Barry Walthall uses a 30-foot tape measure to check floor joists, door clearances and other foundations of Lawrence's growth.
But charting the continual rise in construction would require a much larger tool for the city's top building inspector.
Barry Walthall, code enforcement manager for the city of Lawrence, checks out a house being built at 5013 Keystone Drive in Lawrence. The city issued building permits for projects valued at $152.2 million in 2001, a total valuation that was down from a year earlier but still indicating signs of positive growth, Walthall said.
"It's a big job," said Walthall, code enforcement manager at City Hall. "It's getting to be a challenge for us to keep up with the growth. It gets busier every year."
City inspectors issued a record 3,346 permits last year for construction worth $152.2 million, ranking it No. 3 in the city's record books behind $175 million a year earlier and $167.5 million in 1996.
The 2001 figures indicate significant strength in the face of a recession, Walthall said. The $152.2 million looks particularly strong when weighed against 2000, a record building year fueled in large part by a one-time permit for a $38 million upgrade to the city's wastewater treatment plant.
The strength in 2001 came from a collection of smaller projects.
Duplex construction led the way, with a record 168 permits issued for a total value of $26.7 million an average of $158,764 for each two-unit dwelling, excluding the price of land. The total valuation obliterated the $7.6 million of a year earlier, but dipped below that year's $162,611 average.
The construction pace was dizzying. By April, builders already had taken out 56 duplex permits 10 more than for all of 2000 on their way to topping the record 1996 year of 122 permits. Other categories of multifamily permits also recorded increases from a year earlier.
Rod Laing, a Lawrence contractor who builds custom homes and owns a handful of rental properties, expects the trend to continue.
"You can't build a cheap home in Lawrence anymore," said Laing, checking progress on a new $550,000 house in the Foxfire subdivision in western Lawrence. "This is just the way it is."
Builders such as Laing took out 305 permits for new single-family homes in 2001, up 1 percent from 302 a year earlier. Their total value was $43.9 million, up from $41.4 million a year earlier.
That means the average new home, excluding the price of land, was valued at $143,800 last year, up 5.4 percent from $136,393 in 2000.
The fall of mortgage interest rates to three-decade lows late last year helped set the stage for a strong 2002, he said.
"On a house like this," he said, standing in the framed-in foyer, "1 percent means a lot of money. It might be the price of a nice Suburban."
Business remodeling also recorded an increase in 2001, with permits issued for projects valued together at $18.6 million enough for $153,537 per project. That was up from $16.6 million in 2000, for an average project value of $130,315 per project.
But construction on new commercial projects lagged.
The city issued permits for new business projects valued together at $33.4 million, down from a total value in 2000 of $45.4 million.
But Walthall doesn't see that trend deepening, especially with plans for a new Home Depot project at 31st and Iowa streets and possibly a Lowe's home-improvement center at Sixth Street and Wakarusa Drive on the horizon in 2002.
"With the big-boxes, we've got a lot of work ahead," Walthall said.
In all, inspectors wrote 3,346 permits for construction and related work during 2001, up 12 percent from a year earlier.
Such activity is attracting notice from surrounding communities. Topeka-based D.F. Osborne Construction Inc., in fact, decided to open a Lawrence office late last year to build a stronger presence in town.
The company handled between $15 million and $20 million of work in the state during 2001, and looks to build on that by tapping deeper into the commercial, multifamily and institutional markets in Lawrence. The company already has built churches in Lawrence, and hopes to capture some of the retail business out west and educational upgrades going on at Kansas University.
Opening an office, at 706 Mass., was the easy part, said Darrell Shumway, a company vice president. Now it's time to get the work.
"Why Lawrence? You just look at the issuance of building permits to see why," he said. "It's the fastest-growing community in the state of Kansas. That's important to a contractor, if you're in the construction business."
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