KU Innovation Park, formerly known as the Bioscience and Business Technology Center, on KU's West Campus is shown on Jan. 20, 2022. In the background, construction on a new building that will house start-up companies and other firms that want to locate near KU students and researchers is underway.

In Lawrence, 2021 was not the year for new home construction. But, it ended up being a pretty decent year for $10 million projects.

The city recently released its year-end building permit report, and despite homes selling at a lighting-quick pace in Lawrence, there were no signs homebuilders were kicking construction activity into a higher gear.

In fact, building permits for new single-family homes actually declined in 2021 compared to 2020. The city issued permits for 155 single-family homes, down from 168 in 2020. The 2021 totals ended up being the second lowest of the last five years. For perspective, the lowest total was 131 in 2019, while the highest was 262 in 2018.

Given the statistics the Lawrence Board of Realtors has been reporting all year — the median home price increased by about 11% and the median number of days a home sat on the market was just four — you might have thought this would be the year that builders would make more noise with their hammers and saws.

Builders and real estate agents, though, report that good lots to build new homes on are scarce in Lawrence. Plus, Lawrence’s homebuilding industry — the number of contractors and crews that operate in Lawrence — isn’t the size it used to be. As the housing market has picked up steam from past downturns, many new builders have focused on the Kansas City area rather than Lawrence. That wasn’t so much the case a decade or two ago, but the numbers suggest it is today.

While Lawrence posted a nearly 8% decline in the number of new single-family homes constructed in 2021, the Kansas City metro area posted a nearly 22% increase for the year, according to figures from the Home Builders Association of Greater Kansas City. The Kansas City market hasn’t been all roses. The KC market saw a significant building slowdown in 2018 and 2019. But the last two years have produced big growth, with builders in 2021 for the first time exceeding pre-pandemic highs.

Lawrence was hoping to follow the same trend, and for a moment looked like it might. In 2020, single-family building permits grew by an impressive 28% from 2019 totals. But then any momentum was lost in 2021.

Here’s one last statistic to hammer home how the homebuilding environment is significantly different in Lawrence than in the communities just to the east of us. Lawrence — with a population of just under 95,000 people — issued 155 single-family building permits. Leavenworth County — with a population of just over 81,000 — issued 304 single-family building permits for the year.

But that doesn’t mean all was quiet on the construction front in Lawrence in 2021. As I mentioned earlier, there were some relatively big commercial projects underway. Lawrence issued $43.3 million of commercial building permits in the year. That was the second-highest total of the last five years. It was well below 2018’s mark of $99 million, but it was better than 2020’s total of $27 million. That was the lowest total of the last five years.

There were five projects that totaled more than $10 million for the year. We’ve reported on all of them at various times, but here’s a list for your yearbook:

• Bioscience and Technology Business Center expansion (project is now called KU Innovation Park) at 2033 Becker Drive on West Campus: $20.8 million

• Union at the Loop Apartments at 3250 Michigan St. along the South Lawrence Trafficway: $18.5 million

• KU Alumni Association expansion at 1266 Oread Ave.: $14 million

• Standard Beverage expansion, 2300 Lakeview Road: $12.2 million

• Pretzels Inc. building at 2425 Venture Park Drive: $10.5 million

You’ll notice one of those projects was an apartment complex. Those numbers aren’t included in the $43 million of commercial projects referenced earlier. The city keeps track of apartment construction separately, and some years it has been a full-time job. It wasn’t quite to that point in 2021, but it was still significant. The city issued $19.7 million in building permits to construct 254 new units of apartments. Both those totals were the second highest of the last five years. The city issued $29 million worth of apartment permits in 2019, and it issued permits for 392 new apartment units in 2018.

In total, when you count everything from new homes to new apartments to new businesses to miscellaneous permits for water heaters and sign permits, the city issued $218.9 million in building permits for the year. Here’s a look at how that compares to the last five years:

• 2021: $218.9 million

• 2020: $146.9 million

• 2019: $213.5 million

• 2018: $276.5 million

• 2017: $165.9 million