Democracy on the Front Lines
City Administrator’s Blog
Walter Denton
July 23, 2007
We received the semi-annual building report last week. As expected, building permits continue to decline. O’Fallon is not immune to the national malaise in the housing market. The housing market is much worse in other parts of the country (primarily the east and west coasts), but the St. Louis region and O’Fallon is affected as well.
As of June 30, we have issued 116 permits for single family houses compared to 162 in 2006. The value of construction is down as well, from $38.7 million in 2006 to $29.6 million in 2007. Our peak year for home construction was 2005 when 384 new houses were constructed. Obviously, we will not be near that number this year but we will be close to our 10-year average of 250 new homes per year. There is only one new subdivision under consideration right now – Southview Village (Rasp Farm).
The commercial side, however, continues to be strong. We issued 10 commercial permits in 2007 totaling $13 million compared to 7 permits in 2006 totaling $8 million. Some of the commercial projects that have already received City Council approval are: Hilton Garden Inn/Conference Center complex, Shoppes at Green Mount office building, Aldi Grocery Store, Starbucks, Ethan Allen Furniture, Frieze Harley Davidson Dealership, GCS Credit Union, Suburban Lodge Extended Stay Hotel, O’Fallon Professional Park, and McDonalds. In addition to these projects currently under development, Drury Inn, FirstBank and the BMW Dealership were completed in the last six months.
Public construction projects also are under way. The City’s Family Sports Park recently opened Phase 1 of the park, which includes a playground, walking trail, and four multipurpose ballfields. All three O’Fallon school districts have projects under development: District 104’s Arthur Middle School and District 90’s Middle School are under construction and District 203’s Ninth Grade Center is under design.
It is an exciting time to be in O’Fallon. As always, the City strives to facilitate the new development while at the same time upholding our quality standards and maintaining O’Fallon’s high quality of life.
| 
