 1961, when Brookings had 122 permits issued for $2,411,470. The next year, 1962, there were 116 permits issued for $666,080, the only time since then that the total value did not exceed $1 million.

Residential vs. commercial

Brookings’ permits are usually evenly split between residential and commercial permits, Thomas said. In 2018, it was 48 percent residential versus 52 percent commercial.

“We did have quite a large increase in the total number of apartment units in 2018 versus 2017. In 2017, we only had 22 apartment dwelling units and then in 2018, we had 96,” Lanning said. “Residential new housing was 63 new homes in 2018 versus 54 the year before.”

The year 2017 was one of Brookings’ lower years in new residential housing in the last decade, she added.

“Our new total units were down but our permits were up, that was just the smaller permits,” Thomas said.

Residential development is still taking place mostly to the south and some to the west, the two said. 

“Fox Run is south of 20th Street South, but Arbor Hill is east of 17th and Prairie Hills (is) south of 20th, so a lot of it is really south of 20th Street South,” Lanning said.

Residential 

Affordable housing continues to be a hot topic in Brookings, and they don’t think that’s going to change any time soon.

“It seems like the area where we’re hearing the most need is in a lower price point for people to perhaps move out of an apartment into housing, but yet, at an affordable level. … It’s been one of the goals of the city council to try to achieve affordable housing so that’s probably one area of need that isn’t met,” Lanning said, adding it’s an issue nationwide.

“We’re encouraged by all the residential developments coming online with lots for sale and development occurring, so I think we’ll see continued growth in those areas,” she said.

“Especially with the new Dakota Prairie School on the south edge of town, I think that’s really that cornerstone of growth in that area of town,” she said. “People want to be close to a school.”

Commercial 

There’s quite a few commercial builds in town, too.

“Our commercial numbers are almost mirror from 2017. We had roughly $600,000 less in valuation than we did in the previous year. Just over that $20 million value, so it seems like that’s been fairly steady,” Lanning said. 

The total value in commercial in 2018 was $21,218,896, and for 2017, it was $21,894,659.

“Some years, it’s been really large, if there’s a really large project that comes in for permits, such as the Bel plant,” Lanning said. “Otherwise, it’s pretty consistent.”

The total valuation for 2006 was $39,848,557, which was the most in recent years – only 2013 and 2015 came close with $35 million each year.

“The biggest one that we permitted (last) year is the Mickelson Middle School addition,” Thomas said. “That was our highest valued one, anyway.”

A highly visible one was the four-story Lofts at Park Hill.

“If you drive down Sixth Street, it’s hard to miss,” Thomas said.

“We have some multi-use facilities also that will have commercial on the lower level and then residential on the second and third … and fourth level,” Lanning said.

That would include the Lofts on Sixth Street, which has 65 units, and Monument View off of Western, which had 24 units added, Thomas said. The total number of apartment units for 2018 was 96.

Businesses need constant updates to keep up.

“3M has done three different permits out there,” Thomas said. “Some remodels, a little bit of expansion, some roofs. So they’ve been very consistent, it seems like in our commercial permitting every year. I think that they are constantly planning for the next one, once they get one issued,” he said. “It’s pretty interesting to go out there to see how much stuff is constantly going.”

Neighborly competition

While most small towns in South Dakota are shrinking in population, Brookings’ neighbors – especially Aurora – are growing. That influences what happens in Brookings.

“There’s a lot of development going on in both Aurora and Volga right now, so I think that’s affecting to a certain degree our market here a little bit,” Thomas said.

“Probably in the category of the new housing,” Lanning added.

Thomas said Volga has Inter-Lakes Community Action (ICAP) housing projects now, but Brookings hasn’t seen one for at least three years.

Nevertheless, affordable housing is a challenge Brookings is trying to meet, Lanning said.

“There is a new affordable housing area that’s gotten started just with some minor construction grading in the Timberline Addition (on the west edge),” she said. 

“They’ll try to meet that affordable housing market, and I believe ICAP is involved in that development,” she said.

“That’s one of our new residential areas that’s opening up this year. And we may also see more development in the Fox Run Addition and the Arbor Hill Addition,” Lanning said, adding the Reserve Addition, Bluegill Second Addition and Prairie Hills are expected to see development before too long.

“We do have a number of residential developments ready for growth,” Lanning said.

Contractors said lots were in short supply a couple of years ago, but that seems to have corrected itself, meaning more construction can take place, Thomas said.

Looking to the future

“It seems like things are kind of ramping back up again, so I expect that we’ll have more valuation and more permits this year,” Thomas said.

“Projects really aren’t public until we issue that permit, so I’m really not aware of anything,” Lanning said, but they can make educated guesses.

Lanning doesn’t think her office will see as many apartment units in 2019 because they saw quite a few last year, but other jobs will even it out. 

She does expect South Dakota State University to keep growing.

“They have a number of projects going on,” she said.

Residential permits are off to a good start: her office has already issued about a dozen permits this year.

“A couple for basement finishes, but no new residential yet. It’s been too cold for that business,” Thomas said.

He’s expecting numbers for 2019 to be similar to 2018. 

“I would anticipate we’d increase a little bit over last year’s numbers,” he said.

“It seems like Brookings has been pretty fortunate. We’ve been fairly steady on permits. We haven’t seen either huge peaks and huge lows. We really see kind of slow, steady growth,” Lanning said.

Contact Jodelle Greiner at jgreiner@brookingsregister.com.