Kootenai Market Stays On Hot Pace

The Kootenai County construction market continued its record-setting pace in 1995, even as construction spending slumped across the border in Spokane County.

But industry observers warn that the slowdown likely will spread to North Idaho this year.

According to statistics kept by building departments for Post Falls, Coeur d’Alene and Kootenai County, permits were issued for more than $183 million worth of residential and commercial space in 1995.

That equals the $183 million permitted in 1994, considered the pacesetting year of the decade by most real estate professionals.

It also beats the performance of neighboring Spokane County, where the value of building permits in city and county jurisdictions dropped 6.5 percent compared with 1994.

Kootenai County benefited in 1995 from healthy retail construction along Seltice Way in Post Falls and ambitious office park development such as the Silver Lake Office Park along Highway 95. Large planned developments like Coeur d’Alene Place, which could eventually include more than 2,000 homes, helped the housing market keep pace.

Also, Hagadone Hospitality filed permits to renovate its hotel and convention center on Appleway and to build new convention space at the Coeur d’Alene Resort.

Realtors such as John Beutler of John Beutler & Associates in Coeur d’Alene see the lack of large or numerous commercial projects in the permitting pipeline for the near future as a sign that the Kootenai County market will fall off this year, possibly in a big way.

That sentiment was echoed by tourism and media magnate Duane Hagadone, who last week predicted a double-digit drop in the construction market for 1996.

Still, most areas would be jealous of Kootenai County’s roaring building economy.

What’s remarkable about the building totals for 1995 is that a county of about 85,000 people built $183 million in new homes and commercial space, while neighboring Spokane County with almost 400,000 residents recorded only $339 million.

To the north in Bonner County, the construction of a Wal-Mart in Ponderay and some other large projects helped keep that construction market on pace with the previous year’s, according to building officials there. The city of Sandpoint showed increases in residential construction thanks to large apartment complexes being built in 1995, planners there said.

Construction workers have comprised as much as 8.8 percent of the Kootenai County work force in 1994, according to Kathryn Tacke of the Idaho Department of Employment.

A slowing economy could curb housing starts, meaning far fewer jobs for construction workers. Kootenai County’s unemployment rate continues to inch upwards, now at 8.2 percent for November.

, DataTimes