A $1.5 million project to add brownstone-style row homes in sewer-challenged northwest Lawrence helped lift the city’s construction industry to its busiest month of the year.

First Management Inc.’s project to build 27 brownstones southeast of Queens Road and Overland Drive helped push the total valuation of building permits issued in October to $15.7 million. The valuation surpassed the $15.5 million in permits issued to builders, remodelers and others in April, and was the highest total for an October since 1999.

“Anytime you get $15 million worth of activity here, it’s a good month,” said Barry Walthall, who oversees permits as the city’s code enforcement manager. “We’ve got buildings going up. That’s good.”

Building permits have been a hot topic in northwest Lawrence, where officials have slowed the approval process – temporarily, at least – for new projects in the area. Officials say the region may be growing too fast for the city’s sewers to keep up, and are running tests to see whether such permit-stopping fears are unfounded.

City officials expect the first round of tests to be completed next month.

In the meantime, Walthall and his staff continue to issue permits for construction projects that previously had received proper regulatory approvals: zoning, plats, development plans or site plans.

Overland Pointe, a 27-unit residential project, calls for brownstone-style row homes at 5245 Overland Drive, less than a mile west of Free State High School. The construction project, valued at .5 million, was among those that helped lift the valuation of building permits for October to 5.7 million, the highest total for a month so far this year.

The First Management project – 27 brownstones spread among four buildings at 5245 Overland Drive – and other residential sites in the area received building permits in October, just as planners expected when they signed off on the paperwork months ago.

“For those (projects) that are ready for construction, we don’t have any instructions to stop such permits at this point,” Walthall said.

First Management’s brownstones are designed to bring a new housing concept to Lawrence. Earlier this year Doug Compton, president of First Management, described the project as similar to row housing seen in cities like Chicago.

The design: garages on the main floor, kitchens and other living areas on the second floor, and bedrooms upstairs on the third floor. The project calls for a homeowners association to handle maintenance tasks including yard care and snow removal.

First Management, which already owns and manages more than 800 apartment units in Lawrence, intends to sell all of the brownstones, Compton said. Earlier this year, he envisioned prices starting at $175,000 or $180,000.

“It’s a new concept,” he said. “It could be for empty-nesters to first-time homebuyers.”

Citywide, builders took out permits in October for 27 new single-family homes, also the highest monthly total this year. Walthall said that builders likely were working to get basements and foundations poured before cold winter weather set in.

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The average permit valuation – which does not include the price of land – for such homes came in at $222,926, according to a report from the Neighborhood Resources Department. The two most expensive projects are in the Foxfire Addition off Bob Billings Parkway: an $800,000 permit to Rod Laing Construction at 1835 Foxfire, and a $550,000 permit to RLCC Inc. at 1828 Foxfire.

Among other projects receiving permits in October:

¢ A new station for Lawrence-Douglas County Fire & Medical, 2121 Wakarusa Drive. Champion Builders Inc. took out a $2.2 million permit for the work.

¢ A Family Video store, 1818 Mass. Rockford Construction Co. took out a $350,000 permit for the project, a remodeling and conversion of the former home of the Salvation Army Thrift Store.

¢ An industrial building at 2145 Haskell Ave. Joel Fritzel Construction Co. Inc., a co-owner of the building, took out two permits for the remodeling work – one for $988,052, the other for $241,735 – designed to accommodate several tenants, including a shop for Fritzel’s construction business and a new home for Huxtable & Associates, a mechanical, electrical and design-build contractor.