Construction Pace Could Accelerate This Year After Slowdown In 1997

The value of construction permits filed for projects in the city of Spokane tumbled $12 million or 8.5 percent last year, city building officials report.

Outside the city, the permit values plunged $58 million or about 20 percent, county records show.

Across the metropolitan area as a whole - city and county combined - contracts for future construction skidded 13 percent, according to F.W. Dodge, a national authority on the construction market.

“We’ve slowed down from a couple of years ago,” acknowledges Mark Holman, “but I wouldn’t say we’re stalled by any stretch.”

However, as to what the slowdown might portend for the coming construction season, the county’s assistant director of building and planning would only say, “It’s anybody’s guess at this juncture.”

By contrast, the city’s Bob Eugene can hardly restrain his enthusiasm.

“This has all the earmarks of a truly wonderful construction season - very possibly approaching an all-time record,” said the city’s ebullient building chief.

“Before the election last year,” Eugene admits, “the outlook wasn’t all that exciting. But late in the year, we started getting really strong signals on some very substantial projects that have been simmering on a back burner.

“The River Park Square project is a solid anchor - a catalyst and a huge contributor to the total dollar value,” says Eugene. “The long-awaited building permit for this all-important project will be filed this year, and it will be about $100 million.

“I anticipate the permit for restoration and renovation of the Davenport Hotel - whose owners are working on the financing right now - also will be filed by summer.

“In addition,” said Eugene, “we have a couple of major apartment complexes coming. The permit has already been issued for 211 units in Phase Four of the Cedar Springs project up north off Nevada.” It would be a $10 million project.

That pales alongside the other apartment development - the biggest ever in Spokane. It is the controversial old Mission Springs project, which the developer has renamed Canyon Bluff. “We’re reviewing it right now,” said Eugene, “and we expect to issue the permit.”

The permit will be for the first 193 units in a multistage project planned ultimately to total 790 units.

Eugene also said, “Walt Worthy, who has office buildings all over town, is working on another project.”

Still more major projects are in the works but Eugene says he cannot talk about them publicly at this time.

Among the key numbers, in the county last year new construction dropped $75 million to $190 million. Permit numbers and dollar value of new single-family homes both slipped about 20 percent.

In the city last year, new construction fell $14 million to $81 million. Single family housing edged up $2 million to $36 million.

For the Spokane area as a whole, a 13 percent decline in contracts for future construction was more than double the statewide decrease.

Fill ‘er up; gas prices hit two-year low

Gasoline prices in Spokane and North Idaho are the lowest in two years, the Inland Automobile Association (AAA) reports.

The auto club’s latest check put the going price for a gallon of self-service regular unleaded at $1.08. That’s unofficial and “very unscientific,” says spokesman Ed Sharman, but it’s a good indicator.

AAA does a comprehensive research report six times a year. The last one was before Christmas. The next one is still some weeks away.

But several employees in Spokane, Post Falls, Walla Walla and Lewiston/Clarkston also do a spot check each Wednesday at stations they drive by on their way to work. “We do it,” says Sharman, “just to get a feeling for trends.”

And is there a trend?

“Absolutely,” says Sharman. “The last time prices were this low at these same stations was in February 1996.”

In Post Falls, where gas prices are normally a few cents cheaper than in Spokane, last Wednesday’s price was $1.09. In Lewiston/ Clarkston and in Walla Walla, the price was $1.19.

The average self-service price across the country last Friday, according to the Lundberg Survey of 10,000 stations, was exactly the same price as in Spokane - $1.08.

At the peak, in June 1996, the price of a gallon of gas in Spokane and vicinity at the same stations as those checked last week was $1.48.

Why are prices so low now?

“It’s one of life’s great mysteries.” said Sharman.

“The State Attorney General’s office gets exorcized periodically and does an investigation,” notes Sharman, “but they never come up with collusion - so who knows? The simple explanation is that this is the free enterprise system at work.

“People can cite all kinds of possibilities,” he says, adding, “but I doubt if anyone has the answer - I know I don’t.”

Could the fact that Costco is pumping gas in Spokane for 99.9 cents a gallon be a big part of the answer?

Room tax revenues jump nearly 8 percent

The city and county of Spokane room tax revenues last year rose nearly 8 percent to $1.3 million, figures reported by the State Department of Revenue show.

The hefty gain in hotel/motel receipts reflects a robust visitor and convention trade.

Most of the 1997 increase occurred in the city, which generated more than two-thirds of the metropolitan area’s total room tax revenues.

, DataTimes MEMO: Associate Editor Frank Bartel writes a notes column each Wednesday. If you have business items of regional interest for future columns, call 459-5467 or fax 459-5482.

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Frank Bartel The Spokesman-Review