Construction has been the name of the game around Manhattan over the past few months.
Ryan Courtright, Manhattan Fire Department Assistant Chief of Risk Reduction, tells KMAN that road construction isn’t the only construction taking place around MHK. He says many new buildings are going up as well. Courtright says in the month of March out of 50 applicants, they issued 32 building permits.
“The valuation total that we issued for permits in March was just shy of $13-million, and we actually permitted ten new single-family homes in Manhattan in the month of March,” Courtright says.
Courtright says the workflow has been steady for the first quarter of the year.
“We’re actually just slightly up on building permit numbers from last year. Our valuation is actually down from last year, but that’s mostly due in part to some very large projects that were permitted in the first part of 2020.”
Courtright adds that there are also several ongoing commercial construction projects taking place, including the work at the West Loop Shopping Center.
“The old Pizza Hut and the old Commerce Bank Building are essentially down, they’re cleaning up those sites and preparing for new buildings. We’ve actually issued the permit for the new Tommy’s Car Wash that’s going in where the old Commerce Bank building was just torn down, and then the Scooters Coffee building that’s going where the Pizza Hut was should be going out the door here pretty quick as well.”
Courtright says he expects to see more new projects coming as the year goes on.
