Construction industry powers way to Park City's best month of year

Park City's construction industry powered its way to the best month of the year in May, pulling ahead of last year's figures and signaling that 2012 could be a rebound year from the poor performances during the height of the recession.
The Building Department reported the value of construction permitted inside Park City climbed to a little more than $18.6 million by the end of May. The number sat at a little less than $14.9 million through the same period the year before.
The department in May issued 114 permits worth a little less than $7.9 million combined. The dollar figure climbed from the approximately $5.8 million in permits issued the month before and the $4 million figure from May 2011. The number of electrical, plumbing and mechanical permits climbed from the previous month and the same month the prior year.
Permits for alterations and additions in May accounted for most of the value. According to the Building Department, permits for alterations or additions to dwellings, commercial buildings or industrial buildings were valued at approximately $5.5 million, or 70 percent of the overall value of the month. The alterations and additions posted in May represented just less than 30 percent of the year-to-date dollar figure.
Alterations and additions have had an outsized impact on the building numbers in the years since the recession as people decided to put money into existing buildings instead of putting up new ones. Permits for alterations and additions, though, normally are not as valuable as ones for new buildings, keeping the numbers down.
The Building Department in May also issued four permits for houses, valued at approximately $2.3 million. The department did not issue other permits for residential buildings.
The construction industry's numbers fell sharply during the recession from the record-setting years after the 2002 Winter Olympics. The recession struck at a time when the numbers were expected to level off if not drop as the number of major development sites inside the city dwindled.
It is difficult to predict what sort of year-end figure will be posted. There is a chance several high-dollar permits will be issued this year that would provide a boost to the numbers.

Source : http://www.parkrecord.com/ci_20815738/construction-industry-powers-way-park-citys-best-month